‘Love Is Blind’ Star Rob Feeley Breaks His Silence on Michaella, the Beekeeper and Why He Nearly Skipped the Reunion

Rob Feeley is sitting in his car.

He’s taking the Zoom call from the driver’s seat, two days before the “Love Is Blind” Season 11 reunion drops on Netflix — and almost two years following the night that turned him from fan favorite into the most talked-about man on the Boston edition of the dating series. He’s screened the reunion, and the first thing he wants to do is get one piece of internet lore straight.

“I’m the Walmart Travis Kelce,” he jokes when asked if the Kansas City Chiefs tight end or Taylor Swift ever reached out about the resemblance that launched a thousand memes. “I’m a lot less athletic and I have a lot less money.”

It’s the kind of self-deprecating line that made Feeley, a 40-year-old AI infrastructure salesperson, easy to root for in the pods. That’s where he fell for retail executive Michaella Giorgio and got engaged. But we saw something different at the reunion, as he was hunched forward on the couch with his elbows on his knees, waiting for a beating that never fully arrived. Michaella, as it turned out, saved most of her fire for beekeeper Matt Waldrip, whom she had quietly dated after filming.

What did arrive this season was a reckoning. At the cast’s first get-together back in Boston, Feeley spiraled, going after Matt, dismissing the “experiment” and daring viewers to cancel him. Before that, a dinner with his five closest friends left Michaella sitting through a barrage of comments from one of them, his friend Jay. After all of it, the engagement didn’t survive.

In his exclusive exit interview with Variety, Feeley alluded to a run of losses in the year before filming. Over the course of our conversation, he lays them out plainly: a long-term relationship ended, he lost his job, two of his best friends died and his father was in hospice.

“I’m a human being just like all of us,” he says. “One of my worst moments was caught on Netflix.”

Feeley also speaks about why he almost skipped the reunion, his 78-year-old mother who nearly flew across the country to sit in the audience and whether he’d ever do a dating show again.

You were a fan favorite early in the season, and then you became the most discussed person on the show, all within a single episode. What was it like when you opened your phone after that episode aired?

Man, I couldn’t even really watch it. This has been hanging over my head for a year and eight months. It was one of the toughest moments I’ve had, probably as a person. I watched it before it came out because I had to go film the reunion, but when it aired, I still had to perform at work and everything else. All the text messages, all the hate online. I’ve never really been through that. I got the internet chirps early on, when they first called me “mama’s boy” and “AI this.” But I knew this was going to be a different level. It was a hard time, to be completely honest. It still is.

A lot of people were taken by the way you spoke about your mother and your father. I lost my dad in the last couple of years, too, so that connected with me. Looking back, was it too soon to put yourself in that kind of vulnerable position?

I’m a person who bottles things in, and it wasn’t just my father. It’s not an excuse. I didn’t know they were going to post my exit interview, and I wasn’t trying to excuse my behavior by blaming it on losses. But subconsciously, I probably wasn’t in the right mental space.

The sequence was kind of crazy. My long-term relationship broke up. I left the house. At the same time, I lost my job. Then my best friend passed away. Then my other best friend passed away. And then my father was in hospice. I’m trying to keep my head on straight, and I threw my name in the hat for “Love Is Blind.” I’d never watched the show in my life, to be completely frank. I just wanted to find love.

I think all of those things poured onto me without me even knowing it. You tell yourself, “I’ll be OK. Keep moving. You’re a man. Keep moving. This is a good opportunity.” But I didn’t know what the whole thing entailed. No phones, sequestered, all of that. With my anxiety, it was a pressure cooker. There were nights in the hotel room by yourself where I’d talk to my dad.

At the top of the reunion, you said you weren’t even going to come. How close were you to being a no-show?

Out of respect for Michaella, I owed it to her to come and talk. She and I have talked since the show, but I felt like I couldn’t just leave her on an island. Whatever she had to say about how I behaved publicly, she deserved an explanation publicly. That was a big part of it.

But who wants to go in front of America and be a punching bag? I was ready for it, though. Be a man in the night, be a man in the morning. Michaella deserved for me to go to the reunion.

You mentioned going away for 50 days after everything came out. Was that a program, or did you seclude yourself?

