MAFS star calls out the experts' hypocrisy in reunion episode: 'Quite confronting'

Can you believe we are finally at the end of MAFS for 2024? I have to say it’s very bittersweet - what am I going to do with myself now this is over?! This year we’ve had ex-partner dramas, absolutely wild confession letters, cheating scandals, one too many man buns and, of course, gaslighting. It’s been jam-packed with drama this year with a sprinkle of love.

Let’s get straight into the reunion because we have a lot to unpack! The centre of the drama for the dinner party was, of course, the shock entrance from Jono and Ellie who are now a couple.

Rewinding to home stays, we saw it come out that Jono had been texting Ellie and this was properly exposed at the commitment ceremony. I remember so clearly how much Jono was justifying that it was friendly and Ellie wasn’t his type. So it's a bit awks they are now together but I can imagine the two of them really bonded over this situation and I’m sure it brought them closer together.

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Without being biased, I met Jono and Ellie last week and honestly, they were really lovely (as Jono would say) and genuinely kind people. It was such a hard watch seeing the dinner party and the confrontation with them and Lauren. I don’t think things were handled in the best way, however, I do feel we are missing so much context. The arguments just didn’t make much sense to me and they felt super choppy.

A little bit of insight and goss which just puts in perspective how creative the editing can be: When we see the scene of Ellie yelling at Lauren (which was bleeped out) she was actually directing this at Sara - in response to her being accused of her being there for the wrong reasons with the Jono situation. Again, I’m not trying to justify anyone’s behaviour but the way that translated on TV looked so shocking and then knowing what truly happened, it’s wild how things aren’t always as they seem. I’ve always said, it’s not what is shown it’s what isn’t shown that is important.

I feel like we have to have this same conversation each year but all I want to say is please just be kind to this year’s cast. MAFS is such an intense, life-changing experience and these are people’s real lives. Please don’t go sending hate to these people, it’s not needed and honestly is just gross. At the end of the day, it’s a TV show and it’s not that deep.

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I also have to say it was quite interesting to watch the experts criticise Jono and Ellie for heading down the path of falling in love (after 3 weeks together outside the experiment) but the whole time in the experiment there is an expectation of us to be heading in that direction very quickly. Think about it - they throw Intimacy Week at us in week 2 and at each Commitment Ceremony, they ask how we feel about each other. You would have to go into so much detail and it is a lot of pressure - not to mention quite confronting.

We can’t ignore the drama between Sara and Tim. It came out that Tim had shared with people in the group that if he had more time to think about his final vows decision he may have decided something different. This didn’t sit right with Sara and it’s fair enough as this would’ve been so upsetting to hear. Especially after she was saying to everyone how they were in such a good place and so happy.

I didn’t love the way Sara handled herself with this situation, but I can imagine she would’ve been raging at how that was brought up in a group setting and being blindsided by that information. I think the aggression and anger toward Tim was quite difficult to watch and you could see he felt horrible with how this hurt her and wanted to fix things.

We have to give a special mention to Cassandra at the commitment ceremony! Her call out of Sara was just so eloquent but firm. I love how she smiles as she’s saying everything! I’ve said this before but we never saw Cassandra speak up too much but when she does, girl she’s got a lot to say.

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I also had to mention Jack and Tori’s commitment ceremony walkout. Putting myself in their shoes, I think it would’ve been so confronting to watch back all the footage especially with it being lowlights and not really touching on any positives. I probably would’ve walked out too if that was my experience. I think the last thing I want to say about these two is, if Tori has watched back everything said on the show and is still happy to stick by Jack, that’s her decision and if she’s happy I guess we have to let her be.

That brings us to the end of my column for this year. Thank you so much for tuning in each week to read, I hope you’ve enjoyed this as much as I have loved writing it. Until next year!

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