Nick and Vanessa Are Noticeably Absent As ‘The Ultimatum: Queer Love’ Hosts

In some ways, Nick and Vanessa Lachey have become Netflix's official dating show hosts. They're in charge of Love Is Blind and The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On, while Nick hosts Perfect Match on his own. However, when The Ultimatum: Queer Love premiered in May 2023, the couple was absent as the dual hosts.

And now, fans are curious about why Nick and Vanessa aren't hosting The Ultimatum: Queer Love. Since it's technically a spinoff of the original series, Queer Love has a different host, JoAnna Garcia Swisher. However, JoAnna doesn't identity as queer, so it wasn't immediately clear to viewers why Nick and Vanessa aren't part of this show.

Nick and Vanessa hosted the first season of The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On, so it was expected that they would return for Season 2. And, according to Netflix, they will. But Queer Love is considered a separate show altogether and creator Chris Coelen told Variety that a decision was made "to differentiate the two."

That's where the host changes came into play, rather than anything more serious, especially since Nick and Vanessa are still part of the original series in the franchise.

"The shows are very similar in their DNA, but you know, having a different host for the different versions made sense to us, as we talked about going into it," Chris told the outlet.

Viewers may remember the backlash that Nick and Vanessa received following the Season 4 reunion for Love Is Blind. Vanessa was accused of being sympathetic towards a "villain" of the season, and Nick was targeted by fans for not speaking up enough during the questions. But it looks like none of that played in to why they aren't part of Queer Love.

The two shows are meant to be different, even though they both feature five couples who are at a crossroads in their respective relationships. Both versions of the series are about an ultimatum given by one partner to another to get married at the end of the experiment. And during the experiment, couples spend a week getting to know the other partners.

They then spend three weeks in faux marriages. After that, they spend three more weeks back with their original partners. The process is the same for both Marry or Move On and Queer Love. However, they are considered to be two totally different shows. Mainly because Queer Love features LGBTQ+ relationships.

And it looks like the decision to not bring Nick and Vanessa onboard with the spinoff doesn't have to do with the backlash they faced as hosts of the disastrous and hectic Love Is Blind Season 4 reunion.

The Ultimatum: Queer Love is now streaming on Netflix.