‘Love Is Blind’: AD ‘Shocked’ & ‘Hurt’ by Matthew’s Betrayal & Early Exit
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[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Love Is Blind Season 6 Episodes 1-6.]
Love Is Blind Season 6 found one of its likely soon-to-be infamous cast members in Matthew Duliba. The 37-year-old senior financial advisor spent most of the first few episodes of the new season (streaming now on Netflix) courting Amber Desiree “A.D.” Smith, a 33-year-old real estate broker. But when his deceptive dating plan was revealed, he made a swift, panicked exit from the series.
A.D. really connected with Matthew despite his shyness. She tells TV Insider that the Love Is Blind experiment is a nerve-racking experience, one that made her want to extend patience to her dates in the pods despite possible red flags.
“Matthew is a man of very few words, and I think in such an intimate and kind of crazy experiment, I would want someone to give me that amount of grace and that amount of patience,” A.D. tells us. “I wanted to treat everyone as an individual. I didn’t want to date all 15 men as if they all had the same qualities and personalities. So with Matthew, it just took a little bit of time and like I said, I would want someone to give me that same amount of time and space.”
The problem was, when Matthew wasn’t spending time with A.D. in the pods, he was pursuing another woman in the cast, Amber Grant, 31. Love Is Blind kept the footage of their courtship secret for dramatic effect so that when A.D. started hearing Amber repeat things Matthew had said to her in the women’s lounge, it would land as a shock. The women realized that Matthew was parroting the same lines to both of them, expressing things like his desire to ask for their fathers’ permission for their hands in marriage and an urge to leave the pods early together.
Amber Grant and Amber Desiree “A.D.” Smith in Love Is Blind Season 6 Episode 1
A.D.’s father had passed away, so Matthew’s sentiment of asking for her late father’s permission was a touching one that made her feel more connected to him. The illusion came crashing down when she heard Amber say the same things. Amber left the experiment altogether. A.D. confronted Matthew in the pods. As for Matthew, he caused a cringeworthy moment when he kept on saying that all of America was “watching” them date. In the first episode, he had said he wasn’t there to become a reality dating celebrity. So why was he suddenly concerned with viewers’ perception?
Matthew left the experiment to go pursue Amber, whom he said was his real No. 1 in what felt like a cop-out moment. A.D. tells TV Insider all about the “shock” of this negative experience.
“It was difficult because I did believe that Matthew and I connected in such an intimate way, and so I was shocked that he was saying the same things to other women,” she explains. “I would expect the story to be pretty similar across the board. It was just some of the intimate moments that we shared I thought were just for us. And so to hear that he was having those conversations, it didn’t feel good. It actually did hurt, and it caught me off guard.”
A.D. ended up reconnecting with Clay Gravesande, 31, after Matthew’s exit, but he was angry when he learned he was in a love triangle. It was especially upsetting to him that Matthew, specifically, was his competition. But the two worked things out and left the pods engaged.
Find out if Matthew returns to Love Is Blind Season 6 as the season unfolds Wednesdays on Netflix.
Love Is Blind, Season 6 Episodes 7-9, Wednesday, February 21, Netflix
