Every time Netflix announces a new season of Love Is Blind we’re excited for the potential that someone will find love in the pods.
Source: Netflix / Netflix
Since Season 1, when Lauren and Cameron officially became the Hamiltons, we’ve been craving the same kind of connection from the couples. This season we placed all our hopes on Amber Desiree “AD” Smith and Clay Gravesande — the sole Black couple to emerge from the pods. The Season 6 finale began streaming on Netflix today, Wednesday, March 6 — and we won’t spoil it for you (yet! we’re putting all the spoilers on the next page) but we had the chance to chat with Clay not long after Episodes 7-9 were released and are excited to share our Q&A with him about the experience.
Check it out below:
BOSSIP: How’s everything been for you since the show has aired?
Clay Gravesande: It’s been a whirlwind for me, but I’ve been trying to enjoy it myself.
BOSSIP: Have you sent Chelsea [Blackwell] flowers yet for taking some of the heat off of you?
Clay: I was actually just having some conversation with her in the DMS we were kind of laughing that she has taken a little bit of heat off me, so I do appreciate it with this with these last three episodes (7-9). I feel like the heat is off me for for at least a week. You know? We’ll see.
BOSSIP: A lot of people are comparing you and AD to Paige and Chris from Married at First Sight, how do you feel about that?
Clay: I’ve seen a picture of me with the guy, but I didn’t really know what the comparison was and honestly I’m trying to not stay too much in the comments because I think I’m getting roasted, so I try stay off that. I’m going to have to watch his season to see where the comparison is.
For the folks who are both MAFS and LIB watchers, can we all agree that Clay is nowhere near as toxic as Chris was?
Source: Netflix / Netflix
What did you think about the bean dip comments and everyone sexualizing ADHD?
Clay: As it was going on, AD kind of mentioned these things to me. With the bean dip conversation, Jeramey and I had banter like that without talking about our actual women, so I wasn’t thrown off totally when Jeramey said that. I was more so trying to get an understanding of what it meant and then when I found out that Laura was asking Jeramey to go swipe her boobs up, I was like ‘OK Jeremy don’t do that,’ and I think he knew not to do that. I thought it was a little uncalled for, that scene happening right there, but I didn’t really take offense to it. I just thought that for him to say that on camera was a little crazy, but in terms of the action I know he would never do that. It was just a bad timing thing that got caught up in that scene, but there was no ill will feelings for that.
Did you understand what show you were going on? Asking somebody about their physical appearance and doing Love Is Blind not really congruent.
Clay: I didn’t watch the show before I got on it so that probably you know plays into why I asked that question so confidently, but I also was saying what my biggest fear was and I do think that if you put a lie detector to every man that’s in the pods, one of their biggest fears is if they’re not attracted to who is on the other side. Even if you look at the Love Is Blind seasons from the past, the ones that are not physically aligned don’t work out. I khad that reservation in my mind when I was going to the pods and that’s why I said it .
Was Matthew as weird as he appeared to be?
I’m not gonna kick Matt’s back in. I think Matt honestly knew what his purpose was. He wasn’t really there to mingle with the fellas. He was more so there to find his wife. Matt didn’t do anything to me that was alarming, besides the fact he just didn’t communicate. I just kind of took that when he didn’t communicate with us, as his strategy. A lot of the guys had strategies going into the pods and I kind of felt crazy because I was like, ‘Well damn I don’t have a strategy.’ Jimmy had a strategy, Matt had a strategy, this guy Vince had a strategy, and they were talking about it amongst their friends. But with Matt, I think Matt was dating the women. I didn’t see the scene with him and Amber Gant so I can’t even say that he was manipulating them. I didn’t even know I was Amber’s number two.
Did you date anybody else besides AD, that wasn’t shown?
Clay: It wasn’t as strong a connection. I dated Alejandra for a little bit. She’s cool, but she and AD are really tight, so when me and AD were getting closer and like by Day Four, Day Five, me and Alejandra just started getting the friendship vibe.
Prior to Love Is Blind, what was your dating life like? Did you have long relationships?
Clay: The longest relationship was four years. I’m not this playboy that everyone is kind of saying that I am. I definitely had some long term relationships. I think for the past two years or three years I was just dating.
I wouldn’t say I was ever out in these streets. I definitely was talking to women, but I wasn’t talking to like multiple at a time. I definitely was being respectful, but I just wasn’t getting into a relationship. I’m always working and most of the time with my dating life, people really can’t get on the same speed with my schedule, so it wasn’t really the most successful thing for me. I kind of was just focused on my work and not really focused on dating, but I definitely wasn’t like in the streets. This is the closest I got to marriage.
Source: Courtesy / Netflix
Was there a moment when you knew that AD was the one?
Clay: This wasn’t really shown on film but me AD had a lot of conversations about Black wealth. She’s in real estate and she kind of let me know what she was trying to do as a broker and how she wanted to be an investor and I tend to like those type of conversations because I’m pretty well read and understand that to really have power in America you do you need to have like some type of land, commercial land or something that you’re doing to create income. We talked about that, like opening up Black grocery stores, buying real estate and I really feel like the conversations that we have are really powerful and I felt like she was a strong Black woman. She reminded me a lot of my mom, based off of her stories in the pods of like the resiliency that she went through. I think a lot of the deep conversation that we had in the pods, I want to say after Day 5 or Day 4 was really convincing me, ‘OK I love this girl.’
Keep going for more from Clay about his relationship with AD, which of the guys was not being honest with the others about their relationship challenges and how he’s feeling about the show’s upcoming reunion. Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD! If you haven’t watched the wedding episode you might want to wait until after you have to keep reading.