Natasha Spencer’s short and not so sweet stint on Married At First Sight ended in disaster when she was booted off the series after a worrying breakdown.
WATCH: Michael Goonan and KC Osborne talk about MAFS airing in America
So it’s little wonder the 27-year-old finance analyst is glad the Coronavirus pandemic has halted production of the controversial dating experiment indefinitely.
“They should just cut their losses and respect the difficult time we’re in, and respect people’s mental health a bit more, and delay the season,” the brunette bride— who suffered an ill-fated married to Mikey Pembroke— told The Daily Telegraph’s Confidential.
Last week, Channel Nine’s head of content, production and development, Adrian Swift, told MediaWeek the reality show has suffered as a result of the government’s strict isolation laws and lockdown policies.
“Married at First Sight will not be able to go ahead like it did last year. It is next year where we think things could be more challenging,” he told the publication.
While we have a long wait until the upcoming season hits out screens, Adrien suggested Nine bosses and MAFS showrunners have used this time to go back to the drawing board and review how the show is made.
“It is all about duty of care, looking after participants. When you are suddenly faced with the possibility of cast and crew getting infected by something it moves the focus away from production and closer to how do you treat the staff and contributors,” he said.
“We probably took the process for granted before. Now we examine the process more and that has been good for us.
He also joked that the strict social distancing laws could be beneficial for the show’s participants seeing as they’re always at each other’s throats.
“To be honest, it might be better that way. If the couples stood 1.5 metres apart they might like each other more,” Adrian said with a laugh. “I expect the show to perhaps change fundamentally next year, but it won’t be about social distance.”
Despite the hype around the latest season of MAFS, the show’s contestants rejoiced when filming wrapped, with Natasha claiming they were “treated like animals”.
“It was f***ing putrid. They sit us on these hard plastic chairs in this dirty tent for hours and refuse to give us any reading material unless you ask. One time, I was wearing a white dress and I left with it literally being black,” Natasha told WHO over the phone.
“It’s not right. I live in a first world country and I’d like to at least sit on a comfortable chair.”
Speaking about filming the final dinner party in a warehouse with no air-conditioning or fans, the outspoken bride said she raged at the producers when they decided to light a fire in the room, leaving many cast members feeling dizzy and unwell.
“It was 40 degrees in an uninsulated warehouse and it was so hot that Chris [Nicholls] got pulled off-set because he had sweated through his whole shirt and needed a dry one,” she revealed, adding she’s still traumatised by what happened behind the scenes. “It was so f***ing hot I split the seam in my $1,000 dress because the beading and silk were literally wet from sweat.”
Mishel Karen also told The Daily Telegraph she “didn’t have any human rights” while filming the controversial dating experiment.
“We were sleep-deprived, we had everything we owned taken from us, we were spoken to like pieces of sh*t,” she revealed.
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