MAFS EXCLUSIVE: Surprising way producers cast '90%' of the grooms

Married At First Sight’s Ollie Skelton has shared a surprising insight into how a majority of grooms end up being cast on the reality show.

During an appearance on Yahoo Lifestyle’s Behind the Edit podcast, the season 10 groom revealed that most of the male participants are scouted through Instagram rather than applying themselves.

“I'm not 100 per cent sure of this year's cast, but I'd say like 90 per cent of the males in last year's cast were approached,” he shared.

“I think, generally speaking, the guys that they are looking for maybe aren't applying. But I think 90 per cent of the girls applied last year, or something like that.”

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Ollie went on to explain that the way he was “approached” was simply a message from a casting producer on Instagram that said: “Hey, are you single and looking for love?”

“I think the way that the Instagram algorithm works, if [the casting producers] look at a few accounts with like 2000 followers or 3000 followers that are guys between the ages of 20 and 30, the Instagram explore algorithm will be feeding that to all these producers,” he detailed. “So they just scroll that.”

Why Ollie changed his mind about going on MAFS

Although Ollie initially said yes to the Instagram DM - and subsequently fast-tracked the application process and didn’t have to submit a video audition - he quickly changed his mind.

“I didn’t think I was going to get approved, and then when they called me and said, ‘We’ve found you a match’, I was like, ‘Oh s**t’,” he recalled.

“And the realisation of the enormity of it all really sunk in and I actually said no. I sent them this massive email just saying essentially, ‘Thank you for the opportunity, but I can’t really think of a reason as to why I do want to get married’.”

Ollie said he was content with his decision, however, the producers called him the following day and told him about his future match, Tahnee Cook.

“They were like, ‘We don’t want to tell you this but the girl is amazing, the girl is awesome, we really think you’re going to love the girl’,” he shared.

“And then I started to think, well you get to go live in Sydney - I was from Perth - in an apartment, and you’ve got someone that these experts think is your perfect match. Also, you get to be on television, you can watch it with your mates. So I said ‘Hell yeah’ and I was so fortunate with the experience.”

Subscribe to Yahoo Lifestyle's podcast Behind The Edit and listen to the full interview with Ollie Skelton here.

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