Are You The One? Season 9 Release Date, Cast, And More Information
It seems like everyone is looking to find The One, and reality TV is playing a bigger part than ever in bringing people together for a lifetime of love (or just a few weeks, as the case may be). One of the biggest players in the reality TV dating game is MTV's "Are You the One?" which uses science, yes actual science, to help people to find their true love match.
If you're not lucky enough to have caught the show on MTV or Netflix, in a nutshell, what happens is producers secretly couple up contestants using a special matchmaking algorithm. Everyone then jets off to a tropical destination to get to know each other better (all without knowing who they were paired up with) and then have to try and guess who the producers and their love algorithm put together.
But don't think there's no prize involved — this is a reality TV competition after all! If the group manage to decipher the couples who were matched by the algorithm, they can win a very impressive cash prize of up to $1 million. Not bad!
It comes with a very teasy tagline too, as the website asks, "If your perfect match was standing right in front of you, would you even know it? Young singles head to paradise to find their perfect matches and a chance to split the $1 million prize." Intriguing!
But what we really want to know about is Season 9...
Are You The One? Season 9 release date
"Are You The One?"'s Season 9 release date remains a mystery. The show first hit screens in 2014 and has aired eight seasons since then, but hasn't aired any new episodes since 2019. It's not exactly clear why Season 9 hasn't gone ahead just yet, though it's possible the show took an extended break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as people mixing in close quarters and jetting off to sunny locations became increasingly dangerous.
If Season 9 were to follow on with the standard release date the dating show has followed over the years, it's likely it would have aired sometime in the summer of 2020. Season 7 started airing new episodes in August 2018, while Season 8 hit screens in June 2019.
It's worth noting though that MTV doesn't appear to have officially canceled the dating series and has made no public announcement that it won't be coming back at some point, despite its long hiatus. Daily Beast also reported in May 2021, the network has hit pause when it comes to "casting/production of the upcoming season," so it seems like the Season 9 premiere date is a case of watch this space for now.
The cast of Are You The One? Season 9
Again, right now, this one's anyone's guess! Obviously when and if the show returns it will likely feature a whole now roster of singletons ready to find love in paradise, but until MTV makes a more formal announcement about the show's future, exactly who that will be will remain a mystery.
It seems fairly likely though that Terrence J could be back to host for the third time. The former "E! News" anchor and "106 & Park" host guided viewers through the show from Season 6 through Season 8, taking over from Ryan Devlin who was the face of Seasons 1 to 5. "I wanted to do something different; this show was out of the box, and it's so much fun," Terrence J explained to Entertainment Weekly in 2017 of why he wanted to be involved.
It's likely any new cast members won't be excluded based on their sexual orientation, either. While some dating shows have come under fire for their lack of inclusion for members of the LGBTQ+ community (paging "Love Island" and "The Bachelor"), Season 8 of "Are You The One?" became the first to feature contestants who did not identify as straight. The 16 people looking for love all identified as being "sexually fluid," and the love matches were not limited to a male and a female as they had been in previous seasons (via People).
Are You The One? Season 9: What else you need to know
Since "Are You The One?" stopped airing new episodes in 2019, it's found itself shrouded in controversy. Another reason why the show may have taken such a long break appears to be because of serious allegations made against the show's producers as Gianna Hammer. Hammer, a contestant on Season 5, alleged to Daily Beast in 2021 that, while filming in the Dominican Republic, she was given medication by three producers she didn't feel she should have mixed with alcohol and was sexually assaulted by a cast member. She also shared her alleged experience on TikTok.
Daily Beast also spoke to other cast members who appeared on season five who corroborated parts of Gianna's story, though production company Lighthearted Entertainment told the outlet, "We are confident that any review will confirm the safety procotols [sic] that we have long had in place on the sets of 'Are You The One?.' We deny the allegations made by the former contestant; throughout the eight seasons of the show, no contestant has reported an incident of sexual assault to Lighthearted."
MTV added in a statement, "We take these issues very seriously and have paused production/casting to conduct an independent investigation into the allegations, the third-party production company and further review our internal safety protocols."
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).