# Chained by Her Love
**Chained by Her Love** is a 2025 American vertical drama, a short-form series made for smartphone viewing in portrait format, consisting of 62 episodes produced by AMO Pictures and MyDrama and released on the My Drama app on August 6, 2025.[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/) It is a dark LGBTQ romance and psychological thriller about Leslie Ferrer, a young woman who takes an assistant job at a fashion house to pay for her sick mother's care and becomes entangled with the company's CEO, Margaret Akroyd, in a relationship of seduction, control, and dangerous secrets.[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Format | Vertical (9:16) short drama, 62 episodes in one season[2](https://verticalvault.app/dramas/chained-by-her-love-VV-26597) |
| Release | August 6, 2025 (United States), on the My Drama app[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/) |
| Production | AMO Pictures and MyDrama; distributed worldwide in 2025 by MyDrama and Holywater[3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/companycredits/) |
| Leads | Anastasiya Ivanyuk as Leslie Ferrer; Li Berlinskaya as Margaret Akroyd[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/) |
| Genres | Dark romance, erotic thriller, psychological drama, workplace drama[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/) |
| Audience rating | 7.8/10 on IMDb from about 1,800 votes[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/) |
| Marketing scale | Ranked first among homegrown micro-dramas by advertising volume in 2025, with about 270,000 ads[4](https://sp2cdn-idea-global.zingfront.com/report-preview/2026/SocialPeta-x-Amo-Pictures-%7C-Insight-into-Global-Micro-Drama-App-Marketing-for-2026.pdf) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Leslie Ferrer needs money to save her sick mother and accepts a job as an assistant to Margaret Akroyd, the powerful CEO of a lingerie and fashion company.[2](https://verticalvault.app/dramas/chained-by-her-love-VV-26597) Margaret imposes strict rules while hiding her own desires, and what begins as a professional arrangement shifts when Leslie signs a document that changes the power balance between them.[5](https://melolo.com/guides/chained-by-her-love-review) The story follows Leslie through psychological games, seduction, and a blurred line between her own free will and Margaret's need for control; the series' signature safe word, "Broccoli", functions as a boundary Leslie can invoke to reclaim herself.[5](https://melolo.com/guides/chained-by-her-love-review)
Around this central relationship the show runs a thriller plot inside the fashion house: sabotaged fashion shows, corporate espionage, kidnapping, poisoning, and betrayal escalate the stakes as the series progresses.[5](https://melolo.com/guides/chained-by-her-love-review)
### Cast and characters
- **Anastasiya Ivanyuk** as Leslie Ferrer, the assistant whose conflict between love, fear, and independence drives the story[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/)
- **Li Berlinskaya** as Margaret Akroyd, the controlling CEO[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/)
- **Aleksandr Rudko** as Chester Akroyd, Margaret's husband and co-owner of the fashion house, a designer with hidden motives[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/) • [5](https://melolo.com/guides/chained-by-her-love-review)
- **Kseniia Komkova** as Karen Stevenson[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/)
- **Daria Volkova** as Nikki, Leslie's best friend[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/)
The credited crew includes video editor Bohdan Yanovych and casting director Karina Mikholat.[2](https://verticalvault.app/dramas/chained-by-her-love-VV-26597)
## Release and distribution
The series premiered on My Drama, the vertical-drama app operated by Holywater, on August 6, 2025, with MyDrama and Holywater listed as worldwide video distributors.[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/) • [3](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/companycredits/) Access follows the standard micro-drama model: the first 17 episodes were listed as free on the web version, with episodes 18 through 62 requiring an unlock, and one catalog lists the US price at 99 coins per episode.[6](https://spicyaidrama.com/drama/chained-by-her-love) • [2](https://verticalvault.app/dramas/chained-by-her-love-VV-26597) IMDb records dialogue tracks in English, Spanish, French, Japanese, and German.[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/)
