Exclusive Interview
Stacy Snyder on Becoming ‘Love Is Blind’s Perfect Villain & Her Dating Life Outside the Pods
Everyone remembers reality TV villains, and the Love Is Blind pods are no exception. Each season of the Netflix dating series has had a villain that may (ahem, Shake Chatterjee) or may not (looking at you, Madison Errichiello) have deserved “the edit.”
In Season 5, which aired in 2023, there were quite a few, but much of the attention was focused on Stacy Snyder. After starting out in a love triangle with Johnie Maraist over Izzy Zapata in the pods, Stacy emerged engaged. Over the weeks that followed, we watched her joke-filled relationship evolve, Izzy tour her massive closet, and eventually their breakup over financial differences. Izzy didn’t hold back, telling cameras Stacy just wanted a rich, older man to take care of her. Yikes.
By the show’s standards, Stacy was the Season 5 villain: the smart-mouthed foil to soft-spoken Johnie, a Pilates princess in a world seemingly bought for her by her dad. Or was she?
Was Stacy another victim of “the edit,” a common trend in reality TV shows to push certain narratives forward? Two years later, Swooon reached out to hear Stacy’s side about what the show was really like for her and what life has been like since the pods in our first edition of our Behind the Edit interview series.
Why did Stacy go on Love Is Blind?
Let’s start at the beginning. What made this hot, self-assured woman say yes to a blind dating show? Stacy explains that when she signed up, only Season 1 of Love Is Blind had aired, so she had very little to go on. After signing the contracts, she eventually caught up on Seasons 2, 3, and 4 — and realized exactly what she was in for. Either way, she was open to a good time.
Stacy found dating apps “repetitive,” saying, “People weren’t dating seriously because everyone had such easy access to social media and dating apps.” So when a casting member reached out, she agreed. “I feel like I’m one of those personality types where if it sounds completely insane, I’m interested,” Stacy laughs.
Was her connection with Izzy true to edit?
Stacy was 33 and working as Director of Operations for an oil and gas company. Izzy was 29 and working in the painfully vague world of sales. The pair hit it off in the pods, sharing plenty of laughs and inside jokes. Who could forget Stacy’s Emily Dickinson moment, where she wrote a poem rhyming his name with tizzy, fizzy, wizzy, busy, and mizzy?
After a brief hiccup with a love triangle, the pair got engaged. But how much of what we saw actually reflected their chemistry?
Netflix
Many fans felt they were surface-level compared to Izzy’s deeper chats with Johnie, but Stacy says that was all about what footage got chosen. “I had those same conversations with him,” she clarifies. “Obviously, I’m not going to marry someone I don’t know down to their darkest secrets and relationship history.”
“The storyline is surface-level: blonde, fun, and then a deep emotional connection,” Stacy reflects. “It kind of makes it look like he chose looks over emotion.” Fans had the same impression, suggesting he went for good times rather than a real connection.
Stacy insists that she and Izzy truly bonded over many things — and even stayed friends after the show ended. When Izzy was asked to join Perfect Match, he called her for advice, and she encouraged him to go for it. Sidenote: Stacy also claims that Izzy was a last-minute replacement for Renee Poche, a contestant on her season who got cut after legal battles with Netflix. “Obviously, they can’t have her on Perfect Match because no one would know who she is, so they swapped her for Izzy,” Stacy spills.
That friendship is now well and truly over, and Stacy admits she didn’t even watch his season of Perfect Match.
How protecting herself got skewed
This seems especially relevant in the wake of Materialists and the discussions around whether it’s okay to want certain things in life. Between her storyline, her father’s joke about how “love wants to fly first-class,” and Izzy’s dramatic final rant, Stacy was firmly branded the season’s gold digger.
The icing on this gold digger cake? Stacy was the one who requested a prenup to protect her own assets. Imagine if the roles were reversed, and it was a man asking for a prenup. Would he have been judged this harshly?
Apparently, Izzy didn’t even know what a prenup was at first. He was hesitant to share credit card statements and other financial details, which Stacy felt were necessary before committing to marriage, because marriage is literally a contract with financial ramifications. Right before the wedding, everything came out.
Stacy was cautious about revealing too much of Izzy’s financial situation. Izzy openly admitted to having a low credit score, comparable to Nick Miller from New Girl, and a substantial amount of debt. Stacy worried this wasn’t even the half of it.
“This is my home,” Stacy explains passionately. “I worked really hard to buy it. And when it came to that conversation about money, I was concerned about being taken advantage of. Somehow, that got twisted into me wanting to take advantage of him, when I’m the one who already has everything here.”
Netflix
He knew Stacy’s decision before the altar, but still wanted to proceed and have his say. Many criticized Stacy for not walking away sooner, but she says that wasn’t really an option. “If you don’t show up, I think it’s like a $250,000 fine, potentially up to $2 million,” she claims. (Creator Chris Coelen acknowledged there was a $50,000 penalty written into the contracts in early seasons, but it has been removed in recent seasons, according to Variety.)
