- Love Is Blind premiered on Netflix on February 13, with more episodes dropping throughout the month.
- Nick and Vanessa Lachey co-host the singles' search for love.
- Married since 2011, the Lacheys started dating after starring in a music video together.
On Love Is Blind, Netflix's latest unscripted show, people find amour in the most unusual of circ*mstances. In the show, hopeful singles go on a series of first dates in "pods," two rooms separated from each other by a black curtain. Within 10 days, matches get engaged—without having ever seen each other.
Walking the many participants through this love experiment are Nick and Vanessa Lachey, who have been married since 2011.
It's as if the Lacheys' entire lives have been leading toward co-hosting Love Is Blind, a job that perfectly melds their professional careers and their off-screen personas.
For one, the entertainers have the ideal CVs for the hosting gig. Vanessa spent her adulthood in front of the camera as a pageant queen, actress, and former host for MTV's TRL and Entertainment Tonight. After rising to fame as part of the boy band 98 Degrees, Nick has became a host in his later years, too (mainly for singing competition shows). But the casting is perfect for more reasons than professional qualifications. Being "in love" is a fundamental part of the Lacheys' brand—and that's what makes this such a clever casting choice.
While the Lacheys definitely didn't meet in a pod, they, too, have an unconventional origin story. If anything, their relationship was formed under the opposite circ*mstances of Love Is Blind. Rather than meeting in complete isolation, the celebrities' relationship was headline fodder from the start.
When they first met, Nick was in a hyper-public relationship with singer Jessica Simpson. Nick and Simpson often went on TRL, which Vanessa hosted, to discuss Newlyweds, the MTV reality TV show about their marriage. When Nick and Simpson's relationship started to fracture in 2005, Vanessa covered the news on TRL. And when Vanessa began dating Nick in 2006, she faced scrutiny as the next chapter in Nick and Simpson's story.
To this day, the Lacheys find themselves linked to Simpson. Her tell-all memoir, Open Book, which came out on February 4, details her marriage to Lachey. Simpson and the Lacheys are doing press tours simultaneously.
Generally, though, Nick and Vanessa's dramatic years of tabloid scrutiny are long behind them. Now, 46-year-old Nick and 39-year-old Vanessa have the aura of one of Hollywood's most stable couples. Married since 2011, the Lacheys are parents to Camden John Lachey, 7, Brooklyn Elisabeth, 5, and Phoenix Robert, 3.
If anyone is going to host Love Is Blind's blend of earnest search for love with lots of cameras, it should be Nick and Vanessa Lachey. Here's a walk down 2000s memory lane.
2003-2006: Nick and Vanessa appear on TRL together.
In the early 2000s, Nick and Vanessa were the darlings of MTV. At the same time that Nick was starring in MTV's Newlyweds with his then-wife, Jessica Simpson, Vanessa was the host of TRL.
Often, their worlds collided. Take this appearance at the 2004 Super Bowl (the one with the Janet Jackson controversy). Lachey and Simpson were interviewed about their marriage—by Vanessa.
"I wouldn’t necessarily say TRL brought us together, but that was definitely part of our time together—me being a musician and her being on-air talent. I saw her multiple times throughout the years when she was on TRL," Nick told Billboard in 2017.
April 2006: Vanessa stars in the music video for Nick's "What's Left of Me"
No millennial will forget this crooning love song by Nick Lachey, released the same year his divorce to Simpson was finalized. "What's Left of Me" was written about their painful split.
Originally, Nick asked Vanessa to be in the video because he thought he would have a better chance of getting played on TRL if a VJ was in the video. Then, sparks flew. Vanessa was recently single, too—she and her on-again, off-again boyfriend Derek Jeter finally broke up in 2006, after first getting together in 2003.
"The video, which was on TRL, was the beginning of our relationship. That’s what made it no longer friends and it got romantic. To the point that if you go back and look at the video, when he came to premiere it, I was so nervous and so crushing him that I didn’t show up for work that day. I called in sick," Vanessa told Billboard in 2017.
Summer of 2006: Nick and Vanessa start dating.
On camera, Nick was the single guy working through divorce. But off camera, his connection with Vanessa was deepening.
