‘Love Is Blind’s’ Kenny explains why his new girlfriend chose NOT to watch the show
Thanks to “Love Is Blind” — the reality-dating series that has become a pop-culture juggernaut in the three short weeks since its surprise release on Netflix last month — Kenny Barnes is now best-known to the masses for his failed romantic relationship with Kelly Chase.
But the 28-year-old Charlotte transplant will have you know he’s fallen back in love and is doing just fine these days, thank you very much.
In the reunion special that bowed early Thursday, Barnes revealed to his fellow cast mates that he currently has a new sweetheart — “the best girlfriend,” he said, pausing briefly. “For me.” For the time being, however, he’s keeping this particular relationship completely offline.
In other words: Sorry, folks. You don’t get to see how this one plays out on Netflix.
“She and I have definitely discussed it, and we’re gonna take our time to make that announcement,” Barnes told the Observer on Friday afternoon, upon being asked when they might go public.
He offered only that his new girlfriend was a friend of his younger sister’s, and that he met her through his sis at Wooden Robot Brewery about three months before he moved to Charlotte from his native Atlanta this past fall (when he took a job as a lighting controls sales manager at Team Lighting on the edge of uptown).
“Obviously, it’s a little more sensitive, especially with her being local longer than I’ve been. So yeah, won’t share her name just yet, but that is definitely coming.”
While we didn’t come close to getting to all of the questions we wanted to pepper Barnes with in our interview, we hit on some big ones, from whether the reunion was as awkward as you might think to what was going on in his head when he barked at the camera crew after Kelly told him “I do not.”
Oh, and he also explained why his new girlfriend has not — and will not — watch the show. Read on, “Love Is Blind” fans!
(This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.)
Q. How’s your week been?
You know, pretty much business as usual. Nothing too crazy. No big (Netflix) releases or anything like that. (Laughs.) But no, all jokes aside, I’m kind of taking this whole process day by day. That’s usually my approach in life. I’ve made a concerted effort just to focus on the task at hand, and everything else’ll take care of itself. It’s actually been pretty comfortable, plus or minus some of the people who reached out to you that you haven’t talked to in awhile. Because everyone all of a sudden wants to get the spiel from you. But aside from that, it’s been fun.
Q. Well, hey, I know we have limited time, so I’m gonna try to speed through as many questions as I can. First, you were living in Atlanta when the show was filmed back in the fall of 2018, but I understand you’re living in Charlotte now. When and how did you wind up here?
I actually relocated from Atlanta to Charlotte back in November. Technically, it was October 31st when I officially moved up here, and I started working the 4th of November.
I worked for a lighting representation agency out of Atlanta for about four years, and had been doing projects up in the Charlotte area when I got contacted by my current boss, the owner of Team Lighting. He actually offered me a job that was a promotion. Now the funny story with all that, though, is my younger sister had lived in Charlotte for about three years. I had been up here (last summer) to help her move to New York City, and I actually met my current girlfriend in that process. I’m a big believer in serendipity, so it was definitely an interesting sequence of events.
My current girlfriend and my younger sister, they had been friends, and all met up at a brewery. That’s how all that kicked off. She and I continued to date (long-distance), and then three months down the road, I got a job offer, and it was like, “Well, I guess all the cards are kind of falling in place as they need to. I got nothing to lose and I’ve got nothing really tying me down to Atlanta, so right now’s probably the best time to move.”
Q. So the reunion: In my imagination, it seems like being there for that would have been kind of awkward and uncomfortable — for multiple reasons. You know, watching yourself back on the replays while sitting next to Kelly; but also, for example, while Amber (Pike) is roasting Jessica (Batten). Was it awkward and uncomfortable to be there?
Yes and no. It’s one of those things where, after being a part of the cast and having gone through the 46 days of start-to-finish filming, you almost grew accustomed to the emotional and the physical drain — that is, the production aspect of it. Obviously, we didn’t know exactly how it was gonna be presented to us, but we knew that they were gonna jog us back down memory lane.
