If getting engaged to someone you’ve never seen before – on TV – isn’t surreal enough, imagine watching it all back a year later knowing that it didn’t work out, and that viewers weren’t shown the full story. That’s what Catherine Richards has experienced since the first series of Love Is Blind: UK aired on Netflix.
Viewers watched her fall in love with Freddie Powell in the pods and bond over their future goals, their shared love of the gym and the fact their grandparents had the same names (yes, really). But their journey came to an end when Freddie called off the wedding at the alter in the final episode.
‘Now that I’m out of it, I would say I was probably blinded by the signs from the start,’ says Catherine, ‘because you’re in a bubble and you’re so focused on wanting to make it work and wanting that end result.’
As is the case with all dating shows, their relationship quickly became an online talking point, with Catherine facing the brunt. From viewers posting that they ‘genuinely don’t like her’, to others calling her a ‘master gas lighter’, ‘mean spirited’ and ‘the problem’, Catherine has had her character scrutinised on social media by strangers who only saw a few hours’ worth of her experience.
Meanwhile, Freddie – a soft-spoken funeral director who wanted a prenup to help with his disabled younger brother’s financial security and has a sparkly mirror in his bedroom – has been deemed ‘the best man to come out of Love is Blind by a mile’, ‘the most handsome human on the planet’ and ‘one fine, emotionally intelligent ass’. In other words, it’s clear who the internet has sided with, and who the edit has shown in a more favourable light.
‘I can’t control people’s thoughts on what they see. Freddie is a lovely guy and what you see of him, that is Freddie, but a lot happened off camera which is why I was so up and down with my emotions. Things were said and interviews weren’t shown,’ she explains. ‘The viewers were commenting on how they see me, but they’re missing out on a storyline that didn’t make it on the show.’
According to Catherine, Freddie revealed that he didn’t have feelings for her after the retreat, which took place days after the couple met for the first time. ‘Freddie communicated to me quite early on that his feelings had gone. So when you see me questioning everything all the time, when I’m very snappy or upset, that’s because I was getting mixed messages. What he was saying on camera and what he was saying off camera were two different things.’
Instead, viewers witnessed Catherine battle her insecurity and grow increasingly frustrated with Freddie as the process went on. In some moments, it seemed as though she was looking for problems that weren't there and in others it seemed like she was deliberately flirting with other people to get a reaction out of him.
At one mixer with the fellow daters, for example, she was accused of flirting with fellow cast member Sam Klein. ‘At that mixer, I’d never felt so insecure in my life. The reason why I gravitated towards Sam is because he was like fresh energy, and I was told to talk to him because no one was talking to him,’ she reveals. ‘I was offering for him to meet up with one of my friends in the outside world, but viewers just saw me say, “Call me when I’m in London,” and I get that.’
For her part, it’s been difficult watching the show back knowing that things with Freddie were more complicated than they seemed and that she did not always know where she stood. At one point Catherine joked that she could walk past Freddie naked and he wouldn’t notice and says it's because she ‘didn’t feel like he wanted [her] throughout the whole process’.
Catherine claims he ended things shortly after the wedding day. ‘He made this amazing speech to my friends and family saying he wanted to make it work. Then after the wedding, I went back to his hotel and he literally left me in the hotel room and went to his sister’s room. Then I travelled back the next day, and I didn’t hear from him. Then he came to Jersey and it was just weird. I kept asking, “do you want to be with me?” but I knew something wasn’t right.
‘Then he flew home and it was within a couple of days that he ended it. I asked why and he said that he didn’t love me and there was no connection. And I said, “when did the connection go?” and he said after the retreat.’
If this is true then it's easy to understand why Catherine has been frustrated with how she's been perceived since the show aired. Regardless of their compatibility issues or individual personalities, you can't make a relationship work if one person mentally checked out after the first week. Or if, as Catherine implies, they were already starting to move on.
‘At the beginning I wanted to be friends, but now I’m just frustrated. I’m like hold on a minute, the public don’t know about these girls that have been coming out of the woodwork. They don’t know what happened. I’m trying my hardest just to let it go.’
While Catherine has had to shoulder most of the blame for why their relationship failed, and deal with backlash from online trolls in the aftermath of the show, she has also been accused of lining up a a new relationship during filming.
After her and Freddie broke up, Catherine reached out to her Love Is Blind co-star Jake Shill, who was her last 'first date' at the start of the experiment, and who she did not pursue on the show. She insists there was no crossover or dialogue during filming - something social media detectives seem to have a hard time believing. As does her co-star Ella, who was originally partnered with Jake, but their relationship was not shown in the series.
'After the wedding, Freddie pretty much broke up with me straight away and then a couple of weeks later, I found Jake on socials and he had quite an up and down journey in the pods so I reached out and asked how he was feeling. He was like, “wait, are you not married?” then we facetimed for five hours and spoke everyday for five weeks as friends. Then I flew over to go and see him and the rest is history.'
She continues, ‘The very first person I told was Freddie. The minute I spoke to Jake, I told Freddie before my mum and dad, before my friends. And he was like, “oh my gosh, I’m so happy for you”. Then I told the girls who I continued the journey with, they were all really supportive. And now that they’ve met us together, it makes sense. Jake is my person. Freddie was not my person.’
Catherine has had to deal with a double whammy of misrepresentation - both in terms of how her on-screen relationship ended and how her new off-screen relationship started. Regardless of how people feel about her, this sudden onslaught of criticism based on rumours and the edit of a reality show cannot be easy to deal with.
‘People think Jake was waiting for me down the end of the altar, which was not the case. Jake and I formed a natural connection off camera in our own way,' she adds. 'It’s tough hearing the noise, but I have to just block it out otherwise it’s going to ruin myself and it will ruin what me and Jake have.
‘Sometimes I sit there and I’m like, God if only they knew the truth. Freddie is very clever on camera,' she admits, clearly weighing up how much more to say.
Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, covering TV, celebrity interviews, news and features.