Source: Radio New Zealand
The Detail’s Amanda Gillies sat down with MAFS expert John Aiken for insight into this season’s highs and lows. RNZ
Former New Zealand cricket star turned Australian love expert John Aiken talks love, scandals and the show that changed reality TV
John Aiken was 15 minutes late for our 15-minute interview to talk about desperate Australian singles chasing their 15 minutes of fame.
A text message from his publicity team explained the problem: he loves to chat, especially about Married at First Sight. And, as a result, he was behind schedule.
Sydney-based Aiken is a relationship expert on the show and is in New Zealand on the publicity trail for the latest season, number 13. But there’s nothing unlucky about this season (unless you are an awkward couple looking for love).
One week in, and the show is already number one in Australia. It now airs in 120 countries, including New Zealand. And here, it’s a ratings hit for Three.
Aiken finally arrived at The Detail studio armed with a chocolate brownie, iced with “I can’t marry you”. He roars with laughter before quickly offering another brownie, this time emblazoned with “Love You”. He has a box of the treats, for each of his interviewers.
A relationship specialist and long-time husband to former New Zealand presenter Kelly Swanson Roe, Aiken loves love.
And that makes him a perfect fit for MAFS, a job he secured after responding to a “random email” that arrived in his inbox at his relationship psychologist practice in 2014, before the start of season one.
Back then, he thought it would be a one-season wonder – four couples took part in the social experiment where they met for the first time at the altar. Just six episodes aired.
“Everybody thought it would be one and done,” Aiken tells The Detail. “I was excited by it, scared by it. But also thinking in the back of my mind, this will be six episodes, and I’ll never see it again.”
But “the show exploded” with audiences quickly falling in love with the unpredictable tears, tantrums, and love drama.
And the now 40-episode show with 12 couples has made Aiken a star in his own right and one of the most recognisable faces in Australia.
But that comes at a cost – last year, he was cornered outside a cafe, filmed, and followed by a podcaster, who told him that the MAFS experts are the “real villains of this show”.
“It’s confronting, because your mind goes into this state of ‘how does someone know where you are?’, and ‘am I being followed?’, you sort of get paranoid, really,” Aiken says.
“And it rattles you a little bit because you are in a state where you feel like you could say something wrong, and you get a ‘gotcha moment’ that could hurt the show or could hurt you. And you are on edge.”
On the show, he’s also had plenty of “moments” with lovelorn contestants who take exception to his straightforward, no-nonsense advice. He’s not afraid to call out toxic behaviour and hold couples accountable for their often-outlandish behaviour.
“During the show, yes, they have had me on, used some colourful language.”
He says this year, audiences have to “brace themselves for a hectic and confronting season”.
“Because we have a group dynamic of very overpowering, domineering women who are going to come for everybody.”
They call themselves the boss babes.
“They band together at the hens’ night, and then they go forth, and they look to conquer anyone and anything during the experiment.
“It makes it very difficult for love to come through in such a toxic environment.”
About 12,000 Aussies now put their hands up to appear on the show every year. But this is then whittled down to the “top 30 or 40” for Aiken and the team to match up.
He appreciates that many are chasing their 15 minutes of fame, but contrary to popular belief, he insists nothing is scripted, singles aren’t plied with alcohol to create drama, and there isn’t a “villain edit … what you see on camera is exactly what you see off camera”.
“People will cross the road to abuse me, but they will also cross the road to thank me because it’s polarising, people will either love it or hate it. They don’t sit in the middle.
“But there are many myths.
“It is totally unscripted and unpredictable, that’s why I watch it like everyone else … even though I have lived it, I don’t know what’s going to make it to air.”
He says couples are told they will be constantly filmed, and it’s up to them how they act and what they say.
But he adds, the show does have “a system [and] a duty of care” to ensure contestants are well supported.
“They meet psychologists before going on the show, and they get fully assessed. They have social media training before they go on the show, and then they have psychologists on set and available to them throughout the show and then after the show indefinitely … so they can really access that support all the time.”
Over the past 12 seasons, just six couples have truly fallen in love and stayed together. But they are crucial to the show’s success.
“We need this – the show has to work, otherwise people aren’t going to watch it, if it was just chaos,” says Aiken, who admitted he wouldn’t be a contestant on the show.
There’s no sign of MAFS losing momentum; if anything, it’s getting bigger and more explosive.
“The show appeals to both singles and couples, so I think it has longevity to it. How long that will be, I’m not sure, but I certainly would love to see it out if I could.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
