Entertainment

Apologies To Jessica, Damian Has Proved He’s The True Villain Of ‘Love Is Blind’

Compared to Mark, Amber and Damian, Jessica truly is a saint.

by Michelle Rennex  6 August 2021

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Love Is Blind came back with a bang this week with After The Altar — a three-episode Netflix reunion special of sorts.

Unlike the wild official reunion episode that was more of a traditional sit-down update, After The Altar followed the main players of Love Is Blind as they prepared for the two-year anniversary party for those that went through with the wedding element of the experiment. The three-episode special saw Jessica, Giannina, Damian, Diamond, LC, Carlton, Kelly, and a number of the lesser-known “Pod Squad” members return to our screens in celebration of the lasting unions of Cameron and Lauren, and Amber and Barnett.

As expected, After The Altar confirmed a few things that we knew weren’t going to change, like Cameron and Lauren being as perfect as ever, Carlton still avoiding going to therapy to deal with his issues, and Giannina and Damian continuing to prove they’re the most dysfunctional couple in the history of reality TV.

But in some surprising events, once-hated cast members (ahem* Jessica) were able to redeem themselves over the passing years while those who were once-liked had now become the villains in After The Altar — and no one proved this more than Mark, Amber and Damian.

Mark Is Bad

While Jessica — the Barnett-obsessed woman who let her dog drink wine out of her personal glass — was the original series villain, she has officially shed that title with After The Altar. 

Soon after Love Is Blind wrapped, Jessica left Atlanta for LA, found herself in a happy relationship, and has clearly been keen to put the show’s past drama behind her. But since the show premiered in 2020, Jessica had continuously been painted out to be a selfish, disloyal partner while Mark was the sweet, innocent victim in the relationship. But hoo boy, we’re we wrong.

Turns out Mark is bad. So bad that he didn’t even show his face at the anniversary party despite being tied to so many cast members. So bad that he has been labelled a serial cheater by two Love Is Blind women.

During After The Altar, Jessica revealed that Mark actually went missing the day before the pair were due to get married. When she was finally able to talk to him, Mark explained that he was MIA because he spent six hours “comforting” a female friend who had just lost her father. However, soon after Jessica and Mark split, Mark started dating the friend in question.

Jessica also noted that she knew that Mark was sleeping with at least one “woman from his studio” during the filming of Love Is Blind, even though she was the one copping all the hate for being the disloyal one in the relationship.

After the reunion special, Jessica also told E! News that she and Mark had actually mutually agreed to not get married prior to the ceremony — a decision Mark obviously went against. Jessica alleges that Mark felt bad for making the last-minute switch, so he sent a text to “apologise for all the betrayal” in the days following the wedding. But evidently not bad enough to make him feel the need to publicly defend Jessica from all the hate.

Similarly, LC — a Love Is Blind contestant, who was also pining after Barnett’s proposal in the Pods but lost to Amber — added that Mark had cheated on her during the pandemic and gave her COVID-19.

After the show finished filming, Mark and LC dated for six weeks in May 2020. LC alleges that she told Mark she wanted to be exclusive as she didn’t want to risk getting sick with her asthma. And even though Mark allegedly assured LC that he wasn’t seeing anyone else, he lied and LC caught COVID — as did Aubrey, the girl Mark was cheating with, who is now his fiancée and the mother of his son.

Amber Is Worse

Speaking of the LC-Mark COVID drama, this brings us to Amber.

Amber has always given off a real “pick me” vibe, where she insists on hanging out with the boys because they are “less drama” than the girls. So it’s really no surprise that in a situation where Mark is entirely in the wrong, Amber would defend him so strongly.

During the “COVID fight” shown in After The Altar, Diamond and LC explained to Amber that it was only natural to expect an apology from Mark for his lies. But Amber didn’t agree and defended Mark immediately by saying that LC was a “grown woman” who “should know better” and “plan for the worst” in a relationship.

