Married at First Sight Australia loves the classic ‘villain’ edit, from Bryce Ruthven, Andrew Jones, and Davina Rankin to Olivia Frazer.
In the 2023 season, viewers were given more viewers than ever before, but was all as it seemed?
Married at First Sight Australian fans remember Alyssa Barmonda for her iconic “I have a child” line during the 2023 season, but her co-stars have come forward to reveal it was merely the edit.
WATCH NOW: MAFS groom Ollie Skelton reveals why he didn’t get a lot of air time. Article continues after the video.
Alyssa received intense backlash online from MAFS fans for how she treated her former ‘husband’ Duncan James – who is now dating Evelyn Ellis – but her edit was allegedly heavily “manipulated.”
And she wasn’t the only one…
Numerous co-stars took to their Instagram accounts to defend Alyssa against the onslaught of hate being directed her way on social media, with one anonymous co-star revealing to Yahoo Lifestyle that she was nothing like she was edited to seem.
“We all knew things would be twisted and taken out of context, that’s the risk you take going on a show like MAFS, but they [producers] went too far with Alyssa.”
“It wasn’t fair and she didn’t deserve that.”
But she wasn’t the only one to debunk the bad edit, since the brides and grooms regained access to their personal Instagram accounts all sorts of truth bombs have reared their heads.
In an Instagram Q&A, groom Jesse Burford was asked, “Was Harrison just as bad as the edit he got?” to which he replied: “Of course not. None of the villains were. Not Alyssa, not Dan, not Cam, not Tayla, not Shannon and not Adam,” he wrote.
“In the same way, the villains aren’t that bad, the heroes aren’t that perfect either. Myself included.”
Shortly after Jesse made his comments, bride Tayla Winter gave The Daily Telegraph a detailed breakdown of how producers of the hit reality show “manufactured” scenes.
“You prepare yourself for an unfavourable edit, however, you still think you’re somewhat in control of how you’re portrayed,” she admitted.
“Personally, I thought I was going to get a good edit. When the context is removed, your audio is cut and pasted to create conversations. Your facial expressions and your reactions are something completely different to what actually happened.”
“We were told things like: ‘Could you do a frustrated face? But you could be doing that to say a mouthful of food you disliked, and then it is edited so you’re making that face to a girl walking into a dinner party.”
Just a day later, Tayla made a surprise appearance on Sunrise, making a solemn statement.
“I truly believe someone will end their life over the show one day.”
Fellow bride Alyssa shared this sad sentiment on her Instagram stories; “That’s what really scares me about these shows now, living through it, [people] going into this completely naive, completely ready to be manipulated, completely open-hearted and they’re not going to be okay. It’s happened already in the UK.”
“They [production] will not let you leave. It’s almost like being in an abusive relationship. They will do anything to get you to stay.”
Mere days after Tayla and Alyssa’s heartbreaking admissions, 32-year-old bride Melinda Willis revealed on an Instagram Q&A that she was “so upset” to see how she had been portrayed, specifically at her wedding.
“I was like, ‘Holy s**t, I’m the villain. How am I the villain?'”, she said.
“I was freaking out and I was starting to prepare myself.”
“And then I remember going onto Twitter and there were just thousands of hate [comments]. You guys wanted me off this earth, it was not pleasant. And because I am such a nice, genuine person, it rocked my heart and my soul.”
The fan favourite went on to add that it made her “sick to my gut” watching her and Layton’s wedding episode back.
“I was like if we have children we can show them and I was really looking forward to that really special video, and it wasn’t special and I never want to watch it again,” she admitted sadly.
“I think that’s what rocked me the most. I was pretty hysterical because I was like, that’s the day we met and it’s horrible. I cannot watch this again.”
Aspects of this article originally appeared on our sister site Now to Love.