In a video about the making of "What's Left of Me," Nick made references to his next relationship. "Do I believe that I'll fall in love again one day? I certainly hope so. I hope I'll not be the jerk, uncle bachelor for the rest of my life," Nick said. Little did the public know, he had already begun to fall in love.
During an appearance on Strahan, Sara and Keke, Nick revealed the hilarious specifics of their first date. At the time, Nick was filming a show in Trenton, NJ, and Vanessa was filming in New York. She took the train to meet him. The only restaurant open on a Monday night in Trenton? Hooters, of all places. Yet, both the sparks and chicken wings (probably) were abundant. After they moved back to their opposite coasts, Nick and Vanessa often spoke late into the night, per their interview on Strahan, Sara and Keke.
December 2006: They seal it with a kiss.
After months of rumors, Nick and Vanessa made their relationship official in the most MTV way possible: With a kiss during the network's New Year's Eve broadcast.
June 2009: They break up, briefly.
After three years together, Vanessa and Nick broke up in June 2009. But their breakup didn't stick. By August, they were spotted going on dates once again.
"We're trying to figure things out. I don't pretend to know what the future holds, but everything's good. Vanessa's a good girl, and I care about her a lot," Nick told Us in September 2009.
And by October, they were back together. “I am happy in a relationship," Nick said on Good Day Philadelphia at the time. "I was single for a minute there, and then we've kind of patched things up."
November 2010: Nick proposes to his wife.
Nick gave his "full romantic effort" for this proposal, per an interview with Entertainment Tonight. He got down on both knees at the Montage hotel in Orange County, which he joked was called "full begging position."
Nick gave Vanessa a $125,000 Asscher cut diamond ring. She said yes.
2011: They get married on Sir Richard Branson's private island.
After a long and public courtship, Nick, 37, and Vanessa, 30, tied the knot in privacy. The couple was married in a tiny ceremony on Sir Richard Branson's 74-acre private island in the British Virgin Islands.
But their wedding didn't stay quiet for long. After the fact, the couple shared details about the ceremony (and its emotional lead-up) in a feature-length TLC special called Nick & Vanessa's Dream Wedding. They planned the ceremony in under two months, and didn't disclose the location to their 35 guests. Instead, they bought them plane tickets and instructed them to dress "island chic."
Though his relationship with Simpson ended, Nick always knew he wanted to get married again. "I never questioned the institution of marriage. That particular marriage just didn't work out," Nick said during the special, proving he was made for Love Is Blind, a show all about marriage.
2020: Today, the couple has three kids.
Nine years later, Nick, and Vanessa are still going strong. How do they make it work? In a recent interview with People, the Lacheys shared their secret trick. The couple uses the simple game of "rock, paper, scissor" to make decisions, especially when it comes to raising kids.
“I’ll be like, ‘Who’s going to pick him up today? All right, you got it,’" Vanessa told People, putting the "rock, paper, scissor" game in context. They have three children: Camden John Lachey, 7, Brooklyn Elisabeth, 5, and Phoenix Robert, 3.
But when playground games don't cut it, the couple relies on good 'ol communication skills. “He’s literally like, ‘I wanna be there for you, but I don’t know how,’” Vanessa told People. “And I’m like, ‘Let me tell you what’s going on right now. I have this going on with this, I feel this from the kids, and I want this from you.’ And he’s like ‘Okay, let’s work on this.' Otherwise, how is he supposed to know that? And vice-versa.”
They also work together frequently. In 2017, the Lacheys were on Dancing With the Stars; Vanessa made it one week longer than Nick.
But Love Is Blind is an even better fit for the Lachey brand than DWTS. This time around, they aren't competing against each other. Instead, they're the wise married couple, shepherding more people through the highs and lows of falling in love under the public eye.
Vanessa Lachey swears this is the secret to a lasting marriage.
Two words: Shower sex. On an episode of The Bellas Podcast, Vanessa explained how she and Nick stay close while raising three kids.
"So I'm in the shower and I'm like, 'I have a full day. You have a full day. It's either now or never,'" Vanessa said, laughing. "The kids are at school. It happens and then later that night, if you get like the cherry on top, great. But if not, we already did shower sex.'"
Does it work? Report back, and let us know.
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Elena Nicolaou
Elena Nicolaou is the former culture editor at Oprah Daily.
