Many Married At First Sight contestants have spoken out about the harsh realities of the reality dating show, but now season seven’s Vanessa Romito has shared a poignant post about what it’s really like behind the scenes.
The former MAFS bride, 31, shared a series of poignant images dressed in a wedding dress with people pulling at her from all angles with words including “hate” “deceit” “gossip” “narcissist” “fame” and “lies” written on their skin.
In one photo, Vanessa stares into the camera lens with a piece of tape over her mouth that reads “I’m fine”.
The final frame of Vanessa’s video montage showed a black screen with the words, “I wasn’t fine at all #realityTV”.
“The harsh truth about reality TV and social media is that there will always be eyes watching you just waiting for you to fail, suck you in with their lies, or hated with their narcissistic ways but the truth is you’re just trying to keep your head above water and hold on to your truth, your reality!” Vanessa wrote in her caption.
“Don’t ever let the people around you tell you how you’re feeling, never say “I’M FINE” when you’re really not, and don’t ever feel too scared to speak out. It takes a long time to recover from something that you weren’t fine with at all.”
The former reality TV contestant finished by saying, “There’s nothing real about reality TV!”
Vanessa and her on-screen husband Chris Nicholls left the show abruptly and during a radio interview on Hit FM’s Get Up With Krysti & Bodge, she shared just how difficult she found filming to be.
“I tend to suffer in silence, so I didn’t tell anyone anything until it got to the absolute boiling point for me,” she said before adding, “Chris and his words absolutely destroyed me.”
In an exclusive chat with WHO, Chris revealed that he and Vanessa were forced to leave MAFS.
“Producers told me they weren’t able to shoot anything more with us because Vanessa threatened the network and made up this stuff about her mental health,” Chris revealed.
“I still can’t figure out whether Nine or MAFS were being delicate because of her mental health excuse or because she was going to take legal action. I think a different side of her came out in the last episode and she was worried about how she was going to be portrayed, so they just kicked us off.”
Despite their disagreements, Chris genuinely believed he would find his perfect match on the show and quickly realised the show was more about drama than finding love.
“I actually believed that through all of the pre-research and questions that they ask and all that stuff, that it was actually aimed at finding someone who was actually suited to me, in terms of love and someone to be with as a partner,” Chris confessed to Daily Mail Australia.
“I’m probably more disappointed in the choice of partner the show gave me, just because of the outcome,” he said. “This is why the show’s so successful. It’s about drama. I don’t believe that they’ve got your best interests at heart.”