First Dates Australia bartender James Devlin was almost cast as a replacement groom on Married at First Sight Australia 2024.
ICYMI: The same-sex couple on the upcoming season of MAFS almost got canned after the original groom Simon Flocco quit the show.
Now, James has revealed that he was approached to step in as a replacement at the eleventh hour.
During his tell-all in episode 322 of the So Dramatic! podcast, he spilled that producers called him asking if he’d be interested in “going in as an intruder”.
However, after being put on standby, they ended up choosing someone else.
“With what I do on First Dates, finding people love, I didn’t really want to be put on [MAFS] to be a relationship breaker-upper or an intruder,” he told host Megan Pustetto. And fair enough!
First Dates’ James Devlin says he hopes MAFS is ‘sincere’ when depicting gay couples
James also shed some insight on diversity in dating shows.
“I just hope for the sincerity of MAFS,” he said. “They do need the diversity with the sexualities.”
He then explained that the diversity on First Dates was “second to none”.
“We have trans people, gender fluid people, people of all different races and beliefs. And it was really bugging me that throughout the last couple of seasons of MAFS, there was really no major diversity.
“It was all white, blonde and pretty. They need to switch this up to be relatable,” he continued. “So I hope they’ve got it right [this time].” And we do too!
James also expressed that he hoped the depictions of gay males were “normalised”.
“In the UK version, the two gay guys on there were great, but they were more like gay characters,” he explained. “We just want them to be like normal people”. And we hope 2024 is the year we say goodbye to tokenism on TV!
MAFS‘ producers were worried they’d receive backlash for canning the same-sex couple
It was previously reported that MAFS producers had found a replacement groom to marry Michael, who was initially left single after Simon quit the show.
And it seems this decision was strategic because an insider revealed that producers were worried about the backlash they’d receive if they didn’t feature a same-sex couple, especially after talking up the ‘diverse’ cast.
Sources have also revealed that this last-minute shake-up has the potential to make this season one of the best ones yet. And we’ve heard this all before so we’ll believe it when we see it…
Want even more goss? Listen to the So Dramatic! podcast with Megan Pustetto below!
Know something that we don’t? Spill the tea here!
Get the tea first! Follow So Dramatic! on Instagram and tune in on Mondays to get your reality tea fix with the So Dramatic! podcast with Megan Pustetto.
