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Warning: The Perfect Match season 1 spoilers ahead. As one of the last couples to match this season, it’s understandable why viewers want to know: Are Bartise and Izzy are still together from The Perfect Match season 1 and where are thye now after filming ended?
Bartise Bowden, a contestant from Love Is Blind season 3, and Izzy Fairthorne, a contestant from Too Hot to Handle season 3, were two cast members on season 1 of The Perfect Match, a Netflix reality TV dating show hosted by Nick Lachey (who also hosts Love Is Blind and The Ultimatum). The series sees former contestants from Netflix reality TV shows—including Love Is Blind, Too Hot to Handle, The Circle, The Ultimatum and The Mole—move into a villa in a tropical location, where they date each other in the hopes of finding their perfect match. Each week, contestants who don’t have a match are eliminated as new contestants arrive at the villa to try to break up couples and find a match of their own. In the end, the couple voted by the eliminated contestants as the perfect match are named the winners and receive a cash prize.
“It’s a show full of love and drama and conflict and strategy and gameplay,” The Perfect Match executive producer Chris Coelen told The Hollywood Reporter in February 2023. “Different people come in with different motivations; different people come in with different emotional baggage. There’s certainly no stated intent in this show that there is a specific goal. It’s very reflective of where they are in their lives, and they might just be looking for somebody to spend the summer with, or have a fling with — or maybe they are looking for someone who’s a life partner. It’s really up to them to figure out what their own perfect match is.”
He continued, “Obviously, Valentine’s Day is a holiday that’s rife with symbolism about love. We’re all into the new year, and we’re thinking about our lives and our partners, or lack of partners. These shows are incredibly enjoyable at any time of the year, but I love that we get to see a show like Perfect Match come out on Valentine’s Day.”
But back to Bartise and Izzy. So…are Bartise and Izzy still together from The Perfect Match season 1? Read on for what we know about if Bartise and Izzy are still together from The Perfect Match season 1 and where they are now since filming ended.
Image: Courtesy of Netflix.
Are Bartise and Izzy still together from The Perfect Match season 1? The answer seems to be no. Bartise and Izzy were one of five couples in The Perfect Match season 1 finale, along with Dom (The Mole season 1) and Georgia (Too Hot to Handle season 3); Chloe (Too Hot to Handle season 1 and The Circle season 2) and Shayne (Love Is Blind season 2); Joey (The Circle season 1) and Kariselle (Sexy Beasts); and Nick (The Circle season 1) and LC (Love Is Blind season 1.
During The Perfect Match season 1 finale, Bartise and Izzy confirmed they planned to date after filming ended. “We had a great date today, talking about future plans, about kids, about our past. I definitely felt the spark increase today,” Bartise said. “I might be making a trip across the pond soon.” When asked if they were the perfect match, both Bartise and Izzy both denied they were. “The time in here has been good. But obviously, distance is a big thing. If one us said we were the perfect match, I don’t think it would be real,” Izzy said, to which Bartise responded, “I think we’re both realistic. She said it first on her date today. I would’ve been surprised if she’d said, ‘You’re my perfect match.’”
While Bartise and Izzy haven’t confirmed their relationship, it seems like they broke up after The Perfect Match season 1 finished filming but remain on good terms. As of writing this, Bartise and Izzys still follow each other on Instagram. The Perfect Match filmed in March 2022, according to an Instagram Story at the time posted by Bartise. The reunion and “After the Altar” special for Love Is Blind season 3, which Bartise starred on, filmed in fall 2022, according to Bustle. Bartise suggested he was single on the Love Is Blind season 3 “After the Altar” special after he and his ex-fiance, Nancy Rodriguez, whom he met on the show, discussed their breakup. In an interview with StyleCaster in February 2023, Nancy confirmed that she and Bartise are “not friends” following their breakup on Love Is Blind season 3. “We’re not friends. It’s been a long time,” Nancy said. “Putting myself first and knowing I want to make the best decisions with intention, there are people, not just him, in my life I’ve had to weed out. A lot of that, too, is helping me in my dating world.”
She continued, “Because if you’re not aligning with what I have to offer or you’re not bringing something to the table, what’s something that’s going to better me as a person or in our relationship? I’m sorry, you need to step to the side and I’m gonna keep swiping right until I find somebody who can truly value who I am. But most importantly, they need to know where they’re at. It makes it so much easier to create friendships and relationships with people who are currently healing, currently working on themselves. Because when people are completely unaware, or they don’t know what their actions are doing to other people, and they don’t realize that they’re hurting others, that’s a them problem. I don’t need that in my life. We need you to step aside. The last two years, I have been making room in my life and my heart and my brain space. I’ve been making space for people who have truly loved me for who I am and have cherished that and will help me to be a better Nancy than I already am.”
