Adam Rose/Netflix
Plenty of drama plays out on "Love Is Blind" every season. But in recent years, most of the truly jaw-dropping tea can be found on social media.
That's thanks to TikTokers like @storytimewithrikkii and @realityashley, arguably the best-known "Love Is Blind" gossip bloggers. The former, in particular, has built her following by exhaustively breaking down all the major rumors swirling around contestants on the show.
Rikkii first became known for spilling the tea back in season three, when the Sikiru "SK" Alagbada and Raven Ross' cheating scandal took over social media. "The girls involved in the scandal just came to me. They slid into my DMs in Instagram," Rikkii recently told Business Insider over Zoom.
"I guess I'm like a safe space," she laughed.
The latest round of "Love Is Blind" drama picked up steam over the last week, as the off-screen love lives of three male contestants from season six are facing scrutiny. Below, we break down everything we know.
Netflix didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The allegations against Trevor Sova are getting the most traction online, likely because the Golden Retriever beefcake boy, who professed his love for butterflies and "The Notebook" in the pods, has been hailed as an unproblematic fave since the season premiered.
That good-guy edit was a large part of the reason Natalia Marrero came forward, she told Business Insider in a recent Zoom call.
Natalia, a North Carolina-based bodybuilder who told BI she met and started dating Trevor long-distance in September 2022 after he messaged her on Instagram, contacted the blogger Reality Ashley after "Love Is Blind" season six premiered to say that she and Trevor were in a serious relationship before and throughout filming of the dating show. She also shared a video recording of the texts she exchanged with him.
Ashley shared Natalia's texts with Trevor and photos of the two together on Instagram and also connected Natalia with Rikkii, who she frequently works with on "Love Is Blind" stories. Rikkii posted the texts and broke down the story in an almost 7-minute TikTok that has since been viewed more than 260,000 times.
BI verified that the phone number attached to the texts is linked to Trevor.
In the late March 2023 texts, which were viewed by BI, Trevor speaks lovingly to Natalia and says he's going to marry her even while discussing his intention to go on the show. (Natalia told BI that Trevor was contacted by a casting director in October 2022, early in their relationship, but that their relationship had gotten more serious by the time he finalized his participation in the show in early March 2023.)
In the April 2023 texts, which were sent after he returned from his 10 days filming the show, Trevor also references events that happened during filming. He talks about the dog collar (from his late dog Chelsea) that he gave Chelsea Blackwell during one of their pod dates, and his subsequent breakup with Chelsea when she got engaged to Jimmy Presnell — all things that Natalia couldn't have known about before the show aired.
@storytimewithrikkii Another day, another Love Is Blind Cheating scandal. ???????? Apparently Trevor was in a serious relationship when he went to film Love Is Blind Season 6 and had no intention on ever marrying anyone. In fact, he told his girlfriend in these text messages that he planned on marrying her when he got back.???? WOW!! What do you guys think of these messages? #loveisblindtea #loveisblindtok #loveisblindnetflix #loveisblindtrevor #loveisblindcheatingscandal #loveisblindseason6
♬ original sound - storytimewithrikkii
But at the end of the text exchange, Trevor breaks up with Natalia in early February 2024, weeks before the season started airing. Natalia says he tried ghosting her three weeks before the show premiered.
"I honestly think he would've never spoken to me again if I hadn't made him," she says. "I made him talk to me and he broke up with me. And that was literally two weeks before the show came out."
"The timing just didn't feel right, looking back on it," adds Natalia, who says that she and Trevor continued to speak to one another for a time after their breakup until she told him she could no longer have contact with him because it was hurting her.
Natalia, who says their relationship was great after Trevor returned from "Love Is Blind" filming in April, says she was blindsided when their relationship began to deteriorate around November 2023.
She decided to come forward about their relationship as part of her own healing process. Although she'd known Trevor would be on the show, which she says he'd told her would be beneficial for setting them up financially as a couple, and supported it, she hadn't anticipated how difficult it would be to see his "love story" play out on screen — or to see him play into his heartbroken good-guy edit on social media as the season aired.
"I don't want to hurt Trevor in any way, shape, or form, but I was hurting really badly," Natalia told BI. "It was really hard for me to see him being portrayed the way that he was, and really leaning into that on social media, knowing the truth."
Natalia says Trevor told her he'd be shown prominently on the show since Chelsea and Jimmy's engagement was followed during the season and that he'd get a favorable edit.
"It was really hard for me to think that if I stayed silent he would continue on feeding the persona he was portrayed as on the show," she says. "And then would've acted like I had never existed for the rest of his life."
Trevor has yet to comment publicly on the rumors, and didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. But fans are posting in the comment sections of his social-media posts, voicing their outrage and shock.
"I think people are just surprised because he seemed really genuine," Rikkii said. "People bought into Trevor. Teddy Bear Trevor is what they've been calling him."
"I'm very curious to see his response or how he's going to attempt to get out of this because the reunion films this weekend," Rikkii told BI. "So, hopefully, they bring it up and ask him about it."
Immediately before the Trevor bomb blew up the fandom, many were focused on a woman claiming that her daughter was engaged to Jeramey Lutinski when he applied to be on the dating show.
"Someone was engaged and living with someone when applying for this…." a woman using the name Jenni Gelven Daniel posted in a "Love Is Blind" season six Facebook fan group, alongside a photo of what appears to be Jeramey with a woman and child (whose face was edited out for privacy).