It wasn’t a program. I was depressed. You can ask my friends. I was full of anxiety. I didn’t go into my basement and seclude myself for 50 days. I just worked out, stayed away from a lot of things, didn’t go out, didn’t drink at all, ate right. And I sought counseling. A psychiatrist. I was like, “All right, I got to get this shit right.” I might have showed up to one place in those 50 days. I was very on my grind, focused on getting myself right mentally, because that was a very, very tough experience for me.

You seemed grateful at the reunion that you’d made that change by going to therapy. I think it’s important for men to see men like you giving it the seal of approval. Are you still working at it?

Absolutely. I just met with my psychiatrist last night. The one thing I’d tell people is, it’s not a two-day thing or a three-day thing. You can’t give up after two or three months. You have to continuously go.

I’ve suffered from severe anxiety my whole life. When I was very young, my mom put me in counseling and the lady would be like, “Take your temperature and put it this way” and I felt like I could outsmart her. I had very bad separation anxiety with my mom and my little brother. My psychologist told me anxiety is just another word for fear. You fear the unknown. And that was a lot of what happened on “Love Is Blind.” If you’re going to go to therapy, don’t just go three times and knock it. It takes a long time to really get the treatment.

I was surprised I didn’t see your mom at the reunion.

Funny story. She’s 78. I bought a house this year and put my mom in the “in-law” apartment because her landlord was steamrolling her and raising her rent. So I still joke that I live with my mom. I have no ego.

She was supposed to come to L.A. with my brother. I go downstairs to her apartment, and she’s got her clothes laid out on the bed, so cute and stressing out, like a kid going on vacation. She just wanted to support me. And I said, “Ma, if you’re doing this because you think I need you there, I appreciate it, but I can’t put you on a flight across the country to have anxiety.” And I’m happy I didn’t, because that taping was six hours. It would have been overwhelming for her. It wasn’t fair to my mother. God works in mysterious ways. My best friend came in her place with my brother.

I think your mom might go down as one of the favorite parents in “Love Is Blind” history.

The one thing is authenticity. She’s an authentic person.

Let’s go back to “the dinner” with Michaella and your friends. What was it like watching that episode, and what were the conversations with your boys afterward?

I wanted to bring five of my close friends because they’re super important to me. People asked why I didn’t bring women. I just wanted her to meet my close nucleus of friends. I didn’t know my one friend [Jay] was going to behave that way. I didn’t know he’d been drinking beforehand.

Rewatching it was a complete embarrassment. I was ashamed. My friend is completely embarrassed. There’s no part of him that thinks that’s funny. In the moment, I didn’t know how severe it was. When I rewatched it, I was like, “What the fuck, jeez Louise.” Michaella didn’t deserve to sit there and listen to any of that BS. These are men of integrity. I know these guys are good people. If I could change it, I’d change it 100 out of 100 times.

He and I had a serious, serious conversation. I can assure you he feels 10 times worse than I do. He’s still not back to himself. It’s affected us, it’s affected families. It’s not indicative of who we are. The one person I care about in that whole thing who had to listen to that BS is Michaella. I’ve apologized to her, and I continue to.

And no excuses for Jay at all. But it might come out later, so I’ll say it. He’s also been battling stage three lung cancer. It was during that time, too. He’s in remission now, but I don’t know where his head was in that moment and it’s not excusable at all. I just know that right now he’s not in a good place. There’s no one more embarrassed than him and me about that scene. And obviously Michaella. It was tough to watch.

Michaella said at the reunion that some of it came from your paranoia. You said it was the cameras. Do you feel like she will go down as “the one that got away?”

It would have been great to meet in a different environment. I didn’t behave correctly under the pressure of it. I love who Michaella is. She’s an incredible human being. I think the world of her … still do. I told her I’m here for you whenever you need me, and I mean that.

I told her, “You deserve better than me. There’s going to be someone who can do everything you want, and I apologize that it couldn’t be me.” Behind the pods, it was incredible. Then it got to the real world, and I thought, “Holy shit, this might happen.” And I folded. She didn’t deserve that. That’s the reality.

I need to ask about “Beekeeper,” aka Matt. Michaella came for his throat the entire reunion but was very soft with you. What’s the story there?