Nancy also confirmed that she didn’t know Bartise had been cast on The Perfect Match but revealed that she would be open to starring on the show herself. “I’m totally open to other reality TV shows. Love Is Blind was something so unique that I was like, ‘If I get picked for this, this is the one show I would actually do,’” she siad. “Because even going into it, I already felt so close with who I was professionally. Personally, before Love Is Blind, I knew this would be like, ‘Oh, if it happens, it’s an experience, sure.’ But it really did teach me a lot about myself. I’m just so glad I was able to do such a cool experience where I could learn from this, and then just be a better person.”
When asked if there were any Netflix reality TV stars she was interested in, Nancy responded, “It’s kind of like dating your cousin. I don’t know if I could do that. Because a lot of the girls in the Netflix world, I adore, and I love their personalities on the internet. So I can’t imagine dating one of their exes. It’s messy. But I just think that, at the end of the day, having an open heart and open mind to be even on a dating app, it truly has to be with intention, because you can quickly get lost in the quantity of it all versus the quality.”
Image: Courtesy of Netflix.
Who is Bartise from The Perfect Match season 1? Bartise Bowden is a 27-year-old from San Antonio, Texas. He was originally a contestant on Love Is Blind season 1, where he dated and got engaged to Nancy, a 33-year-old from Temple, Texas. Bartise listed his job on Love Is Blind season 3 as an “Accountant.” Bartise broke up with Nancy at their wedding in the Love Is Blind season 3 finale.
Image: Courtesy of Netflix.
Who is Izzy from The Perfect Match season 1? Izzy Fairthorne is a 22-year-old from Manchester, England. She was originally a contestant on Too Hot to Handle season 3, where she dated Jackson Mawhinney, a 29-year-old from London, England, and was a finalist.
Image: Ser Baffo/Netflix.
Who is The Perfect Match host? The Perfect Match season 1 host is Nick Lachey, who also hosts Netflix reality TV dating shows Love Is Blind and The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On with his wife, Vanessa Lachey. Nick was the lead singer of the boy band 98 Degrees from 1996 to 2012. The group reunited in 2012 and are still together. Nick has also released four solo alums: SoulO, What’s Left of Me, A Father’s Lullaby and Soundtrack of My Life. He was married to Jessica Simpson from 2002 to 2006, and the two also starred in their own reality show, Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica on MTV, from 2003 to 2005. Nick is also the winner of season 5 of The Masked Singer during which he performed as the character “Piglet.”
In an interview with Distractify in March 2022, Nick explained that he and Vanessa wanted to host Love Is Blind because of how their own relationship was long distance when they first started dating. “When Netflix approached us with Love is Blind all those years ago, we jumped at the opportunity because the show really spoke to us personally,” Nick said. “When we first started dating, Vanessa was in New York and I was in Los Angeles. We didn’t get to see each other a lot so we had a lot of long phone conversations, learning everything we possibly could about each other.” He continued, “[Those conversations were] really important for building our relationship and knowing we wanted the same things before there were external pressures on the relationship.” Nick also told Distractify that he and Vanessa want contestants to “fall in love for the right reasons and then introduce everything else.”
Nick also told People in 2022 about how he thinks Love Is Blind would’ve worked for him and Vanessa if they had met in The Pods. “We’ve thought about that, often. And I really, I’m not just saying this for the benefit of this show, I think we would’ve,” he said. “We have the same birthday, we have the same passions, we have the same interests, we have the same drive. Things that motivated us.” Vanessa asked “You would’ve found me through a wall?” to which Nick responded, “I would find you anywhere.” He continued, “I really do think we would’ve found each other. I think we would’ve gravitated to each other. That’s what we did in life. Obviously, we knew each other.” Vanessa added, “We did. We had to find our journey to get to each other.”
Nick also claimed to Us Weekly in 2022 that he would’ve joined Love Is Blind if he was single. “I would. I mean, it’s fascinating,” he said. “Especially having seen the success of season 1 and seeing two loving couples still married to this day? If I watched that and I was looking for love, why wouldn’t you wanna be a part of that? You know, it’s proven to work!” He added, “This dating world is not one I ever was part of — this very superficial ‘swipe left.’ There’s so much judgment and you can Google everybody. I’m not from that era.”
The Perfect Match is available to stream on Netflix.
Image: Courtesy of Gallery Book.
For more about Love Is Blind, read Cameron Hamilton and Lauren Speed’s 2021 book, Leap of Faith: Finding Love the Modern Way. In the book, Cameron and Lauren, who were one of two couples to marry from Love Is Blind season 1, share their “engaging and accessible love advice for the modern world” and reveal exclusive behind-the-scenes details from the Netflix series and what went down in The Pods that viewers didn’t see. The book is told from Cameron and Lauren’s alternating points of view as the fan-favorite couple dishes on what it was really like to marry a “faceless stranger” on television and opens up about how their relationship shifted—”for better and for worse”—once cameras stopped rolling and Lauren and Cameron’s relationship continued in the real world. Leap of Faith: Finding Love the Modern Way is a must-read for any Love Is Blind fan.
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