Reality TV Welfare Under Scrutiny After MAFS Claims

A former participant on Married At First Sight Australia has raised serious questions about the welfare protocols governing reality television production, detailing her experience of feeling pressured into intimate scenarios during filming.

Participant reveals production pressure

Speaking to ABC's 7.30, Tahnee Cook, who appeared on the 2023 season of the Nine Network program, said she reached a personal breaking point when producers introduced a partner exchange challenge that required her to stay with another participant's husband for three nights.

This was the first time they did this challenge and the last time I think they did the couple swap, Cook told the program. We had to go stay with another husband for three nights, which was something I did not want to do.

Cook, 27, was paired with Ollie Skelton on the show. She made clear her overall experience was more positive than that of other participants and did not suggest any misconduct by Skelton. However, she argued that the format itself creates conditions that can become problematic.

Given the nature of the show, you do feel the pressure to progress quite quickly in the relationship, whether that is intimacy, whether that is connecting with that person, she said.

Intimacy Week and the question of consent

Three weeks after their televised wedding ceremony, Cook said producers informed the couple they would participate in Intimacy Week, which included a Tantric sex workshop that was never broadcast.

We had to do this awful Tantric sex workshop. I had to lie on the floor, and my husband was putting the feather around me in front of the instructors, the production crew. I hated it. It was really uncomfortable, Cook said.

Participants were also given sex toys and costumes as part of the themed week. Cook said she refused to display the items on camera, describing the approach as misaligned with genuine relationship development.

Her comments come in the wake of a BBC Panorama investigation that aired last month, in which two women alleged they were raped by their on-screen husbands during filming of the UK version of the series. A third woman alleged she was the victim of a non-consensual sex act. The men have denied the allegations.

All episodes of the UK season have since been pulled from broadcast, a decision that has sent shockwaves through the global franchise.

I can see exactly how the situation can, I guess, set up something like that, Cook said of the UK scandal.

Network defends welfare standards

In a statement, a Nine spokesperson said both the broadcaster and production company Endemol Shine Australia take their obligations regarding the health, wellbeing and safety of participants extremely seriously.

No participants are expected to do anything they are not comfortable with, and they retain the right to make their own choices at every stage, the statement read.

The spokesperson said all participants have access to psychological support and welfare resources during and after filming, for as long as needed. Intimacy Week tasks were described as entirely voluntary, ranging from eye contact exercises to planning a date night. Whether a couple's relationship includes sexual intimacy is for them to decide, not the production, the network said.

A franchise facing a reckoning

The MAFS franchise launched in Denmark in 2013 and has since produced more than 35 localised versions worldwide. The Australian edition remains one of the most commercially successful iterations, consistently drawing large audiences for Nine.

The format presents itself as a social experiment, pairing strangers who agree to marry at first meeting. While the vows carry no legal weight, cameras follow the couples through honeymoons, shared living arrangements and counselling sessions.

Cook's intervention adds to a growing body of participant testimony that challenges the adequacy of existing welfare frameworks in unscripted television. She told 7.30 the show's format warrants further review.

I think it sits with the format of the show. I think that just needs to be reviewed a little bit more, she said.