Do ‘The Circle’s Contestants Have To Accept Messages?

The only way contestants are able to communicate with each other on The Circle is by sending messages and engaging with each other in group chats. But do The Circle contestants have to accept messages from each other? In real life, no one is forced to accept or respond to someone who slides into their DMs. But there’s a bit more on the line when it comes to The Circle.

In Season 5, Episode 9, Raven comments that she really doesn’t want to accept an incoming message from fellow player Marvin. We see that she does accept his request, however, and they chat for a few minutes. But it begs the question of what the players may or may not be allowed to refuse for the sake of game play.

Lisa Delcampo, who played The Circle in Season 2 as Lance Bass, to whom she is an assistant in real life, shared with Buzzfeed that players can receive a lot or very little messages each day. She shared with the outlet that some days, she chatted with just one or two people. Other days, she explained, she had a handful of conversations.

She didn’t share if there is a hard and fast rule about accepting messages. But she did open up about producers editing out some conversations if they might not be juicy enough to share in an episode.

It does sound like players are expected to accept messages from the other contestants, regardless of whether or not they’re aligned with them or don’t feel like chatting. That’s the whole point of The Circle, after all.

Even if some players might not want to chat with each other on The Circle, the only contact they have with other people is through Circle messages. So in a way, if they’re too picky with who they accept messages from, they might find themselves with no one to talk to and no one to build alliances with as the game progresses.

A big part of The Circle is also getting screen time because of those messages. It’s hard to imagine a player would be featured as much as other contestants if they decided to get a little too choosy with the messages they accepted. And honestly, the drama comes in accepting messages even if they don’t really want to.