Blind to Mark’s fault as his friend, Amber had the nerve to say that the pandemic aspect was “not relevant” to the argument despite Mark’s lies infecting LC. Thinking she was better than everyone else because she had a ring on her finger, Amber also implied that LC was not worthy of sympathy because she was only casually dating Mark and not married to him.

Honestly, the whole COVID fight was fucked. But what makes little sense is Amber telling someone else to get over something because they’re a “grown woman” when she still holds a grudge against Jessica, who she childishly called “Voldemort”, for something that was said three years ago.

While Jessica tried to be the bigger person at the reunion by offering an anniversary gift to Barnett and Amber, Barnett walked away because Amber said he “wasn’t allowed” to talk to Jessica. Now I don’t know about everyone else, but I feel like forcing your partner to walk away from people mid-conversation because you don’t like them doesn’t exactly scream “grown” to me.

What also isn’t exactly “grown woman” behaviour is making your husband move in with you and your roommate because he had to sell his house to pay off your student loans and the piled up credit card bills you ignored. But hey, what does any of that matter when LC and Mark weren’t married, right?

But Damian Is The Worst

Compared to Damian, Mark and Amber truly came off as angels in After The Altar. 

Damian never looked good on Love Is Blind to begin with. He famously strung Giannina along until the wedding ceremony, where he dumped her in front of her family and caused one of the most dramatic wedding exits ever. However, in the original reunion, Giannina and Damian revealed that while they weren’t married, they did get back together and were working out their problems.

But two years on, in After The Altar, Damian went from not looking good to looking downright horrendous in his treatment of Giannina. Beyond Damian’s obvious commitment issues, After The Altar made two things abundantly clear: Damian is a narcissistic gaslighter and Giannina deserves better.

Over the three episodes, Damian proudly played with Giannina’s emotions and decided to prey on all her insecurities. Despite there being unresolved drama after paparazzi caught Damian and Too Hot To Handle‘s Francesca Farago publicly holding hands while he was in a relationship with Giannina, Damian decided to make Francesca a focal point of After The Altar.

In the weirdest Netflix reality TV crossover ever, Damian brought Francesca to a very strange, flirty “friendship” lunch where she was invited to feel Damian’s muscles as they made a toast to “where life takes us”.

Fully aware that Giannina was uncomfortable with the idea of Damian and Francesca together, Damian then decided to invite the Too Hot To Handle star to the anniversary party “as friends” to see “what else it leads to” knowing that his girlfriend would be at the event and offended — a manipulative play that was unfair to both women involved.

In an absolutely toxic move, Damian then paraded Francesca around and avoided Giannina the entire night. But when Giannina confronted Damian about what he was very obviously doing, he tried to gaslight her into thinking she was overreacting and that it was all her own fault.

“Would you feel comfortable if I brought someone you had this connection with to your anniversary party?” Giannina cried to Damian, who is definitely not worth the tears. “Do you not see the disrespect?”

“I can see how you can see it, ” Damian coldly responded. “But when it’s been so much pressure and heavy, it’s good for me to deal with that while she’s in town.”

But as much as Damian tried to emotionally manipulate Giannina into blaming herself for this mess, even his own date Francesca saw right through his selfish lies.

As Francesca left the party aware she was just a pawn in Damian’s sick emotional games, she told Damian he “should’ve been more clear” that he was still in a relationship before inviting her to the party — making it pretty clear there was more than just a “friendship” going on and that Giannina was right to feel unsettled by Francesca’s presence.

Thankfully, Giannina has seen the light and is officially now no longer with Damian. “After that party, I just knew there’s nothing I can do anymore,” Giannina told Insider. “I was just so turned off.”

So with this article, I’d just like to formally apologise to our wine-loving, baby voice queen, Jessica. It’s now obvious that the true villain of Love Is Blind is clearly Damian — and it always has been.

You can watch all episodes of Love Is Blind on Netflix now.

Michelle Rennex is a senior writer at Junkee. You can follow her @michellerennex.