The queue never ends. While The Bachelor will remain an eternal staple of the dating show genre, networks and streaming services have plenty of new series coming in 2023 to keep viewers entertained after the final rose.
After the success of Love Is Blind and Too Hot to Handle, Netflix added Perfect Match to its repertoire in February. The reality series follows singles from other Netflix unscripted titles — The Circle, The Ultimatum and more — as they pair up into potential matches and compete to see which twosome has the best connection.
“This is like The Hunger Games for dating,” Chase DeMoor, an alum of Too Hot to Handle, quipped in a trailer for the series, which — like Love Is Blind — will drop episodes multiple times per season.
Perfect Match started making headlines weeks before it even premiered, with Love Is Blind season 2 alum Natalie Lee claiming that ex-fiancé Shayne Jansen was auditioning for the newer show while they were still dating.
“He was casting for the show in Nov 2021 while we were in a relationship (obviously behind my back),” the consulting manager claimed in a TikTok comment posted in January. “So HELL YES I WILL BE WATCHING lol.”
Shayne, however, disputed his ex’s version of events, sharing text messages via Instagram that he claimed were from Natalie. In one message, Natalie allegedly encouraged Shayne to join Perfect Match, writing: “I really want you to enjoy life because this show for you is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
Natalie then hit back again, claiming that Netflix’s casting team approached her and Shayne to be on the show in September 2021 without realizing the pair had rekindled their romance after splitting during Love Is Blind. The duo agreed not to pursue the Perfect Match opportunity while giving their relationship another shot, but Natalie claimed that Shayne went back on his word and started the casting process without her.
“While Shayne was filming the new show in Feb 2022, he texted me numerous times he wanted to leave midway through filming because he still had feelings for me after we saw each other for [the] first time since our breakup at the reunion show taping,” Natalie wrote via Instagram in January, claiming that the texts Shayne shared were from February 2022 rather than November 2021. “Knowing there was little hope for our relationship and how excited he was to do another reality TV show, I encouraged him to continue filming and tried to pacify the online backlash for him through my interviews and on my social media.”
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