HOLYWATER TECH, the company behind the app, reported that the series had surpassed 15 million views and later announced a strategic content deal with AMO Pictures naming *Chained by Her Love* among the hits of their vertical-first pipeline.[7](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/holywatertech_chained-by-her-love-screening-highlights-activity-7384961157234851846-yNk7) • [8](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/holywater_weve-signed-a-strategic-content-deal-with-activity-7396623600277172224-siwn)
## Reception and promotion
The series reached a Top-2 chart position in August 2025 and was promoted with a large paid campaign across TikTok and Instagram.[9](https://www.real-reel.com/chained-by-her-love-review/) In the SocialPeta ranking of 2025 micro-dramas by advertising volume, it placed first among homegrown dramas with about 270,000 ads, ahead of *[I Became My CEO's Darkest Secret](https://www.edgepedia.org/i-became-my-ceos-darkest-secret)* at 250,000.[4](https://sp2cdn-idea-global.zingfront.com/report-preview/2026/SocialPeta-x-Amo-Pictures-%7C-Insight-into-Global-Micro-Drama-App-Marketing-for-2026.pdf)
Audience ratings differ by platform: IMDb shows 7.8/10 from about 1,800 votes,[1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/) while a Melolo review cites an 8.2 IMDb rating.[5](https://melolo.com/guides/chained-by-her-love-review) Critical takes split along the same line as the format itself. The Real Reel review, written from a distribution-analysis angle, called the show a near beat-for-beat gender-flip of the earlier My Drama hit *Spark Me Tenderly*, with the same interview-kiss opening and a family emergency that forces the heroine into a bad deal, and rated it 6/10, arguing that paid spend and clip-ready hooks drove its chart run more than story logic.[9](https://www.real-reel.com/chained-by-her-love-review/) The Melolo review instead praised the series for keeping Leslie's interiority central, writing Margaret as a three-dimensional character whose controlling behavior has consequences, and for weaving thriller elements through the romance.[5](https://melolo.com/guides/chained-by-her-love-review)
## Context in vertical drama
*Chained by Her Love* is an example of the 2025 wave of English-language vertical dramas produced for apps like My Drama, where episodes of a minute or so are built around cliffhangers and paid social advertising.[9](https://www.real-reel.com/chained-by-her-love-review/) It was among the first prominent sapphic titles in that market; viewers on drama forums repeatedly cite it as one of the notable LGBTQ vertical dramas on My Drama, and the platform's own help-center series list includes it alongside titles such as *Spark Me Tenderly* and *He is My Target*.[10](https://intercom.help/mydrama_helpcenter/es/articles/14754130-resumen-de-nuestras-series) TheTVDB dates the first episode's airing to December 15, 2025, later than the August app release recorded by IMDb, a difference that reflects the gap between app rollout and catalog listing dates.[11](https://thetvdb.com/series/chained-by-her-love/allseasons/official) • [1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/)
## References
1. [Chained by Her Love (TV Mini Series 2025), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/)
2. [Chained by Her Love Cast & Where to Watch, VerticalVault](https://verticalvault.app/dramas/chained-by-her-love-VV-26597)
3. [Chained by Her Love, Company credits, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38933883/companycredits/)
4. [SocialPeta x AMO Pictures: Insight into Global Micro-Drama App Marketing for 2026](https://sp2cdn-idea-global.zingfront.com/report-preview/2026/SocialPeta-x-Amo-Pictures-%7C-Insight-into-Global-Micro-Drama-App-Marketing-for-2026.pdf)
5. [Chained by Her Love Review: Dark Short Drama, Melolo Guide](https://melolo.com/guides/chained-by-her-love-review)
6. [Chained By Her Love Episodes & Official Watch Guide, Spicy AI Drama](https://spicyaidrama.com/drama/chained-by-her-love)
7. [HOLYWATER TECH post on Chained by Her Love screening, LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/holywatertech_chained-by-her-love-screening-highlights-activity-7384961157234851846-yNk7)
8. [HOLYWATER TECH post on the AMO Pictures content deal, LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/holywater_weve-signed-a-strategic-content-deal-with-activity-7396623600277172224-siwn)
9. [Vertical Drama Review: CHAINED BY HER LOVE, Real Reel (September 3, 2025)](https://www.real-reel.com/chained-by-her-love-review/)
10. [Resumen de nuestras series, My Drama Help Center](https://intercom.help/mydrama_helpcenter/es/articles/14754130-resumen-de-nuestras-series)
11. [Chained By Her Love, Aired Order, TheTVDB](https://thetvdb.com/series/chained-by-her-love/allseasons/official)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Comedy, drama, and general-genre web series › Premiered 2022 to 2026*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license