MAFS groom reveals the secret deal he made with producers
Married At First Sight groom Jonethen Musulin has revealed producers were so "desperate" for him to stay on the show before the latest commitment ceremony that they came up with a deal to ensure he'd stay with 'wife' Connie Crayden.
Jonethen claims he made it clear to producers he wanted to leave the experiment, telling New Idea he told them there was "nothing they could do" to keep him in the experiment.
He explained that he wanted to leave to spend time with his father, who'd suffered a stroke.
However, the MAFS star says the producers were clearly stressed because there'd been a mass exodus of contestants, so they made an arrangement with Jonethen to convince him to stay.
He said, "I got the terms of my contract rewritten halfway through."
The new contract allowed him to leave set and visit his family whenever he wanted. Connie apparently didn't mind because it meant they continued on with their relationship.
Fellow MAFS star David Cannon made a similar claim that producers changed his contract to stop him from leaving his 'wife' Hayley Vernon.
Speaking on News.Com.Au's Not Here To Make Friends podcast, David said that while many viewers questioned why he didn't walk away from his relationship with Hayley, he wasn't actually allowed to leave.
Things turned quite toxic between the pair with David putting Hayley's toothbrush into a toilet after finding she'd kissed cast made Michael Goonan.
"[Producers] wouldn’t let me go home," he said.
"You can’t leave... I’m telling you the honest reality of the nightmare that was in there," he explained.
"I begged to go home, they wouldn’t let me. So, I made a deal that I would stay, no matter what Hayley wrote (at the commitment ceremony), I would get to go home.
"They fed me lines of, you know, ‘This relationship is toxic for me, it’s toxic for Hayley, it’s toxic for other couples’ – the truth was that I was on the verge of a mental breakdown.
"I’d been spoken to and treated like a piece of sh*t for seven weeks, so I made a deal with the executive producer that no matter what (Hayley) wrote, I’d get to go home. And they were the terms I agreed to stay."
Before their final commitment ceremony aired, Hayley confirmed David's story during a chat with Fox FM's Fifi, Fev and Byron, “David made a deal with production that no matter what I wrote that they would let him leave,” she said.
Got a story tip or just want to get in touch? Email us at lifestyle.tips@verizonmedia.com.