‘Are You the One?’ Hasn’t Aired for 3 Years; What Happened?
Reality TV dating experiment Are You the One? will return with season 9 after a three-and-a-half-year break. Why was the show off the air for so long?
‘Are You the One?’ season 5 star accused producers of drugging her and covering up sexual assault
In a March 2021 TikTok video, Are You the One? Season 5 star Gianna Hammer accused the producers of drugging her and a castmate of sexual assault. According to the reality TV star, the producers reportedly gave her a dose of her anti-anxiety medicine while she was drunk at one of the cast parties.
While Gianna claimed she remembered denying it as prescriptions shouldn’t be taken with alcohol, the Ohio native said she took it anyway because producers reassured her. She then claimed that producers told her the following day that other castmates took her out of a room when they overheard her denying a male co-star’s sexual advances.
According to her, the producers insisted it didn’t go too far and encouraged her to allow him to stay in the house by promising he would sleep on a couch for the remainder of the season. According to Gianna, she agreed and signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement). Additionally, the MTV star says the producers denied giving her the extra dose.
Lighthearted Entertainment, the production company behind the first eight seasons of Are You the One?, responded to her claims in April 2021, which she also reported to Daily Beast, denying her account. As a result of her allegations, Deadline revealed that filming for season 9 was halted. MTV released a statement about the situation, noting that production is suspended due to an independent investigation. Gianna’s ex-boyfriend Hayden Weaver, with whom she shares four-year-old son August, and castmate Tyranny Todd corroborated her story during separate interviews with Daily Beast.
Season 5 also underwent a racism scandal
Additionally, season 5 castmates have accused Lighthearted Entertainment of refusing to acknowledge an incident in which Carolina Duarte, a white contestant, repeatedly used the N-word when speaking to Derrick Henry, who is Black.
According to Tyranny, other Black cast members were offended by the slur but claimed in her interview with Daily Beast that the production company didn’t do anything about it and asked them not to bring it up. In her response to the publication, Carolina admitted to using the word once while drunk to Derrick when he supposedly touched her butt while helping her into her bunk bed.
Gianna has also accused ‘AYTO’ of rigging their season
Out of the first eight seasons, season 5 is the only one in which the contestants couldn’t figure out their perfect matches, resulting in them going home without their piece of the $150,000 prize.
In a January 2021 video, Gianna claimed the cast figured out their perfect matches, except for three, around Week 8. According to the MTV star, the contestants had to write down their top three choices and explain to producers why they believed their picks made sense as their perfect match.
She claims one producer told her she would look “stupid” if she picked Ozzy Morales, who was her perfect match, and pressured Shannon Duffy, one of the three wildcat matches, to change her choice at the last second.
She believes Shannon gave in because the castmate didn’t pick the guys previously agreed upon by everyone else, causing them to lose. Are You the One has returned after three-and-half years but switched from airing on MTV to Paramount+. Additionally, the show has pulled season 5 from streaming services. AYTO Season 9 premieres January 18, 2023.
