From Thomas Hartley’s many, many rows with April Banbury and Whitney Hughes, to Matt Murray storming out of the reunion, there were plenty of dramatic moments on the latest series of Married At First Sight UK.
But not all of the drama was captured on camera as Chanita Stephenson has revealed that several cast members got in trouble with producers after breaking a major rule - and it was never even shown on TV.
Viewers will know that the cast all live in the same apartment building for most of the experiment and they usually aren’t allowed to leave without express permission from show bosses, however Chanita has opened up about the time that a few of the couples secretly snuck out of their apartments to go to a bar.
Sharing her Married At First Sight UK secrets exclusively with Closer Online, Chanita explained, “When you are filming, because you’re in a bubble, you’re not allowed to do normal things like going to the pub or cinema for Covid reasons. A few of the couples, we arranged to go to The Alchemist. They set it up so we all left our apartment at five minute slots to meet at Tesco.
“We all left at our designated time and went to The Alchemist, but Duka was invited and Duka went and opened his big mouth and told one of the welfare team in the lift on the way to us. We got found out and Zoe’s phone was ringing, so obviously we said we were at The Alchemist.
“Lewis, bless him, he was part of the welfare team. He came in and, I kid you not, you have never seen anyone so disappointed. His face… I don’t even think my mum’s given me that look. He was so disappointed and I felt so bad. We’d just ordered loads of food, we had cocktails, living our best lives and he just comes in. He had to sit and chaperone us. So yeah, we got told off for that.”
That isn’t the only rule that Chanita broke either as she also admitted that she’d told her friends and family the outcome of her relationship with Jordan Emmett-Connolly before the show had ended.
She said, “One minute you’ve got a husband, then you don’t. You know, you need an explanation for that.”