Married at First Sight UK ‘brides’ say they were raped by onscreen husbands

**Two women have told the BBC they were raped during the filming of one of Channel 4’s biggest shows, Married at First Sight UK, while a third has described an allegation of a non-consensual sex act**

Bold social experiment into why most of the western world shunned arranged marriages that gave power over women’s bodies to men they didnt know. Spoiler: proves the reason why we dont do it anymore.

Some absolutely abhorrent things have occurred here.

One man threatened his “on-screen wife” with an acid attack if she reported him. She reported this to the producers, who did not consider it a threat:

>They said Lizzie did not tell CPL about her partner having told her that she “can’t say no” to him, and that the acid-throwing remark had been reported as a passing comment, not a threat.

I would love to see them explain how one can un-threateningly say this:

>”He said that if I told anybody what had happened, that he would get someone to throw acid at me,” she said.

According to Rape Crisis England and Wales, around 40% of rapes are committed against the rapist’s partner or ex-partner. This equates more than 80 a day, based on how many are reported to the police. These cases may seem shocking but they’re actually somewhat representative of the most common type of rape in the UK.

The show producers were clearly not doing enough to protect these women. All three of the women written about here presented enough to the producers to cause significant concern, and clearly not enough was done.

>Channel 4 said all the allegations are “wholly uncorroborated and disputed”.

Ooft, that is a rough defensive argument to be making about these kind of allegations.

Not that this *didn’t* happen, but that it’s *uncorroborated.* Who, exactly, are they hoping is going to corroborate this?

I hope the people responsible for this show aren’t let off for what they put these women through.

But I hope they don’t only look at this issue relating to women.

The show absolutely also failed some of the men in earlier seasons and pushed them into abusive situations, bullied them into sex they didn’t want to have etc that was also coercive / sexual assault.

It’s mind blowing that this show has been able to keep running with how they treat both the women and men.

Should be immediately pulled from airwaves and other similar shows should get the axe as well.

Then Channel 4 should pay compensation to the victims and the producers should be sacked.

Imagine complaining to the BBC about sexual abuse

This is aimed at the BBC, not the alleged victims

All of these gross social experiment reality shows need to stop tbh, not just MAFS but all of these barrel scraping exploitative shows that c4 seem to love churning out

Did nobody making the show anticipate this happening?

I just heard this show exists, had to Wikipedia it, and I don’t honestly know what’s worst about it…

The rapes (if true, willing to put money on it being true)
The show’s response at the time
The show’s response now
The clear lack of vetting on the show
That the show has lasted a decade so far
That the show even exists in the first place
That the show exists in so many countries
That people clearly must watch it enough to justify the above

And people question why I spend so much time alone indoors, torrent everything, and don’t socialise with anyone.

This show always seemed sketchy to me but I’m saddened to see just how sketchy it seems to be.

I fooking hate reality tv ffs what a mess. My heart goes out to those poor women.

I’m shocked but not surprised by this to be honest. I was invited in another Channel 4 dating show by a producer who was recruiting at my old uni. I won’t. name the show, and thought nothing like this happened to me, there was a real safeguarding issue to put it lightly.

I was expecting to go on a weird but hopefully fun date. I was a bit lonely at the time after a bad breakup and jumped at the chance to perhaps be matched with someone nice.

Instead on the day I found myself being pressured into stuff I felt really uncomfortable with by the production crew. This included being asked really sexually inappropriate stuff on camera by producers and being pressured into getting intimate with the person on the date (including touching them), all of which I refused.

They took us to a pub that evening and drinks just kept arriving every few minutes at the table and we were asked to drink them for ‘shot continuity’ but in reality they were trying to get us drunk, and we both had no idea after a while how much we had consumed (and I’d be shocked if this wasn’t a tactic used when filming MAFS to get ‘good TV’). After filming I was then just left drunk late at night at a random train station when I was promised they would drive me home.

As for the promised aftercare – well they did nothing. They didn’t even reach out after the airing, even after I got a lot of abuse from people online which I am sure they were monitoring. I ended up in a dark place after the show aired and just wish I’d at least had some support from them.

I should add this was a ‘wholesome’ dating show on prime time and not a like a sex box or naked attraction where you would expect it to be more risqué.

I put a complaint in two years ago with Channel 4 after the Russel Brand stuff, which they never followed up. I told them my experience (including more bad stuff I don’t want to share here) and told them I was worried about other contestants having similar experiences to me on their shows or being exploited. And also that the production companies they use have predatory people working for them and use unethical practices (all in Channel 4’s name).

I am just so horrified these women had to go through this and I really hope they get the justice they deserve – and I really worry this is the tip of the iceberg.

The only accurate way to describe this show and it’s various franchises across the world is “televised bullying”.

I could not watch more than 3 episodes because it made me very uncomfortable the way abusive behaviour is accepted and even encouraged. It is blatantly manipulated for entertainment purposes, and it’s clear that they mismatch couples on purpose or carelessly to create conflict.

It should be taken off the air for so many reasons including this one.

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