MAFS fans divided over Ellie and Jono's reunion hard launch: 'Rude and nasty'

The MAFS reunion got off to an explosive start on Sunday night as Jono McCullough and Ellie Dix walked into the dinner party hand in hand and gloating about their happiness, leaving Jono's former bride Lauren Dunn feeling blindsided and hurt.

While the 'secret' couple swap has been common knowledge for most of the season, fans still eagerly tuned into the first part of the reunion to see how the relationship came to be and how the rest of the cast - particularly Lauren and Ellie's former husband Ben Walters - would react to the unexpected pairing.

In news that surprised precisely no one, the dinner party quickly got intense as Lucinda pointed out that while she was happy for Ellie and Jono, Lauren's feelings still needed to be honoured. What followed was a slinging match for the ages as Jono insisted that Lauren was crying crocodile tears and that he owed her nothing after being treated poorly by her during the experiment.

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'What a horrible couple'

But what fans found most shocking, it would seem, was the transformation of the usually sweet Ellie, appearing to act insensitively and even going so far as to call Lauren a b**ch.

Taking to Twitter, viewers shared their disgust at what they saw of Ellie and Jono's behaviour, musing that perhaps the pair were a match made in heaven thanks to the nastiness they displayed.

"Who would think that Ellie would end up being the season's villain???," one viewer wrote.

Another wrote, "Lauren had a lucky escape Ellie and Jono are made for each other, two fake gaslighters."

"Congratulations, you've revealed your true self. You and Jono are the perfect match; insensitive, nasty, uncaring, and completely lacking in self-awareness. What a horrible couple," someone else said.

'Astonished me'

The relationship between Ellie and Jono comes after it was revealed during the experiment that the pair had been texting each other a fair bit while Jono was still "married" to Lauren.

"I didn't think this was an issue, you snatched my phone off me and pretended like the messages to Ellie were flirty," Jono said during final vows. "They were not. Seeing you so willing to lie like that, to make me look bad, astonished me."

"It was brought to my attention that you were continuing to build some sort of relationship with another bride, one that you hid from me, then had the audacity to blame me for when you were exposed," Lauren retorted. "Instead of taking accountability at the final dinner party, you then chose to flip the script on me, blame me for not caring, never liking you, and not being here for the right reasons."

'Rude and nasty'

Over on Twitter, there was anger at the couple's behaviour toward Lauren with more people chiming in that they felt Jono and Ellie's actions were way out of line.

"Ellie is a real nasty piece of work. She’s so smug and insensitive because ultimately she thinks she’s a better woman than Lauren. This level of pick me is dangerous," someone said.

"Ellie and Jono are terrible, terrible people," another offered.

Yet another wrote, "Jono and Ellie are so disgusting. No empathy, no remorse. Rude and nasty."

Ben weighs in 'Nailed it'

In a savage turn of events, Ellie's ex-husband, Ben Walters, also shared his distaste at his former bride's behaviour, responding to a fan on Instagram.

"Newfound respect for Ben," the viewer wrote on a video of the fiery dinner party. "How did you manage to only fill 4 sheets of paper with things you didn’t like about Ellie and her one brain cell."

In response, Ben simply wrote, 'Nailed it.'

'Genuinely surprised'

Of course, there were also people who defended the new couple, with one person sharing in a MAFS Facebook group that they were "genuinely surprised" by the backlash.

"It seems I'm in the minority here, but I'm genuinely surprised by the negative comments directed at Ellie and [Jono], especially considering the history of selective editing by MAFS producers," the fan wrote.

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"I don't believe Ellie and [Jono] are bad people. Judging their characters based on edited footage, especially after conflicts with producers, feels like people are failing to see the bigger picture.

Remember, what we see on TV is not the whole truth. Ellie, [Jono], and others are real people with feelings. Let's be cautious about believing everything we see and remember to consider that they are real human beings."

The fan concluded their post by sharing something Lauren has said: “Honestly I could not be happier that they found love because Jono and I weren’t in love.”

The post generated hundreds of comments - many of which shared the OP's view that Ellie and Jono were not bad people, but simply got a bad edit.

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