You understood the dynamics of the couples. You knew who was solid. You knew who had had some disputes with other cast members. So all of that was kind of anticipated, and I found it interesting that I ended up being somewhat in between Jessica and Amber, just ’cause I usually defused situations, whether it was actually shown through production or not; I usually was the voice of reason on the guys’ side of the house, and definitely off camera, too, talked to couples. Like, me and Kelly would sit down late-night and talk to Mark (Cuevas) and Jessica, we’d talk to Amber and (Matt) Barnett. So I had a pretty good gist of what really transpired — and, obviously, what was produced versus really what was going on in their heads throughout the whole thing. ...
We use the world “surreal” all the time, but it was surreal to be back with all the couples and be back with all the cast members. Especially because it’d been almost, what, a year and eight months since we first started filming? So call it almost two years. That’s a lot of time to transpire, and a lot of life to live in between then. So now it’s like, “Alright, we’re gonna get flooded with all these emotions and things that we went through.” And the parallel I always bring to mind is, take someone that went through any type of adversity ... and then show them (a replay of them going through it) again later on. ...
But I definitely had to kind of digest everything that was going on at first. I’d say it was uncomfortable for 10 to 15 minutes, just ’cause we were trying to get a feel for the direction it was gonna take. But after that, I think you could tell that everyone settled down. The energy in the room definitely got a little more calm. We realized, this is gonna be a good day. There’s not gonna be too many blowups, and we can focus on the positives.
Q. You mentioned it being 46 days of start-to-finish filming. I think people forget that this is 46 days and they condense it down into 10 hours. So how did you generally feel about the way you were portrayed, and about the way your relationship with Kelly was portrayed?
I feel like my character was portrayed about as accurate as I am on a day-to-day basis, and so for that fact, I’m very thankful. Just to be candid, that was one of my main concerns. It’s not like I had control over it. Each and every one of us had no control of it. We realized what we signed up for. We realized that anything can get chopped up and presented in a way that’s gonna be viewed by the audience through a different lens. That’s just the sum cost of being a participant on the show.
But to that point, I’ve been relieved that at least my character was displayed in a way very consistent with who I am in real life. Which has been nice. I think it’s safe to say that that has not taken place for some of the other cast members. Which is unfortunate. I mean, I think the main takeaway I have is that all the people who participated on the show — and this is kind of applicable to just life in general — they’re a lot better than what they’re portrayed. We’re a genuine bunch of people. We’re definitely just, yeah, your average jocks and jills walking around. All of us had good intentions. All of us were in it for different reasons. But all good reasons. No one was there with malicious intent. No one was there to hurt anyone. No one was there to be dramatic.
I think a lot of it was just ’cause we walked blindly into the experiment. And that’s no pun intended. But it’s like, you know, the question, “Oh, is love blind?” That’s cute and funny and all, but I think that life really is blind — until you realize and have committed yourself to whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish. ’Cause you don’t know what something is until you give it time to produce, right? We didn’t really get to see the finished product of this for almost two years.
But we all gave it everything we had. I mean, I can say that confidently for myself. I was there. I showed up every single day, whether it was our 5 a.m. wake-ups or filming late at night. You grind it out. That was something I was fortunate to have a foundation in, from being involved with sports — especially with college football, where you have a regimented schedule. (Barnes played tight end at Division I Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., from 2009-2012.) So I fell back on that quickly. It was like, Alright, if I’m gonna get through this, I’ve gotta find my little regimen. So I followed that through, which helped me, and obviously being able to talk with other couples definitely helped us. We all supported each other to get through it.
Q. Kelly talked about this at the reunion, but lots of fans — myself included — already had seen you posted a comment on Instagram saying, “We had made an agreement weeks prior to the wedding that we were not getting married, let alone remain being engaged.” Can you elaborate on that?