Post-show, a lot of the guys hung out. I learned that Michaella and Matt were seeing each other, maybe seven or eight months after the show. To be completely honest, it stung a little bit. No pun intended. (Laughs)

You’re doing dad jokes now. Cam’s going to lose his brand.

It stung naturally. But Michaella is a grown woman who can date whoever she wants, even if it’s someone from the cast. It’s not her duty to go date someone who’s not. My initial reaction was, “I hope they’re happy.” I didn’t know when they broke up. I wasn’t going to DM Michaella or poke Matt. It’s not my business.

Then apparently shit went south. I think a lot of us were shocked. I didn’t know the Harry Potter stuff, the chicken cutlets. He was doubling down. He came off complimentary at first, and then I don’t know where it was going. I was just as surprised as you. That was an electric reunion, I’ll tell you that.

John and Sarah were the season’s only married couple. What was your reaction to how their story played out in the end?

Listen, there’s no room for infidelity in life. You pick your person. I don’t care if it’s on a TV show. You can’t behave that way. The bed you made, you got to lay in it.

I try to mind my business as much as I can. Some of us knew about the text messages, the explicit things. The other things in their relationship, I frankly don’t know anything about. But you can’t text an escort or a stripper, whatever it was. He lost Sarah, so he paid the ultimate price. You don’t like to see anybody go through that hurt, and clearly Sarah was hurt. Families were involved, and it was getting ugly.

Then John’s dad got involved.

I think Maury is a fierce protector of friends and family. He dated Sarah in the pods, and I think he was protective of her. The father is protective of his son. It just unfolded in a crazy way. Everyone’s emotional, reactionary. My brother and my best friend were sitting right next to John’s dad, so they were in the thick of it. We were all kind of shell-shocked.

Michaella’s fall at the reunion looked mortifying, but she took it like a champ. Is that just her personality?

When we first met, she had these chattering teeth, like the yellow wind-up kind, because she likes to laugh. She’s self-deprecating like me. She takes things in stride. Life’s not that serious. If anything, it makes her relatable. She took a nice fall and she got up like, “Okay, then.” Michaella is very lighthearted, and that’s part of the reason I fell in love in the pods.

I read body language. You’re a big presence; you take up space, but on that couch, you looked like you were in a cocoon, bracing for impact. Am I reading that right?

First off, the chairs are super uncomfortable. I didn’t want to lean back and look like I was eating potato chips. My posture sucks to begin with. I’m trying not to bump into Blake on my left, trying to put the pillow under me. The easiest thing was to put my elbows on my knees.

But yeah, I took it very seriously. I hurt somebody. It wasn’t a joke to me. I wasn’t coming in loose and busting chops. These are people’s lives. It’s Michaella’s life. I didn’t know what to expect. But try sitting where they had me for six hours.

Where do you hope you and Michaella end up after this? Friends?

I want her to live the best life ever and keep being a shining star. I think this will catapult her to doing great things. I’d like to be friends and be cordial. We gave each other a big hug after the reunion. I don’t know if they caught that. I texted her that night, like, “How did you take things? I know it was intense.” We did have something great. It was just in a really weird environment for me, and I wasn’t mentally prepared to be the person Michaella needed in that moment.

Are you dating anyone? And would you do another dating show like “Perfect Match?”

I might get kicked off before I even touch foot on the show. [Laughs] I’ve definitely learned a few things. But right now, I am seeing someone. So probably not. It’s not in my cards at the moment.

So that’s a no to “Perfect Match” until further notice.

Until further notice, that’s a no, my friend.

Anything I didn’t ask that you want to say?

First and foremost, I want to apologize to Michaella and not just Michaella. Anybody who was offended, anybody whose experience I ruined that night, I want to vehemently apologize. I’m a firm believer in growth. I’m a human being just like all of us, and one of my worst moments was caught on Netflix.

I have an enormous friend group of great people in my community. I coach Pop Warner. I’ve worked hard to build my character and be there for people. I don’t want to let one bad moment define the person that I am. I hope some folks can give me grace. I don’t need people to feel bad for me, but I need people to understand that was one blip. I’m not blaming producers. It was my own behavior. I wish I could turn things back, and that’s not indicative of the man that I am.

The “Love Is Blind” Season 11 reunion is now streaming on Netflix. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.