Scott Stewart of ‘Love Is Blind’ on Northeastern and life after the pods
Northeastern alum Scott Stewart on being thrust in the public eye, the Mitt Romney comment and whether he still wants to get married.
This story contains some spoilers for Season 11 of “Love Is Blind.”
Scott “Stew” Stewart lived in relative anonymity. That is, until the Northeastern University graduate and director of engineering at SharkNinja was catapulted to the limelight after appearing on “Love Is Blind,” the reality TV series set this season in Boston.
He’s taking this newfound fame in stride, navigating debate on his public figure doppelgänger and the lessons he learned from the show where singles date and get engaged before ever meeting face-to-face.
“It’s definitely a shock watching yourself for the first time,” Stewart told Northeastern Global News. “I would say the whole experience was unexpected.”
To learn whether love is really blind, participants date each other from their own cozy, secluded octagonal rooms called “pods.” As they narrow down their connections, they either leave the show single or get engaged – and potentially married.
It’s been over a year since skincare brand founder Jax Guelli ended her engagement to Stewart after meeting in person. He’s reliving the experience as the show airs on Netflix, leading up to the reunion on Nov. 8.
“It’s actually been super positive overall,” he said about life after the pods. “Obviously, you’re going to have your haters and your naysayers, but very broadly, everybody’s kind of been in on the joke. Everyone had a lot of fun watching it. And the people who didn’t take it the most seriously, I think they’re the people who had the best time watching it.”
We asked Stewart about that “Mitt Romney” comment, his time at Northeastern and whether he still wants to get married. Here are his answers, edited for length and clarity.
You say that you’ve never been in love. What interested you in applying to the show?
Drake Carmody, a friend who was on the Charlotte season of “Love Is Blind,” encouraged Stewart to apply when he learned a new season was set in Boston.
“He didn’t get virtually any airtime,” Stewart said. “But he had a great time in the experience, loved it, made some great friends with the guys and the girls [who] he still is friends with today,” he said.
Carmody met his current long-term partner from being on the program, according to Stewart.
“I had faith in the process, even if it is far-flung and kind of wild,” he said.
Did your friend give you any advice going into it?
“He may have neglected the most important advice that one could receive on reality TV, which is that sarcasm does not play,” Stewart said. “So for future reference, everybody, please be aware the cameras do not capture humor – or at least, not all types of humor. But he’s been awesome throughout the whole process.”
Your outlook on being a forever bachelor has changed. Are you still ready for marriage?
Stewart said he was still “absolutely committed” to marriage and finding “the one.”
“It didn’t happen yet, but I have no doubt that hopefully soon it will,” he said. “I think everybody wants to be a forever bachelor until their peer group around them stops being bachelors. You see everyone else hit this other phase of life, which is, according to everybody who’s gone through it, way more fulfilling and way better.”
And then the realization dawns that being a bachelor, “has kind of lost its luster,” Stewart added.
You earned the nickname “Kennedy” on the show, but Jax compared you to Mitt Romney, a retired politician who served as governor of Massachusetts and the U.S. Senator from Utah and was the Republican presidential nominee in 2012. What did you think of that comment?
Stewart doesn’t think Jax meant it in a bad way.
“Everything during that proposal is so chaotic and crazy that nothing comes out the way that you intend because everyone’s so stressed and you’re just saying stuff,” he recalled. “Having had the benefit now of talking with her and everything, no, it was never meant to be an insult.”
The online debate of what public figure Stewart looks like is “one of the funniest things that’s come out of it,” he said.
He’s also been compared to Peter Gallagher, who starred in The O.C., the early aughts teen drama about class and culture set in Orange County, California.
“My family thinks it’s hilarious, so they’re sending me all these pictures of him and they’re like, ‘Dude, they got you. This is 100% you,’” Stewart said.
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So, why Northeastern?
“The cliche answer is the co-op program,” Stewart said. But that actually wasn’t his reason.
It’s was Northeastern location and aesthetics.
“Oh my God. This is insane,” he recalled thinking. “It’s an actual campus within the city. It was just a gorgeous, gorgeous facility. And so I think that’s really what sold me more so than anything else.”
That, and academics, “is why it beat out other competitive academic schools for me,” he said.
Why did you study mechanical engineering?
“I was kind of a shoot-from-the-hip. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. And at the time, engineering just seemed like a safe bet and it was something that I was always good at, math and the sciences,” Stewart said.
He said he felt he hit his stride by this third year, once he started doing co-ops and internships.
What did the show teach you?
“Clearly, sincerity matters. And [that] there’s time for jokes and there’s time not for jokes,” Stewart said. “And maybe a proposal is not the best time for jokes.”
He added that “if you say what you believe and feel to be true, no matter how the court of public opinion responds, you can relax knowing you wouldn’t do anything differently. Obviously you can/should evolve and your feelings can change, but you can look back with no regrets.”
Have your views changed on love?
“In some respects, yes, but I don’t think I can talk about it yet because [there] might be some spoilers,” Stewart said.
