The mastermind behind Married at First Sight Australia has come to the show’s defence with claims that producers don’t cause drama between the contestants.
Across the infamous experiment’s nine seasons, a number of questionable things have played out on-screen, including cheating scandals and toxic relationships. Most recently, a baffling nude photo scandal.
The latter has seen controversial bride Olivia Frazer at the centre of intense scrutiny, and the 27-year-old has recently claimed that producers used “manipulation” to dictate her villainous edit. Ah, if we had a dollar for every time we heard that.
Now, Nine Network’s head of content production and development, Adrian Swift, says producers “don’t make things happen”, nor do they cut out things that do happen.
Do MAFS Producers Regret Any Storylines?
Calling on an incident that he preferred hadn’t gone to air, Adrian referenced the moment season seven groom David Cannon cleaned the loo with his “wife” Hayley Vernon‘s toothbrush.
It became such a big conversation piece among the stars, however, that omitting the storyline would have caused confusion for viewers.
“More than anything in the world, we didn’t want to put that to air. We thought it was just stupid and mean and awful and undergraduate, just everything,” the head honcho told Variety Australia at the Screen Forever conference. “But it was so material to all the relationships in that group, that we couldn’t excise it.
“So we’re kind of hoist on our own petard a bit here. We put things to air that we don’t want to go to air, but we certainly don’t believe all publicity is good publicity and we believe that it is absolutely possible to go too far on these shows.” No sh*t, Sherlock.
Nine Network Executive Says Bosses Were “Underwhelmed” With 2022 Cast
At the same conference, Adrian revealed Nine bosses were “underwhelmed” by this year’s crop of contestants prior to filming.
He dished: “This season we were actually a bit underwhelmed by the cast [to begin with].”
Naturally, the unhinged cast surprised them as the series unfolded, with the exec revealing “it is the best season we have ever had”.
Adrian called on Olivia as an example, calling her “one of the great contentious characters”. Feels a bit ick to refer to the participants as characters, but go off, King.
“We just thought she was the sweetest kid in the world,” he admitted. “How wrong were we?
“But that is the joy of working in television, that is the joy of these shows, you go into it and you don’t know what is going to happen.”
2022 “Villain” Olivia Frazer Calls Out Producers For Manipulation Tactics
Adrian’s comments arise after Olivia revealed she was “blindsided” by her edit during an interview on Mamamia’s No Filter podcast.
Sure, she admitted to finding and distributing Domenica Calarco‘s racy photos. However, the former teaching assistant claimed the scandal was born of producer manipulation and tactful editing.
“The whole storyline looks like I’m out for revenge and a malicious person, and I’m not. I had the dumb luck of being the cast member who was sent the [photo],” she said. “Everybody who was in the room has stuck up for me and said it wasn’t shared maliciously.”
According to Olivia, she “mentioned” the nude pic to her producer “who didn’t think it was a bit deal either”.
“I was just really blindsided by production because they were putting words in my mouth and saying I did it out of revenge,” she said.
“That’s a really serious accusation, and that’s not what happened.”
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