With the latest season of Married At First Sight Australia wrapping up, we have a lot of questions on our minds. Like, is the marriage legal? And how successful has this experiment been in the past?
WATCH: MAFS’ Olivia and Domenica get into a heated argument
However, since the stars give up three months of their lives to be in Australia’s largest couples experiment, there’s one question we’re always asking – how much do the Married at First Sight contestants really get paid?
Luckily, recent MAFS groom Jesse has taken to Instagram to reveal the answer to our question!
In a Q&A on his Instagram account, the divisive marriage celebrant revealed that the cast were earning $1,175 a week during filming in Sydney.
But he isn’t the only ex-contestant to spill on the financial details – Nasser Sultan, who is arguably one of season five’s most polarising contestants, was previously asked exactly how much these stars get paid for giving up their lives and appearing on the popular show.
“You get $150 for the day, that’s it,” Nasser told our sister site Now to Love. “But on top of that, you have to pay expenses – your living expenses with the woman that you marry.
“It’s not $150 clear. You still have to pay rent if you’re renting, you’ve gotta pay your rego and it’s 12 hour filming days.”
MAFS season nine star Domenica Calarco also said the pay was just enough to cover your living expenses back home, in an interview on The Kyle & Jackie O Show. The bride revealed it was “pretty close to minimum wage.”
“I feel like the show does get a bad rap, and I’m not getting paid to say that. Because I didn’t get paid enough, to be honest, with what I went through…” she said.
“It’s enough to just cover your rent, your living expenses, kind of thing. Because when you’re living [on the show], all of that is taken care of. You don’t have to pay for anything. It’s pretty much maybe like an average wage I would say.”
According to Nasser, the Married at First Sight contracts state that contestants “get a per diem” or a daily allowance, so they’re not being “paid for work” but receiving money to cover expenses.
“That’s what you live on,” he said.
While this information has already been widely publicised since the show’s inception, some other tidbits that Nasser told Now To Love were pretty surprising.
“None of our groceries were covered,” he said. “They filmed us going shopping and we had to shop at the same grocery store – which was really expensive, but it was out of our own money.”
“Gab and I would sometimes spend up to $70 a day on just living, so we didn’t have much left after that.”
While Nasser felt that $150 a day wasn’t sufficient to cover his living needs, he also expressed the fact that some of the other couples (especially the brides) were receiving more than he was.
“Sarah [Roza] and a few others, like Davina, got more money,” he revealed. “They got $50 more a day. Basically, the more you did for the show, the more you got.”
But it wasn’t only money that some of the brides were getting.
“The girls would message companies on Instagram and ask for free clothes to be sent to them, and so we’d be sitting there and these deliveries would show up.”
“Basically, they were getting everything that they wanted. If they cried, they got counselling, and to stay on the show, they asked for more money. It worked out really well for them,” Nasser claimed.
For those who have full-time jobs, they have to either take annual leave, unpaid holidays or even quit – but you know what they say, the cost of finding true love is priceless.
Of course, it can be a financial burden for contestants, but hopefully the fame and after-show perks (whiter teeth, hair extensions and invitations to events) make it all worth it.
This story previously appeared on our sister site Now To Love.
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