In this day and age, it’s common knowledge that a lot of contestants who appear on reality shows are scouted by producers – and MAFS is no exception.
It’s previously been revealed that Mitch Eynaud from season nine, and Jake Edwards, Jessika Power and Booka Nile from season eight were all contacted by producers and asked to star in the popular reality show.
During an appearance on Nova’s Nathan, Nat and Shaun radio show this morning, the show’s ‘relationship expert’ John Aiken was asked why participants are scouted, and whether that means that they may not be ready for a committed relationship.
“Shouldn’t this be something for people that actually want to find love? Not something that someone gets contacted because their Instagram is quite good or they might be friends with someone and then go, ‘oh wait, why not?’ Shouldn’t it be a real genuine want?” Nathan asked Aiken.
The MAFS expert explained that producers sometimes scout for contestants because they haven’t come across the right match for someone in the applications.
“I’ll be honest about that sometimes when we’re thinking about the cast, we need to get more diversity. We might no have people from a different culture or age group, you know, it’s harder to get older people on the show.
“We’re trying to get as big a pool as we can and also what’s very difficult for us at times is that we’ll have a great match. And then before the show starts, they’ll fall in love with someone and they drop out. So all of a sudden, we’re scrambling to find a match,” he added.
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The new season of Married at First Sight will premiere on Monday, January 30 on Channel 9 and 9Now. So far, two trailers have dropped for the popular reality show.
In the first, a blonde man waits at the altar as his brunette bride walks down the aisle. When they come together the cameras show them turning from black and white into colour. In the second, various brides and grooms from the upcoming season are shown, and one woman tells her groom shes not there “to fuck spiders”.
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