Classic MAFS villain: the guy with the comprehensive list of turn-offs.
Classic MAFS villain: the guy with the comprehensive list of turn-offs.
A Married At First Sight husband who commits a heartless off-camera act is exposed by his distraught wife on Tuesday night when she explosively reveals in a raw interview the incident that has shattered their day-long marriage: he shushed her.
It takes a brave person to speak up and tell their story — especially after they’ve just been shushed. Victims of shushing should not be silenced. After all, that’s what the shusher wants. Shushees everywhere need to raise their voices and shout from the rooftops so that shushers can be held to accou ...
Ooh, the episode’s starting, everyone shush!
Tonight, there are two weddings. One with a lovely couple and another with a ratbag couple. It’s widely known loveliness does not get you included in these recaps. So then what does?
Hmmm. Writing a list of all the qualities you hate about women will do the trick.
“Girls who are addicted to their phone,” he begins. “Social Media. Motivational quotes. Any girl who calls me honey or sweetie. Any girl who starts a sentence with, ‘Oh my god, babe!’ Star sign chicks. Mirror selfies and dirt on the mirror.”
This Ick List may be polarising but we all have our likes and dislikes. For example, my Ick List includes recliner couches and guys who take nude pics with the toilet in the background. Oh and greasy topknots.
Ah, sorry … I forgot you had one. This must be awkward for you.
Jesse’s matched with Claire, a 31-year-old kindergarten teacher who tries convincing us she loves vintage cars by showing off her tattoo of a Holden Kingswood that kinda just looks like a 2013 Kia Cerato.
‘I’m a total rev head! I have an automatic Ford Fiesta named Fenton! It’s orange!
Jesse and Claire are both weirdos who say they’re just yearning to be loved. But will they accept each other’s weirdness? That’s the thing about weirdos. They long for their weirdness to be validated by another weirdo — until they realise that weirdo is weirder than them. Weird, huh?
On the wedding day, Jesse arrives looking sophisticated:
Chic!
And Claire opts for understated elegance:
Demure! Is it Vera Wang?
When Claire walks down the aisle, Jesse’s response is heartwarming.
“She’s ungodly hot,” he grunts.
From the very moment they meet, the chemistry is electric and the conversation flows naturally, as if they’ve known each other for a thousand lifetimes.
“It’s a love heart hanging in a noose,” he points to one of his tattoos.
“Grim,” she smiles, before explaining one of her own inkings. “I’ve got a love heart on fire.”
“Yeah, cool. Cool, cool, cool,” he nods.
Ugh, you just don’t get romance like this anymore! It’s as if Charlotte Brontë wrote the dialogue herself.
They then bond over the fact they both have jaws that click loudly. Producers scramble to hold microphones near the couple’s mouths as they rapidly open and close their gobs to demonstrate the click-clack noises.
After being pronounced husband and wife, our new couple skips outside and poses for a series of photos that are timeless and truly distinguished.
Huh. Best-day-ever vibes? Seems like the kinda phrase that would be on Jesse’s Ick List. Eh, it might just be a once-off. Besides, it seems like nothing could shake his attrac ...
“When’s your birthday?” she asks him.
Uh-oh. Jesse purses his lips. Is Claire about to … read aloud … from an … astrology meme account on Instagram?
“July the second,” he hesitantly answers.
She nods knowingly. “You’re a Cancer.”
He grimmaces. “F**kin’ hell. She’s a star sign chick,” he groans to himself.
Is reading your star sign really more ridiculous than, say, having a topknot? You’re not Amy Shark.
“What about, like, crystals?” she continues to probe before reaching into her bra and yanking out a chunk of purple amethyst.
We don’t need a crystal ball to tell us what Jesse’s thinking. But, if we did, Claire probably has one we could borrow.
“I hate to say … but I’m concerned we’re moving into ‘ick’ territory,” Jesse complains to us. “The star signs — that’s a turn-off. And I’m just realising how much she has started to tick me off. If I get the ick, I can start to find everything unbelievably annoying.”
It’s around now Claire gifts Jesse his own crystal. It pushes him over the edge. He reacts appropriately by picking a fight with her about Grain Waves.
Kinda wish she got the crystal tethered to a leather necklace and made him wear it.
The next morning, as they pack their bags to jet off on their honeymoon, the ick continues to grow.
“I always pack undies like I’m gonna poo my pants every day,” Claire tells her husband.
Then, the footage cuts to our newly married couple sitting in the dark on an island somewhere off the coast of north Queensland. It’s clear something terrible has happened.
“There was an incident en route to the honeymoon at Sydney airport,” the voiceover lady says ominously.
Oh god, we think. She did it. She really did poop her pants every day.
Turns out, there was an altercation that happened off-camera. And the truth comes to light when Claire sits down with producers for a brave, raw and brutally honest interview. In this urgent tell-all, Claire relives the painful moment.
“Jesse actually shushed me a couple of times today,” she says, her voice breaking. “And … I did not like being shushed.”
She chokes back tears. Producers pause, allowing space for the revelation to land with appropriate impact.
So many questions need to be asked but we also want to respect Claire and her traumatic experience. Did Jesse say the word “shush”? Or did he make more of a sssshhhhhh! sound? Also, did he hold a finger to his lips to emphasise his desire for silence?
Turns out “noisy girls” are also on Jesse’s Ick List.
“We were in the airport, getting a few things for our honeymoon,” she continues. “And … maybe I laugh loud? Maybe I’m a little loud when I speak? But he was like, ‘Sssshhhhhh! Use your indoor voice’. Like, (we’re) one day in. If you’re already shushing me, you are gonna have a hard time ahead of you.”
Recalling the incident in such vivid detail causes Claire to break down completely. Her sobs turn to wails. Then the phone rings in the hotel room. It’s the reception desk. They’ve received a complaint from the neighbouring suite and ask Claire to please shush.
MAFS Australia is available on Three and ThreeNow 7.30 pm Sunday-Wednesday.
