MAFS EXCLUSIVE: The real reason Madeleine and Ash left the show

Married At First Sight's Madeleine Maxwell and Ash Galati abruptly left the experiment at the start of Monday's episode during a bizarre blink-and-you-miss-it scene that has baffled most viewers.

After the intruders' first commitment ceremony, where Ash chose to stay and Madeleine wrote leave, a voiceover simply said that he'd now “had a change of heart and they'd come to an amicable decision to leave”.

Madeleine did not feature in the episode at all with only Ash shown packing his bags, before the show moved on and they were never mentioned again - like the couple never appeared in the first place.

The real reason Madeleine and Ash left MAFS

Yahoo Lifestyle is told that there “was a lot more” behind their exit, but producers “did not want to dramatise it, and felt it was easier to let them go quickly and quietly”.

The insider says: “Madeleine's erratic behaviour had raised quite a few eyebrows during her first week on the show, with no one quite sure if she was acting or it was real. After Ash wrote to stay – she point blank said to producers she refused to carry on with the experiment and was going home.

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“It's not uncommon for participants to threaten to quit like this and no one can be held against their will, with producers then tasked with talking them around to continue with the experiment. Yet with Madeleine, it felt easier to let her go as questions about her state of mind with the pressure of the experiment had already been raised by other cast members and crew. ESA producers [Endemol Shine Australia] will never compromise their duty of care for the sake of content or storylines.”

Their exit mirrors the recent one of Natalie and Collins, after she wrote leave and he wanted to remain on the show another week.

“The rules and premise of the show are irrelevant if they compromise a participant's wellbeing or mental health, and ESA take their duty of care seriously,” a source told us at the time.

“Natalie had already tried to quit at the first dinner party, but was talked into remaining until the first commitment ceremony to ‘see their storyline through’. When it then became apparent she would have to stay another week, bosses stepped in and removed her and Collins from the show as soon as they could wrap it up on camera.”

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