Read This: There’s yet another exposé on Love Is Blind's toxic environment

Love Is Blind continues to be a fairly popular Netflix reality series as well as a fairly controversial breeding ground for some of reality television’s nascent organizing efforts. Previous contestants have accused Netflix and the show’s production companies (Kinetic Content and Delirium TV) of abuse, neglect, and flat-out psychological torture. Some of them have even filed lawsuits alleging as much. Now, The New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum has provided a new and detailed behind-the-scenes look under the hood at the dating show, an attempt to get to the bottom of the question, “Is Love Is Blind a toxic workplace?”

Short answer: Sure seems like it! The New Yorker piece gets into some of the stories that never made it to screen, like that of Jeremy Hartwell and Renee Poche, two contestants who were largely excluded from the final cut of their seasons and who went on to file lawsuits against the show. In Hartwell’s case, he left filming early (not of his own volition, he claims) after having what is described as a mental breakdown, one that included a full 12-hour period unaccounted for that he now attempts to explain as “vague, dark shadows of despair.” (A therapist told him it sounded like a “fugue state.”)

After (not) appearing on the show, Hartwell helped co-found the Unscripted Cast Advocacy Network (UCAN), a nonprofit organization meant to provide support to ex-reality stars and inform them and the public of their rights. UCAN connected Poche to her lawyers Mark Geragos and Bryan Freedman, who have been working with some of the unscripted stars who have begun to call for better conditions, like Real Housewives’ Bethenny Frankel. “There are people signing contracts that aren’t just illegal—they void the entire contract itself!” Freedman told the outlet. “There’s an ecosystem in which people bring therapists to the set and then those therapists break confidentiality and share information with executives and executive producers—and even lawyers for the studio. I mean, it’s unbelievable.”

Unlike Hartwell, Poche made it all the way to her aborted wedding. None of her story was shown on screen, despite many crew members assuming she’d be the star of the season. Unfortunately, she paired off with Carter Wall, whom she now claims was a volatile, violent, serial liar. Not unlike her fellow cast member Tran Dang, who has alleged the show aided and abetted sexual assault, Poche describes scenarios in which the show coerced her into remaining in an unsafe situation with Wall, who reportedly slung slurs, verbally abused her, was addicted to alcohol and Adderall, and possibly threatened her safety, some crew members suggested.

It all paints a pretty damning picture of Love Is Blind, which continues to present itself as an “experiment” above regular reality TV, for contestants who truly want to be there for the “right reasons”—namely, finding a life partner and getting married. But if that were true, why would production recruit Wall, who was unemployed and dealing with alcohol addiction? That’s on top of the various other shady practices, including that producers allegedly ignored when contestants came to them about assault (in Dang’s case) or serious mental health issues (like Danielle Ruhl).

The treatment of cast members, who (at least on Love Is Blind) tend to make less than minimum wage and currently have no protections akin to what other Hollywood unions have fought for, boils down to an attitude by producers and the public that contestants are fame-hungry volunteers who know what they’re getting themselves into and sign up for reality shows anyway. In the words of one former Bachelor producer quoted in the piece, “To us, as producers, for the longest time [contestants] were just a piece of a machine—they were commodities, to be honest.” You can read the full piece here.