Taking legal measures. After appearing in the second season of the series “Love is Blind”, Jeremy Hartwell filed a lawsuit against Netflix and the producers, making a number of accusations about how the actors were treated in the series.
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“They deliberately underpaid the actors, deprived them of food, water and sleep, got them drunk and cut off their access to personal contacts and most of the outside world. It made the actors crave social connections and changed their emotions and decision—making process,” Hartwell’s attorney Chantal Payton of Payton Employment Law, PC, Los Angeles, said on Wednesday, July 13. “The contracts required the contestants to agree that if they left the show before filming was finished, they would be fined $50,000 as “payment for estimated damages”. of course, he could instill fear in the cast and allow the producers to control the situation even more.”
Hartwell’s lawsuit serves as a “proposed class action on behalf of all participants in Love Is Blind and other non-scripted productions” created by Kinetic Content from 2018 to 2022, according to the Chicago native’s legal team.
Stars at court
In court documents obtained by Us Weekly, Hartwell claimed that “the only beverages [the show] regularly offered to the cast were alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, energy drinks and blends,” further claiming that “hydrating beverages such as water were strictly prohibited.” limited to the cast during the day.”
The documents suggest that the series “contributed to inhumane working conditions and a change in the mental state of the actors” due to “a combination of sleep deprivation, isolation, lack of food and excess alcohol, which are either required, encouraged, or encouraged” by Love Is Blind. .
The documents also mention that actors are unable to contact their family or friends upon arrival, which is not uncommon for many reality shows. “Sometimes the defendants left the actors alone for several hours without access to a phone, food or any other contact with the outside world until they needed to return to work on the production,” the document says. to read.
Lawyer Holmes argued that “exploitative working conditions served to control the behavior of participants and caused irrational behavior for entertainment purposes in the final project.”
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Wages were also questioned: the lawsuit claimed that the participants of “Love is Blind” earned from $ 1,000 a week to $8,000 for the duration of the production — presumably less than the minimum wage for the number of hours worked.
“The defendants have failed and continue to fail to compensate class members and injured employees for all hours worked, including minimum wage and overtime hours, as a result of the continued practice of requiring class members and injured employees to work up to twenty (20) hours a day. , seven days a week, while paying them a fixed amount of $ 1,000 per week of filming,” the documents say. “As a result, these workers actually received only $7.14 per hour, which is less than half of the applicable minimum wage rate of $15 per hour, less than one-third of the minimum overtime rate of $22.50 per hour and less than one-quarter of the minimum double rate of $30 per hour in accordance with applicable minimum wage regulations of the City and County of Los Angeles.”
Hartwell was among the 30 actors chosen for the second season of the series “Love is Blind”, which began broadcasting earlier this year, but he failed to get engaged, and eventually he was not shown after the group withdrew from the show phase.
Us Weekly has reached out to Netflix and Kinetic Content for comment.