When a commenter asked where the poster had found the photo, the poster replied: "In my phone. That's my daughter and grandson."
In a video shared by @storytimewithrikkii, the daughter in question, a North Carolina hairdresser named Brittani McLiverty, can be seen commenting on posts by Laura Dadisman, the woman who got engaged to Jeramey on "Love Is Blind" season six.
"Did he ever tell you about his ex-fiancé from right before you? Surely not…" she commented on Laura's post. "Or the house WE sold a week or two before he filmed for this show?"
"Just want all the info out there. You and Sarah Ann should know," she wrote in a follow-up comment, referring to the other "Love Is Blind" contestant Jeramey pursued (and potentially reconnected with) during filming. "I'm happy to share proof."
Jeramey responded with an Instagram video on February 23, clarifying that his relationship had ended "a number of weeks" before the "Love Is Blind" casting process started and that while his house had sold right before filming, it had been listed since "October or November" of 2022.
Jeramey also said that his previous engagement wasn't a secret — his conversations about it just weren't shown on the series — and shared a screenshot of a conversation with "Love Is Blind" casting that started on November 30, 2022.
"Not going to give this one any more attention," he ended the caption on his post.
Rikkii said she spoke with Brittani, who provided more details about the relationship timeline ahead of Jeramey joining "Love Is Blind."
"Jeramey tried to say he was out on his own for a few weeks. But his ex-fiancée told me he moved out on November 20 — which was 10 days before casting reached out," Rikkii told BI.
Jeramey and Jenni didn't immediately reply to requests for comment. Brittani declined to comment further when reached by BI.
The rumors about Jimmy appeared to be the first alleged tea that picked up steam about a "Love Is Blind" contestant this season. Turns out, that was "completely fake," according to Rikkii.
"Imagine my fucking surprise when I turn on the new season of 'Love Is Blind' this morning and see my fucking boyfriend," TikToker Ryann Stringfellow began in a video that's been viewed over 18 million times as of writing.
"Obviously I'm not going to tell you who it is. I still think he's the love of my life, and we can work past this," she continued. Indeed the TikToker never names her supposed boyfriend who appeared on the show, but her references to him talking to "this woman who has a child" and is "stunning" led viewers to believe she was referring to Jimmy.
Sure enough, those rumors got back to Jimmy, who took to TikTok to shut them down a few days later.
@jimmypresnell2 #stitch with @Ryann Stringfellow ♛ she was never my megan fox #meganfox #loveisblind #loveisblindseason6 #lib #netflix #loveisblind
♬ original sound - jimmypresnell
"I don't know this woman. I've never met this woman. It's not true. I gotta give it to her. It's an incredible marketing ploy," Jimmy said. "She is getting so many clicks and making so much money off my name. It's insane."
The TikToker posted a duet silently reacting to Jimmy's response while eating chips and guac. "Two sides to every story…right?" she captioned the post.
In his response, Jimmy asked his followers to report her video. Most people, including Rikkii, seem to have decided that the TikToker's video was satirical.
"I guess it was supposed to be satire? Except nobody picked up on it," Rikkii told BI. "People didn't get that it was a joke. I didn't take it as a joke at all. I thought this doesn't seem real — but I thought she was faking it. We have that happen every season too."
"She didn't provide any proof, any receipts. That's always what I look for when I hop onto a story," she continued. "In the past, I've made the mistake of not getting the receipts and the person was completely making it up, just trying to get clout."
The video, Rikkii said, "just seemed fishy to me, but a lot of people bought it."
Neither Jimmy or Ryann replied to a request for comment.
Perhaps most famously, the drama between Jackie Bonds, Josh Demas, and Marshall Glaze played out largely online while "Love Is Blind" season four aired last year.
Jackie got engaged to Marshall in the pods but broke things off with him and got together with Josh, another one of her pod connections. TikTokers uncovered that Josh and Jackie were together before it was addressed onscreen, and also surfaced Jackie's insulting texts to her friends about Marshall. (She later confirmed they were real and apologized for them.)
But even further back than that, in season one, the internet seemingly debunked season one star Mark Cuevas' good-guy edit.
Mark got engaged to Jessica Batten on the show. Jessica, who was older than Mark, was quickly made out to be an indecisive harpy, and Mark was depicted as heartbroken when they split up at the altar in the finale.
However, allegations about Mark's infidelity later surfaced online. According to E! News, one fan alleged in the comment section of the publication's post that "Mark was sleeping with MULTIPLE women at the studio he trained at DURING the show."
"Maybe show those interviews with his workers next time @Netflix," the fan wrote.
Per E!, Jessica saw the comment and replied to the fan. "Wow. News to me, I only know about one," she wrote.
Viewers' appetite for tea — and the intense betrayal they feel when someone they were rooting for is seemingly revealed to be a fake — has catapulted the reach of TikTokers like Rikkii.
"The fans want to believe the show is real. They want to believe in love," she told BI. "They just become really disappointed when they find out someone who was their favorite was a complete hoax. Finding out someone had a fiancé or a girlfriend really means you never had any intention on making a real connection."
"People still want the Brett and Tiffanys, the Cameron and Laurens. So when you take the option away, and viewers realize we were never gonna get that from you, they're disappointed."
The "Love Is Blind" season six finale hits Netflix on March 5, and the reunion premieres March 13 at 9 p.m. ET.