Love Is Blind Season 2 contestants Deepti Vempati and Natalie Lee, in an interview with Fortune, revealed that they quit their six-figure jobs to become full-time influencers, and now make three times their previous salaries through brand deals and sponsorships.
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From ‘Love is Blind’ to full-time Influencers
The reality show Love is Blind follows a social experiment where single men and women look for love and get engaged, all before meeting in person. And while contestants Deepti Vempati and Natalie Lee did not end up saying “I do” at the altar, their season’s finale was just the start of their careers as viral personalities.
Vempati, a 32-year-old former data analyst, said that she decided to quit her job after realizing how difficult it was to balance her corporate career with her growing influencer following. “I decided to take a risk and to quit my corporate job,” she said. “Honestly, I think it was the best move, because without taking risks, you are not going to advance in life.” In her position, she reveals she used to make just over $100,000 yearly.
Lee, 31, has long been outspoken about her career, documenting her days as a management consultant on social media and revealing her yearly $234,000 compensation to Instagram followers. She continued her job while and after filming Love Is Blind, and admits she just recently decided to resign and pursue content creation full-time.
According to Vempati, as influencers after the show aired, the pair has made over half a million dollars each. Having been a part of the show itself, however, did not yield them much financial success. According to Vempati, Love Is Blind pays its contestants a stipend every week, but after taxes, “it really doesn’t amount to much at all.”
How do you tell your boss you’re leaving to film a reality TV show for Netflix?
Vempati revealed that she didn’t tell her boss the real reason she was taking her paid time off days to film the show because she was worried it wouldn’t be well-received, so instead opted to tell them she was going on a long vacation. “Most of the filming of the second half of [the season], I literally just worked throughout it. So I didn’t have to tell them,” she said.
Lee decided to go with the truth. She told her boss it was a “serious marriage show,” but didn’t explicitly tell her coworkers she was going to participate in Love is Blind.
However, it’s hard to hide when the show’s blockbuster debut in 2020 with 30 million viewers just one month after its premiere. “We thought nobody watched,” Lee explained, recalling a colleague telling her that their company’s global CEO said he was “rooting for her.
Out of the Pods
After their experiences in Love is Blind, the two have made the most of their fame as Influencers, and most recently released a weekly podcast called Out of the Pods promising insider information and behind-the-scenes perspectives from the world of reality T.V.
In one of the episodes, the two talk in detail about how they used their reality T.V. background to catapult them into successful Influencers. According to Lee, researching Instagram profiles of Season 1 cast members is a solid way to learn. “They were all doing ads and monetizing somehow,” Lee said on the podcast. “That’s when I started thinking, how do I monetize off of this experience?”
After research, Lee got to work. She further stated that 95% of her current income now stems from brand deals and that she currently earns three times her previous corporate salary as a content creator. She’s had several business partnerships, including SoFi, Fidelity Investments, Lulu’s, and more.
Vempati, on the other hand, has secured partnerships with Fenty Beauty, Stitch Fix, Taskrabbit, Eventbrite, and LAY’s potato chips, and told her podcast followers that she was paid a whopping $60,000 for just one Instagram Reel.
“I have no idea how long this content creation or influencer life is going to last,” Vempati said. “But as long as I show up authentically, and create good content for brands, I feel like I can keep it going.”
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