‘Love is Blind’ star Taylor explains why she kept her mom’s name a secret

Spoiler alert: The following contains details from the first six episodes of Netflix’s “Love is Blind” Season 7 (now streaming).
“Love is Blind” is all about falling in love without knowing what someone looks like, and Season 7 star Taylor Krause took the concept very seriously.
In the first episode (now streaming on Netflix), the 30-year-old clean energy policy consultant gave her romantic interest pause when she withheld her mom’s name as they spoke to one another across a blue wall. “My mom’s first name, I think, it gives away part of how I look. Like, my ethnicity,” she told 33-year-old quantum physicist Garrett Josemans.
Though Garrett – who said he’s only “dated white girls” – replied he didn’t give her ethnicity any thought, he noted, “You are very calculated about what you say, and while I love that about you, it’s also like, ‘What’s she hiding?'”
“The reason that I wasn’t going to share my ethnicity was because it was an opportunity to have someone not know how I look at all,” Taylor answered. “I’m just really interested to know if my emotional and intellectual thought processes (are) enough. And everything else is extra.”
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It was one of a few conversations about racial identity that made its way on to the season, which features 29 single 20- and 30-somethings living in the Washington, D.C., area.
Despite the reality show’s admittedly imperfect premise, it’s common for couples to offer up at least some details about their looks as they fall in love “sight unseen.”
While fellow castmate Tyler Francis told USA TODAY he only revealed to fiancée-to-be Ashley Adionser that he has freckles, other couples, like Nick Dorka and Hannah Jiles, are more willing to describe themselves. (Nick called himself “a less buff version” of Henry Cavill, aka Superman, in the premiere episode.)
Meanwhile, due to “uncomfy comments” Taylor has received in the past “about the way that men view my ethnicity,” she wanted to stay true to the “Love Is Blind” ethos.
“My thought process was that I’m a really proud Asian woman, and it does affect the way that I look. So going into an experiment that’s supposed to be about love and not your looks, I thought about honoring the experiment,” Taylor said in an interview ahead of the Season 7 premiere. “I just wanted it out of the equation.”
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Taylor’s mom, Fong, has been married to her dad Tom for 35 years and is “an angel and a gangster all at the same time,” she told Garrett. “Everyone, in a non-disrespectful way, calls her by her first name because it’s just so great.”
“I knew if it was going to go all the way, (Garrett) was going to meet Fong. He was going to meet my mom. I could take him to dim sum and hang out and do our Chinese traditions,” she says. “But just for the experiment in the pods, I wanted to keep that where it was.”
This season also features explicit conversations about interracial dating, politics and body image issues. (A man in the pods even admitted he regrets voting for former president Donald Trump.)
As such, “Love is Blind’s” cast members often naturally reveal aspects of their identity while speaking with their top-rated love interests for 10 days in the pods.
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As Lehigh University sociology professor Danielle J. Lindemann wrote for CNN about the series in 2020, “There are non-visual cues about a person’s race” that contestants navigate on the hit reality show.
Despite their brief tension in the pods, Taylor and Garrett’s eventual meeting went off without a hitch in Episode 3. As the doors slid open and the two advanced toward each other across a red rug, they immediately embraced and shared a kiss.
“Fong’s going to get the most lit FaceTime of her life,” Taylor told Garrett.
(This story was updated to add a photo.)
“Love is Blind” episodes 7-9 stream on Netflix Oct. 9.