Yeah, so Kelly and I had had the discussion that not only were we not going to be wed, we weren’t gonna remain engaged after the filming ended. And there are other reasons for that that are, honestly, more personal and definitely private. But I wish nothing but the best for Kelly and have the utmost respect for her, for her friends, her family. She and I both just did our best to get through the experiment. We were true to ourselves. We supported each other. ... But yeah, we were definitely both in a mutual agreement that we weren’t gonna get married.
(As for the wedding) obviously, that was a tough situation in general. I mean, it’s stressful. You’ve got half a roomful of strangers, you’ve got another half full of your family and friends. None of them really has a clear insight into what’s been going on. ... All you can do is keep it at a 30,000-foot view, and understand that there’s a lot of chaos that you’re looking at. This is how I kind of explained that to the audience. It’s like, “I wish I could tell you everything, it’s nearly impossible to do that, so thank you so much for the respect, and the respect that you have for me, for Kelly, for supporting us through it.” That meant so much to us, in that moment, to have that. It really allowed us to get through that situation, through the severity and the significance of a wedding day. I mean, we knew the weight was there. We knew the stress was there. And even though we both knew it was coming, the steps of getting to that “no” were definitely daunting, and it wore on us throughout the day.
So yeah, all of our emotions were real, which I alluded to in that post. A hundred percent authentic. My reactions obviously probably were edited to a degree, where it maybe made it look I was shocked. I wasn’t shocked. It was more of like an OK, this is finally a weight off my shoulders; I can now take the next steps and follow through, address the audience, thank them for their support, and then we’ll move on.
Q. Of course, then right after that part of the finale, in another room away from where the ceremony was, you appeared to be pretty upset with somebody named Jimmy.
Oh, I love Jimmy. (Laughs.) For the record, I love Jimmy. He’s a great guy. Pretty much the entire production team that I was assigned to, they were very supportive as well.
Q. Well, I was just curious whether you could give some context to that moment. So you’re asked, “You still wanna marry her in the future?” You reply, “That’s wrong.” A voice asks, “What?” You say, “What you’re asking me.” What caused you to get irritated? Because you’d had cameras around you for a long time by then.
Yeah, you know, it’s kind of what you said. We had gone through — and this is both of us — not just a very stressful scene, but a stressful 46 days. I can safely say that the experiment was the most emotionally and physically grueling thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve done 15-mile Spartan races, I’ve done three-a-days for football practices, I’ve gone through wrestling tournaments where you wrestle 10 times in a day. Filming for this experiment was the toughest thing I’ve done in my life.
And so here it is, it’s like, you’ve got the magnitude of (the situation), friends, family, they’re all there. It’s stressful. You have this inrush of emotion. Partially it’s guilt, partially it’s embarrassment, right? You almost are disappointed in yourself. ... But on top of that, I was just stressed out, and really didn’t feel like addressing the question. Like, the question is kind of moot at that point. We all just saw it happen. ...
So I was just frustrated, and I just wanted to make sure it was known: The continued badgering was not gonna get a different result. It’s like, I’m down here, yes, I’m subjected to sitting here and answering questions — but at that point, I was done.
Q. What was the experience of watching the show back like for you? And did you get to see it early, or did you watch it along with everybody else as it came out?
I watched it along as it came out. And as you know, we’ve got ... some rabid viewers, so a lot of times I was playing catch-up — when people would stay up until 3 a.m. and watch the entire thing. They’re binging. I personally couldn’t do it. And I was a part of it! I was like, “Hey, I applaud you guys for the commitment.” But yeah, I watched it along as it was released.
