Andy Cohen threw shade at Netflix for attempting to stream its “Love Is Blind” Season 4 reunion live on Sunday, calling it “a very bad idea.”
Cohen should know. He’s hosted dozens of live-to-tape reunions for “The Real Housewives” franchise and other popular Bravo shows.
Netflix’s live “Love Is Blind” reunion failed to launch at its scheduled time on Sunday. After an hour of technical troubleshooting, the majority of viewers still could not stream the special.
Two hours after it was supposed to start, Netflix tweeted an apology and said the show would be recorded and streamed on the service at noon PT the next day.
As host of “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen” every weeknight, Cohen is familiar with the constraints of a live show. On “SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live” Monday, he explained why a cast reunion should be taped and edited.
“There is a lot of grist to go through before you get to the prime beef. And there is a reason they’re edited down. We could talk about a topic on a reunion taping for 25 minutes, for 45 minutes before really getting to the heart of something,” he explained.
A typical “Real Housewives” reunion may tape from morning til evening and be edited down into two or three hour-long episodes.
“At the last Jersey reunion, I very, as a, a side almost, I brought up the fact that Melissa [Gorga] wasn’t a bridesmaid. Like it wasn’t on the question card, it just came up. It wound up creating like an hour of strife and drama and stuff that was really important. So I, you know, reunion shows are almost like a fishing expedition. So, you know, you’re going around, you’re talking about different topics, you don’t know what’s gonna land, what’s gonna hit,” Cohen continued. “And by the way, a lot of times, you know, people will have incredible one-liners that no one in the room really heard because someone on the other side is talking or something. So we go through the footage, we hone it, we edit it, we, it is finally shaped. So, that’s why, that’s one of the reasons I think it’s a bad, you know, bad idea to do a live reunion.”
“Live reunions are a very bad idea. See season one Miami. There is a reason we don’t do reunions live,” Cohen said, referencing “The Real Housewives of Miami” reunion that taped live from the “Watch What Happens Live” clubhouse back in 2011. During the show, the housewives talked over each other and shouted profanities, requiring quick bleeping from editors.
On Sunday, the official Bravo Twitter account chimed in on Netflix’s fail, posting “We would never keep you waiting for a Reunion” with a winking face.
Listen to the clip below to hear more of Cohen explain why the “Love Is Blind” was a bad idea:
The “Love Is Blind” Season 4 reunion is now streaming on Netflix.