'You were sold a dream... but it was such a f***ed up experience. I would never do it again.' As Married At First Sight continues to be dogged by rape allegations, one victim insists 'the show cannot go on'

On a cold February weekend in 2024, hundreds of excited families readied themselves for an immersive ‘Willy Wonka experience’ in .

At £35 a ticket, parents had been promised an ‘Enchanted Garden’, a ‘Twilight tunnel’ and a ‘place where chocolate dreams become reality’.

But what awaited them was a nightmare – a sparsely decorated warehouse, AI-written scripts and screaming children.

‘That is exactly how I would describe what going on Married At First Sight was like,’ a bride on the reality show, who we shall call Jane, told me in a bombshell interview this week. ‘You were sold a dream that you would be paired with someone you are really compatible with, someone who is great for you. But it felt like they give you the complete opposite just to make television.

‘It’s cruel and, as we’ve come to learn, dangerous.’

Billed as a ‘bold social experiment’, Married At First Sight (MAFS) sees single contestants matched up by relationship experts to their perfect match before ‘marrying’ their total strangers after meeting for the first time at their mock weddings. And these revelations come at a dark time for the dating show, after three former MAFS brides came forward last month with serious allegations of sexual misconduct by their on-screen partners during filming. 

Two women alleged they were raped, while a third accused her ‘husband’ of non-consensual sexual misconduct – the men have denied these claims – and all three brides blame the show for not protecting them. They feel they should have been better protected after raising red flags – such as physical bruising and violent threats – to the show’s production team, CPL, alleging they were not immediately pulled from abusive relationships.

Indeed, Jane lifted the lid on her ‘terrible’ three-month ordeal in which contestants were ‘treated like prisoners’ with intense monitoring from ‘vile’ producers and left ‘traumatised’, seeking therapy for a year afterwards.

While Jane was not sexually assaulted by her partner, she painted a picture of employees of CPL Productions as ‘little kids in a store, with zero consequences and given such free rein by executives to do whatever they want’.

When asked about her fellow cast member’s alleged sexual assaults, she simply said: ‘It is no surprise to me that sort of thing took place.

‘They’re a rule unto themselves, simply there to play with your life and make good television at your expense - they do not care about you.’

MAFS first launched on Channel 4 over a decade ago – but since the rape allegations emerged, all previous episodes have been pulled, the tourism firm Tui has dropped sponsorship and the show’s future hangs in the balance, with many calling for it to be axed entirely – including Jane.

‘If the show somehow continues and they release the next season, I will put my whole life savings that the contestants will be coming out and saying that they were emotionally abused. It’s the same thing, just different people – on repeat,’ she said.

‘Just don’t do it. It’s not worth it. Until you’ve experienced it, you won’t know how f***ing crazy it is.’

Jane claims some producers would manufacture rows. Even if a couple had a raging argument, she said, production staff encouraged them to stay in the same room at night. 

‘They would say, “We don’t have enough rooms”,' she told me. ‘You had to go stay with another couple if you were desperate for a moment away from your partner.’ A source close to the show has denied any suggestion that the couples were forced to stay the night together. 

Jane also said the MAFS vetting process feels like an illusion. Thousands of Brits apply for the show every year, and those who are chosen must undergo months of screenings from producers, who pledge it is all in the name of finding them their ‘perfect partner’.

‘We spoke about my private personal experiences with my ex-boyfriends, red flags, green flags, they asked my family and seemed really attentive,' the former contestant said.

Candidates also undergo deep psychological evaluations, background checks and showrunners even interview their ex-partners to gauge their readiness for marriage.

In the end, Jane said, it felt like the rigorous interviews were futile.

‘You’re not given what was promised to you for months on end, and then they question you when you say you don’t like your partner, asking “Why? Why don’t you [like them]?” – when they’re everything you said you didn’t want.

‘Some people are a bit luckier because they might find their partner attractive, but that’s it. No one is well-matched. There have only been three successful couples in the entire history of Married At First Sight, which speaks for itself.’

The source close to the show, again, denied this claim.

Even the wedding ceremonies themselves, Jane continued, are often not what the contestants asked for.

And after the wedding reception, couples are driven back to their hotels separately – simply because producers don’t want them getting to know each other off camera. This approach, Jane said, is a running theme throughout the entire three-month filming process.

‘People don’t know the extent to which you are monitored,’ she said.

Participants’ phones are taken away and they are given temporary devices, which are limited to texting other participants or show bosses.

‘You cannot call home. If you try, the producers get alerted,’ Jane said. ‘And when you put your phone down on the table and go to film a dinner scene or something, they will be looking for drama.

‘The phones also allow them to listen back to your phone calls. They can access deleted texts or images: anything you do on that phone, they can get to so they don’t miss a beat. That goes on for three months, you have no privacy.’

She further revealed contestants are not allowed to call home, unless they have children or a sick relative. If you do [make a call] on special allowances, a member of the welfare team will sit in on the call.

Jane explained: ‘It’s to make sure you aren’t spoiling anything or regulating your emotions by having a rant. If you do, you will either be stopped or they will be feeding everything back to production.’