“Love is Blind” contestant Sara Carton turned down potential groom Ben Mezzenga at the altar partly because their political beliefs didn’t align. Soon after departing the wedding site, Carton told her family she wants “someone to think about that stuff.”
“I remember I asked him about Black Lives Matter,” Carton told her mom and sister following the aborted ceremony. “And I’m no expert. But when I asked him about it, he’s like, ‘I guess I never really thought too much about it.’ That affected me! … How could it not? How did it not make you think about something?”
She added that she attempted to meet Mezzenga in the middle. “I asked him too what his church’s views are, and he said he didn’t know. And so then I watched a sermon online … about sexual identity,” she continued. “And it was traditional. And I told that to Ben … and he doesn’t really have much to say about it. I want someone to think about that stuff.”
Carton and Mezzenga are part of the 8th season of the popular reality series, which begins with couples interacting with one another in pods separated by a wall — hence the “blind” part of the show’s name. After getting engaged, the couples spend another 30 days together face-to-face, where they attempt to build a relationship before their wedding day.
Carton was open about her political beliefs from the beginning of her relationship with Mezzenga and it was clear throughout the season that she held more progressive beliefs — and that the two weren’t able to take steps to find out what they did agree on. In an interview with People published on March 8, Carton also said she was “shocked” that Mezzenga suggested they try to “grow” their relationship after she turned him down.
“Ultimately, me and Ben talked multiple times before the wedding of discussing, is this the safest decision for us? Is this the smartest decision for us? We really need to think about that. And so we were on the same page, and he knew coming in what I was going to say,” she explained.
“And so when he asked that, I wasn’t shocked he wanted to do that or be together still after, but I was shocked he asked that at the altar, knowing the circumstance of, we are here to say yes or no,” Carton added. “And also just with the whole entire concept of you walk away forever, I was like, that’s disrespectful, in a way, of what we signed up for and the whole entire point of why we’re here. And so I was shocked he asked that there.”
