MAFS' controversial new casting move causes outrage: 'Lost the plot'

Filming isn’t scheduled to start until later this year, and yet season ten of Married At First Sight has already started to cause quite a stir.

Yahoo Lifestyle can reveal that producers have reached out to several widowers to ask if they’d have any interest in applying for the controversial reality TV show, with some having only recently lost their partners.

Melissa, whose bereaved friend was approached, says: “They are looking for a widow and literally messaging all the ladies that she knows that have and are going through this trauma and some are very recent.”

The woman added that the show has “lost the plot”.

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It is not uncommon for casting producers on shows such as MAFS to reach out to people on social media who they feel have a certain appearance or story and directly invite them to apply for the program.

Scouts will often take to the streets in places like Bondi and personally approach people they feel “have the right look” for the show.

A Channel Nine spokesperson has since denied the claims, telling Daily Mail: “The casting of the next season of MAFS is not targeting those who have recently lost their partner.”

Other major changes

Adrian Swift, Nine’s Head of Content Production & Development, recently spoke with Herald Sun about the upcoming season and teased that the show’s sexologist Alessandra Rampolla will have a much larger role in 2023.

“We will get Alessandra a bit more involved in the sexuality part of it,” he said. “What we have always found is a complete bellwether for how a relationship [on MAFS] is going is how sexually they are getting on.

“And that getting on might be sexual tension, which is good, it might be sexual resolution, which is good, or it might be, and this often happens, sexual resolution and then nothing.”

He also teased that the show will introduce “four or five” new challenges that have been designed for the newlyweds to reveal more about themselves and their interest in one another.

Filming is expected to kick off in early August, with experts Mel Schilling and John Aiken returning for the new season alongside recent Logie nominee Alessandra.

Celebrity MAFS

The news comes shortly after Yahoo Lifestyle spoke with John Aiken on the red carpet for the Logie Awards, where he shut down speculation that season ten of MAFS will feature a star-studded cast.

“I don’t think we need to go down the path of Celebrity MAFS,” he said.

"I think we just keep 2023 with essentially the same ingredients: Singles looking for love trying their best to fall in love.”

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