Stacy stayed surprisingly quiet during the reunion, which many interpreted as guilt. “I felt like I held back at the reunion because I had already gotten so much backlash,” she explains.
Stacy feels she got the villain edit
When Stacy agreed to go on the show, she never imagined how she’d be portrayed. Reality TV — and our awareness around “the edit” — was a different world back then. “I wish that I still had that innocence and whatever I had before the show,” she admits.
Instead, she was depicted as Pilates Princess Barbie with a Golden Credit Card. Here’s what Stacy believes contributed to her villain edit:
She spoke to Izzy at length about her bisexuality, struggles with an eating disorder, and the fallout from her parents’ nasty divorce. None of it made the cut. “A lot of things that connect you to people where you share an experience… I don’t think they wanted to include any of that with me because that was not my storyline,” she says.
At the BBQ, Johnie allegedly made several comments about Stacy’s appearance leading up to the big argument. She didn’t respond to most of them and assumed the audience would be rooting for her, but none of that was shown. Only the moments when she snapped made the final cut.
During the tour of her house, production insisted on filming in her closet, showcasing designer brands. “I don’t care about that stuff, but they do. They wanted to film there,” Stacy says. Her sister, after asking to be interviewed privately, warned her: “This is not going to be good for you. They didn’t ask me anything about your relationships or what you bring to the table. It was all about money: How much do you spend in a month? Do you expect a guy to pay for this?”
They highlighted her Pilates instructor role, even though it was a once-a-week hobby for connection and fitness, while downplaying her real career as Director of Operations for an oil and gas company. Stacy felt that production was nudging her on set to say things that fit their narrative. “I could kind of feel that pushback… almost to get me to say certain things that would align with what they wanted people to see,” she explains.
So why create a villain out of Stacy? Simple: good TV. “I think it’s decided before you even get there. These are the people we really liked in interviews that we want to shine,” Stacy believes. “We really want them to match with someone, and then they create these storylines, even though there might be people who are more relatable or interesting. I did feel like there were certain women they really wanted to push or end up with certain people… and I know I was not one of them.”
From villain to queer icon
In the summer of 2024, Stacy posted a photo with her girlfriend. She thought she was just hard-launching her relationship. Instead, she accidentally hard-launched her queer status to the internet. Stacy had dated a woman before Love Is Blind and had openly discussed her sexuality on the show with Izzy and another bisexual contestant. She notes that Madison’s bisexuality was included in the most recent season, so representation is improving… slowly.
Despite coming from arguably the most heteronormative dating show ever, Stacy was relatively welcomed into the queer space. That said, she does feel the pressure of an unintentional label. Posting a photo with a male friend led to comments questioning her queerness and claiming she “changes partners faster than people change underpants.”
Stacy Snyder / Instagram
“I feel like if you’re in the bisexual realm, there’s a lot of judgment as a woman if you’re seen with a woman and then a man after,” she admits. “I’ve never had to think about it in the past. It’s just been, if someone comes along or I’m on a dating app, I date who I want to date. Now it’s like: Who am I supposed to be with? What will people think if it’s not that? It’s a conscious thought instead of just being like, love who you want to love.”
Where is she now?
Post-show, Stacy felt extremely alone in the face of online backlash. Now, she reaches out to contestants going through something similar. She mentions Chelsea Blackwell, who was viciously mocked a few seasons later, and casually name-drops grabbing dinner with Micah Lussier, who was ironically pursued by Stacy’s ex, Izzy, during their season of Perfect Match.
As for her own “perfect match,” Stacy’s relationship ended earlier this year, though she’s kept it quiet on social media out of respect for her ex. She speaks only positively about herself and is cautiously dating again, though without much gusto.
She’s aiming to leave oil and gas and focus on her styling business, although she has several more business opportunities in the making. “I’m a typical Libra where I have five things and I’m good at them,” she laughs. “But I’m like, let’s do two or three where I’m amazing at them and force where I can grow these things instead of it being like, I can handle it all and then be exhausted at the end of the day and feel like my eyes are going that way.”
So, how has her time on Love Is Blind — and the vitriol in her DMs — shaped her? “I don’t want to hold back on my happiness out of fear of what people are going to think,” Stacy admits. “And that’s probably the one thing I took away from the show.”
Her parting advice to anyone going through a rough patch, whether post-villain edit or in everyday life? “You will find yourself at the bottom, but you will find yourself down there, and you will crawl out of the hole.”
Love Is Blind, Season 9, Episodes 1-6, October 1, Netflix
Love Is Blind, Season 9, Episodes 7-9, October 8, Netflix
Love Is Blind, Season 9, Episodes 10-11, October 15, Netflix
Love Is Blind, Season 9, Episode 12, October 22, Netflix
