Married At First Sight Australia loves the classic ‘villain’ edit, from Bryce Ruthven, Andrew Jones, Davina Rankin to Olivia Frazer. However, the ‘villain edit’ was shared among the contestants for 2023, targeting Harrison Boon, Alyssa Barmonda, Adam Seed, Tayla Winter and Cameron Woods.
As the contestants have regained access to their social media accounts and essentially their freedom to speak their truth, they have dropped some major truth bombs regarding the “manipulated” edits.
Melinda believed she would be the MAFS 2023 villain.
(Image: Nine)When Melinda got ‘married’ to Layton, she said some interesting things including that her new ‘husband’ was “punching”. As a result she received a lot of backlash from MAFS fans and now the CEO has come forward about her controversial edit.
“I was like, ‘Holy s–t, I’m the villain. How am I the villain?’,” she said during an Instagram Q&A. “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.”
After watching the episode, Melinda felt “so down” she cancelled her work appointments and meetings for the following day. But the biggest reason Melinda was so upset by the edit was because she was hoping for a touching memory of their ‘wedding day’. Now she never wants to watch it ever again.
“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 said.
“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. This makes me sick to my gut and I felt so s–t watching that.”
“I thought I was going to get a good edit.”
(Image: Nine)Speaking with The Daily Telegraph, Tayla gave details as to how MAFS producers edit scenes to make the brides and grooms look “unfavourable.”
“You prepare yourself for an unfavourable edit, however you still think you’re somewhat in control of how you’re portrayed,” she said.
“Personally, I thought I was going to get a good edit. When 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.”
The young bride who fled the country to escape her villain edit categorised her experience on the show as “unethical” and “traumatic.”
“It’s hard to explain to people what happens behind the scenes. If I knew what I do now, I would never have gone through with it,” she told the publication.
Alyssa has received backlash online.
(Image: Instagram)Meanwhile MAFS fans will always 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.
Alyssa received intense backlash online from MAFS fans for how she treated her former ‘husband’ Duncan – who is now dating Evelyn Ellis – but her edit was allegedly heavily “manipulated.”
Numerous co-stars from MAFS 2023 have spoken to Yahoo Lifestyle defending the young mum, stating she was nothing like she was edited to seem.
An anonymous cast member said: “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.”
During a Q&A Instagram, Lyndall Grace said everyone loved Alyssa and she “probably couldn’t name one person that didn’t.”
Mel and Alyssa remain close.
(Image: Instagram)But she wasn’t the only one to debunk her bad edit.
Ollie Skelton – who recently revealed why he and Tahnee didn’t receive as much screen time – and Rupert Budgen confessed Alyssa was “blindsided” by her edit.
During a Instagram Q&A, Jesse 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 bed, the hero’s aren’t that perfect either. Myself included.”
According to Jesse, there were a lot of scenes that were edited out of the show that he wished fans got to experience.
Such moments included his and Claire’s first fight on their honeymoon, the argument between Dan and Sandy at the reunion, Ollie and Claire’s fight at a dinner party and “Hugo starting s— with me at reunion.”
Jesse also confessed he was encouraged by production to “stay in the game” and forgive Claire following the cheating scandal.
However the former groom did admit he had nothing “positive to say about MAFS.”
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