‘Love Is Blind’ contestant Alex Henderson changes his name and the story behind it is surprising
Love might be blind, but viewers? Oh, they see everything. Especially when a name change pops up out of nowhere. Season 10 of ‘Love Is Blind’ has officially parked itself in Ohio, where a fresh batch of singles signed up to fall head over heels for voices coming through a wall. Among the couples who walked out of the pods engaged were Alex Henderson and Ashley Carpenter. Alex didn’t hold back about his past while forming a bond with Ashley. Early on, he shared that he once had a promising career in professional soccer before an injury knocked him off the field for good.
Ashley listened closely. She asked thoughtful questions. When they left the pods engaged, it felt like they had already covered some heavy ground. But outside the pods, real life waits. As the episodes rolled on, Ashley met Alex’s family, including his mother, and their conversation left her with more than a few raised eyebrows. She even asked about his dating history. And what she got was a backstory that included something many viewers hadn’t expected: Alex once went by a different last name. Cue the internet doing what it does best: finding out.
About a month before the season dropped on Netflix, Alex sat down with his mother on his podcast, ‘Play Life Beautifully’, and opened up about his childhood in a way that now feels especially relevant. During that chat, he explained that his mother became pregnant with him unexpectedly. She briefly considered adoption before deciding to raise him herself. Later, she married a man who would become Alex’s stepfather. According to Alex, that relationship wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. His mother’s marriage lasted 19 years, and during that time, his stepfather legally adopted him. With the adoption came a court-approved name change.
His mother recalled on the podcast, “That’s when you became Alec Ferrell,” and it was done to formalize the process. For a while, that was the name he carried. But as he grew older, he made a decision that clearly meant a lot to him. He chose to return to the name he was given at birth. On the podcast, he explained that “It’s more important for me. It’s not even about reclaiming Henderson for my biological father’s last name. It’s, ‘Hey, this is what I was born as, this is what I want to build my name off of, I don’t want the Ferrell name attached to me. I don’t want something I changed into, I want to reclaim what I had’.”
Ashley met Alex’s mother in Episodes 7 and 9, including the installment titled ‘I’m Just Being Honest’. His mom had just returned from Arizona and brought her own personality into the mix. At one point, she even apologized to Ashley for passing down her love of travel to her son. Ashley seemed to walk away from that meeting with more questions than answers. Now everything hinges on the finale. Will Ashley feel fully confident walking down the aisle? Will Alex’s past feel settled enough for both of them to step into a shared future?
