All the compelling evidence that Married at First Sight UK 2023 is staged

During Married at First Sight UK 2023, there have been a fair share of moments leaving people questioning if the show is staged. This season more than any before, it feels as though the MAFS cast themselves are talking about “the edit” and there have been a few points which have felt definitely less than authentic.

From huge editing errors, to the cast outright calling out production “setting up” scenes, here’s a rundown of all the evidence Married at First Sight UK 2023 has been staged. Strap in!

The beef with Erica and Tasha was edited in

Tasha has been one of the cast members from Married at First Sight UK 2023 who’s the most hot on pointing out when things are staged, or at least not as real as they might seem. There was one point that got her particularly rilled up, and she seemed to suggest the beef with her and Erica was actually edited in.

During a dinner party, Erica made a toast to the group. Erica thanked everyone in the group who had made herself and Jordan feel welcome and said “you know who you are”. Just as she said this, it cut to a clip of Tasha seemingly rolling her eyes. Erica was also seen saying she wanted “good vibes only” from the evening, and again, the camera showed a less than impressed looking Tasha.

However, Tasha has pointed out she wasn’t even at the dinner party when Erica made her speech. Yep, really! Speaking on her Instagram story, Tasha said: “Before anyone tries Me and Paul were not even there for the first half of this dinner party if you look closely we were not there for Erica’s toast. So the shots were of me at another point of the dinner party.”

Loads of the cast themselves have said the show is edited to make things look worse than they are

You know it’s bad when the cast members themselves have been calling out the show, and this year the MAFS lot really have.

Nathanial claimed MAFS participants were fed scripted lines, and called the show a “complete sham”. Tasha has also called out more editing errors, Matt said his personality was “edited” by the show, and Shona and Brad both spoke out about important parts of their story not making the final narrative.

People said the scene where Ella texted JJ was majorly staged

Remember back when Ella was still with Nathanial, and she was texting to meet up with JJ? Yeah, and she sent that bizarre text off a Nokia brick asking JJ to meet up? Well, as you’d expect, everyone called that scene majorly set up. “Talk about staged,” one person in a Facebook group said at the time.

It wasn’t exactly the most natural of things, Ella happening to text JJ off the phone producers gave her, whilst there was a camera over he shoulder. Hmmm.

A previous cast member said the producers push for cheating scandals

We were all hugely shocked when the Ella and JJ cheating scandal played out, but a previous cast member has said the producers of the show use “sly tricks” to make sure these scandals happen.

“Having been on MAFS, I know that the producers will be egging on the cheating in the background – although, obviously, the two parties involved have to be willing to do it,” Amy Christophers said.

She said producers will ask contestants in the sign-up process if they’ve ever cheated before, and if they have will throw someone else into the cast who matches their usual “type”, but be sure to match them with someone else.

Amy added: “During the audition process, they’ll usually ask if you’ve cheated before, and if you were to say something like, ‘If I like somebody else, I don’t care whose toes I step on, I’ll get them,’ I reckon producers give another contestant your ideal type, knowing it could cause fireworks.”

Luke said producers ‘set up’ the fight between him and Jordan

Luke and Jordan got into a fight, which ended in Luke being kicked off the show, and Jay had to leave too. But after all the drama aired, Luke claimed he had production in his ear the whole time.

He said the fight was “set up”, with people working behind the scenes to encourage him to go around to Jordan’s apartment and kick off. He said he never planned to go around to see Jordan, but was told to.

Speaking on Jordan Brook’s Into The Barbershop podcast, Luke said: “I can’t say too much because I don’t want to tarnish… but certain people going in my ear ‘look, you’re not going to look like a real man if you’re going to let someone get away with upsetting your missus on TV’ and all that. They was in my ear saying that sort of stuff, so I was getting f***ing p***ed off.

“They were like ‘come and see Jordan’, so obviously I assumed Jordan knew there was a camera crew coming down with me. So I went down there. I was at this point fuming, so I was like ‘bang, bang, bang’ on his door. Jordan opens the door, I’m fuming. This man has made my wife cry and tried to ruin my relationship. Even though I was at his door, I was told to go to his door, I hadn’t planned to go there.”

Peggy literally touched her curling tong… she definitely wasn’t getting ready in this scene

Ok, how did none of us notice that Peggy literally touched her burning hot curling tong when she was supposedly getting ready?! You can tell she’s not using it, and it’s not even switched on. This conversation was clearly just made to look like it took place as she and Georges’ got ready for the dinner party together.

Loads of the cast members were scouted

Ok call me old school, but I think if cast members were scouted for a dating show, they’re not in it for the process. Ahead of being approached, they didn’t have an interest in getting married at first sight, or they would have applied!

This year, a number of the cast members were cherry-picked by a casting team, so probably chosen in order to make better TV.

For all the latest MAFS news, scandals, gossip and updates – like The Holy Church of MAFS on Facebook. 

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• A breakdown of who in the MAFS UK 2023 cast was scouted, and who applied for the show