Also, just to give you a little more insight into how I approached it with my current girlfriend: She chose not to watch it. And I commend her for that. I think it’s admirable. She and I both had a discussion before it came out, naturally, and it was both of our decisions — and obviously I supported her in whatever she wanted to do, and whatever she was comfortable with. But she just didn’t want to see something she can’t un-see, and she’d rather not hear something she can’t un-hear. I told her this, though — the expectation is her friends and family are still gonna reach out to her, and she didn’t realize just how true that was until the show came out. ... On Day One, she’s at her office working and she’s getting bombarded with pictures and videos of me doing this and that, and saying this. And that was actually worse on the front end, because she didn’t allow herself to even know the context.
So ... I went ahead after the first (batch of episodes was released) — even though I was playing from behind, and the damage was already done from the stuff that had been said to her the first couple days — I spent my Friday night writing a synopsis of here’s the true context, here’s what happened, here’s why I said this, and had shared it with her. Because I wanted her to have that to reference. I wanted to give her ammunition ... that way if anyone comes to her with some nonsense, it’s like, “Well, it’s funny you say that, because my boyfriend, Kenny, who’s on the show, he actually already told me what the deal is.” So that was something I did, and that was not easy either. That was a nice homework assignment that I volunteered to do (for all of the episodes). ...
She and I were able to watch the tell-all last night. That was the only thing we watched together, and really, it was just ’cause she felt comfortable with everything that transpired. (Barnes said, in a text message, that his girlfriend “had a good grasp on the storyline at that point and it was a good opportunity for us to find closure on the experience and move on with our life together.”)
It was not easy, but we got through it together, and I am very, very happy and relieved that she stayed with me through it, ’cause there were some times where I had some doubts. There’s no kidding about that.
Q. Thanks to the show, you’re a celebrity now, to some extent. I actually found out you were living in Charlotte only because two of my co-workers spotted you at Whole Foods in uptown and told me. I mean, that’s probably happening constantly — people spotting you and then buzzing about it to their friends. How does that make you feel? Is that cool, or does that make you uncomfortable? You said you’ve been using the word “surreal” a lot; would you describe it that way?
It’s surreal. And I’m very much aware — just like all the other cast members are — that we’re under that lens. ... My former coach, Mike Ayers, at Wofford, he’d always say, “Just treat every day and every experience like it’s a business trip.” So it’s like, how you are out in public is how people are gonna perceive you. ... Whatever the perception is of whoever’s watching you, whether it’s the entire world on a Netflix show or whether it’s you walking into the Whole Foods, I can anticipate that as long as I carry myself and present myself in a respectful manner, there’s nothing really to fear.
But I have definitely gotten stopped on numerous occasions so far, and it’s one of those things. It’s anticipated. I actually can kind of feel the people looking at me or saying something. You can get their body language. So I’ll just look at ’em ... and they’re like, “Do I know you? And I’m like, “Well, I don’t know you.” And I’ll introduce myself before they can. I’m like, “I’m Kenny.” And they’re like, “We know who you are!” And I’m like, “Well, you should have just said it!” So I just try to have fun with it. It is what it is. It’s not a negative thing. ... I just try to kind of make light of it. It’s something that’s gonna pass, and I just appreciate it for the positives that you can draw from it, and keep on moving on.
I’ll tell you this, though: Charlotte is probably the best place for me to be with all this coming out. ... Charlotte has got such a good sense of community. I feel much more supported out in the community here versus if I was in Atlanta. And that says a lot, ’cause I’m born and raised from Atlanta. But I know that there would be mixed opinions more so in Atlanta walking around versus here. So here it’s been nice, ’cause I can fly under the radar. If people see me, they’re super-friendly. We can have a nice exchange. ... Fortunately, my personality, I’m very bubbly and very open.
Q. Could you ever have imagined the show would become what it’s become, in terms of popularity?
Never had any expectation that it would be something like this. There’s always possibilities in life, but yeah, it’s one of those things where it’s a blessing. We’ll treat it as such — we’ll try to make the most of it.
This story was originally published March 6, 2020 at 5:29 PM with the headline "‘Love Is Blind’s’ Kenny explains why his new girlfriend chose NOT to watch the show."
