Nick Viall and his wife, Natalie Joy, are co-hosts of the new Netflix dating series, Age of Attraction, which attempts to prove whether or not age actually matters when it comes to finding true love.
The first set of episodes, which dropped on Netflix this week, introduces viewers to a group of sexy singles, ranging from their early 20s to their early 60s. Their goal? Form a connection within the retreat without ever revealing their age to their prospective partners. Only once a commitment is made can the couples share how old they actually are, and decide whether or not they want to move on to the second phase of the experiment together.
Viall and Joy, known from their Viall Files podcast, co-host the series as two people who understand exactly what the contestants are going through. Several years after he failed to find love on The Bachelor, Viall met Joy, who is 18 years his junior — and four years later, they tied the knot. The two now share a daughter, River Rose, born in 2024, and are expecting twin girls later this year.
“People, I think, just want to be supportive,” Viall told DECIDER over a recent Zoom call. “We joked on day one of filming, when we met the cast, we were like, ‘Hi, we’re Nick and Natalie, we have an 18-year age gap.’ And everyone cheered. No one’s ever cheered for us when it comes to that. Sometimes, you just want to feel supported.”
Getting that support, however, if half of the battle, as we will see in the next batch of episodes, in which the contestants introduce their partners to their closest friends and family members. While unorthodox, an age-gape romance isn’t necessarily unheard of. Pop culture has been romanticizing this trope heavily as of late, with movies like Babygirl, The Idea of You, and A Family Affair sparking a lot of conversation over the last couple of years. On the contrary, some social media users have wondered if glorifying age-gap relationships is the most appropriate thing to do given the current social climate.
“Well, everyone is an adult here,” Joy said when we asked about the backlash. “Everyone made the decision to come here and to join in on this. I think, unfortunately, sometimes there are just haters to anything that’s going to happen.”
Viall, for his part, does not think the show “pushes that agenda.” Instead, he said it “explores what it looks like for people to make meaningful connections” based more on commonalities and how they make each other feel than the year they were born.
“I think if they discover that there is an age difference, it’s more about why that doesn’t have to matter and why that doesn’t have to be a negative aspect of your relationship,” he continued. “I think if they discover that there is an age difference, it’s more about why that doesn’t have to matter and why that doesn’t have to be a negative aspect of your relationship.”
He added, “We’re just trying to give people permission to explore things that make them feel good and feel right and feel healthy without having to worry about negative outside voices.”
The first five episodes of Age of Attraction are currently streaming on Netflix.
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