Taniya Nayak walked into the season seven opener of Rock the Block already knowing she would be working alongside Drew Lachey. Seven weeks later in Las Vegas, the interior designer and TV personality says the 49-year-old 98 Degrees musician had become her top pick.
Nayak said she fangirled when she first learned her partner would be Lachey, then apologized to New Kids on the Block after her fandom shifted. “My fandom has shifted towards Drew,” she said. “He’s now my number one. Sorry New Kids!” Lachey laughed, “See what I have to put up with?”
The premiere aired Monday, April 13, at 8 p.m. ET/PT and kicked off a new run of the home-renovation competition, which pairs four teams against one another as they transform four identical properties into Las Vegas homes with a $275,000 budget. This season’s other teams include Brooke Hogan and Scott McGillivray, Vernon Davis and Mina Starsiak Hawk, and Chelsea Meissner and Kim Wolfe.
For both partners, the show became as much about instinct as design. Lachey said he was not into arts and crafts as a kid, but started getting into set design and building things for plays and musicals in high school. Later, after becoming a homeowner and feeling taken advantage of by contractors, he began figuring out home projects on his own. Nayak said she was artsy from childhood, took art and drafting classes, and learned from her architect father, whose ability to make beautiful spaces without much money shaped her own eye.
That mix showed up on screen. Nayak said she is “a really monochromatic person,” raised around clean lines and white walls even though India is “rich and colorful,” while Lachey joked that his style is built around “following Taniya around.” He added that he and his wife, Lea Lachey, usually go with the idea that looks best. Nayak, for her part, said the pair used affordable design choices to create a high-end look, and said Lachey has “such a good eye.” She was also blunt about the turn her fandom took after working with him for seven weeks. “He’s a big deal,” she said. “He’s so talented; not just with 98 Degrees, but with Dancing with the Stars and his other DIY shows.” For a season built on tight budgets and identical houses, the early edge may come from something simpler: who can turn a partner’s instincts into a finished room that looks far more expensive than it is.
