North Texas\u2019 Kelly Clarkson sang her way<\/a> to fame on \u201cAmerican Idol\u201d a year later. Soon after, Dallas-raised Jessica Simpson became a pop-culture phenomenon while navigating celebrity marriage, \u201cNewlyweds: Nick and Jessica,\u201d and that infamous \u201cchicken of the sea\u201d moment.<\/p>\nIn 2002, we named Clarkson the winner of \u201cBest Proof that Talent Scouts Have Been Ignoring the D-FW Area for Too Long\u201d in our annual Best of Dallas issue. So it feels fitting that this year we\u2019re celebrating the best of Dallas through the lens of reality TV \u2014 our food, shopping, sports, music, arts, recreation and culture. Our \u201cDallas Reality,\u201d if you will.<\/p>\n
Over the past two decades, Dallasites have starred in shows ranging from \u201cThe Bachelor\u201d and \u201cBig Brother\u201d to \u201cThe Amazing Race,\u201d \u201cThe Circle,\u201d and \u201cDancing with the Stars.\u201d Mark Cuban, himself a former Best of Dallas winner, went from hosting the short-lived \u201cThe Benefactor\u201d to becoming a fixture on \u201cShark Tank.\u201d Rachel Lindsay and JoJo Fletcher became stars of the Bachelor universe. And, of course, Dallas has supplied plenty of reality-TV settings of its own, from \u201cBig Rich Texas\u201d and \u201cFast N\u2019 Loud\u201d to the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.<\/p>\n
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CLOSE\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Few shows have showcased North Texas more extensively than the third season of Netflix\u2019s \u201cLove Is Blind,\u201d which took its couples beyond the pods and into restaurants, bars, neighborhoods and attractions across the region.<\/p>\n
But reality isn\u2019t confined to television. It continues long after the cameras stop rolling \u2014 especially in Dallas, where many of the \u201cLove Is Blind\u201d Season 3 women still live.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why we\u2019re thrilled to feature cast members from that season on the cover and inside of Best of Dallas 2026. Dallas photographer Kathy Tran took some stunning shots of Raven Ross, Nancy Rodriguez, Alexa Lemieux, Colleen Reed and Zanab Jaffrey. Inside, along with our staff\u2019s picks for the best places and things in town, they\u2019ll tell us what they love most about their Big D reality.<\/p>\n
And really, isn\u2019t that what Best of Dallas has always been about? Check it out here: Dallas Observer\u2019s Best of Dallas 2026. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clockwise from left: From “Love is Blind,” Zanab Jaffrey, Nancy Rodriguez, Colleen Reed and Raven Ross. Photography by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8408,18507,102,104,103,3291],"class_list":["post-445270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-city-guide","tag-cover-story","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-lists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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