This week on Married At First Sight (MAFS), Adrian Araouzou caused a stir after he appeared to leave the experiment and his on-screen wife Awhina Rutene when he wasn’t asked to be featured in a Channel Nine promo for the show. However, according to the groom himself, we’re not seeing the whole picture.
Speaking to Yahoo! Lifestyle, Adrian claimed that he never left on his own accord and was asked to leave by producers after he walked out on a promo shoot.
According to the 30-year-old, he first started becoming irritated because he was required to sit around in a warehouse to film social media content for the show.
“I went and sat in a tent for 20 minutes. It was 30 degrees plus that day in a warehouse and now I’m stuck in the tent. They wouldn’t even let me leave,” he said.
“So I was sitting there, I was getting angry, and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going’.”
He left the warehouse and shortly after received a phone call from a member of MAFS production asking him why he left.
“Someone else was on the line and they were just yelling at me. One lady on the phone was like, ‘Hey Adrian, why did you leave?’, and I’m trying to explain my side,” he continued.
“This woman just kept yelling and yelling and yelling and I’m like, ‘Alright, see you later, I’m not sitting here going back and forth over something so stupid’. And then she goes, ‘Pack your bags and leave the experiment’. And I go, ‘Okay, no worries’.
“It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, can you please pack your bag and leave the experiment’, it was like, ‘Get up and go’.
Despite the episode making it seem like he left because he wasn’t featured in the promo, Adrian says that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“It had nothing to do with the promo. If I cared, why wouldn’t I have stayed for the next six hours of the day? But I didn’t,” he said.
“The only person that was getting hurt that day by leaving was me, no one else. That’s why you didn’t see me much prior to the show airing because I missed out on the promos out of my own choice.”
He claimed that he then went back to the apartment and began to pack his bags when a camera crew came in and started filming. Not wanting to be filmed, he left his things — and his wedding ring — on the counter and left.
“The only thing I did was put the ring down, because I was like, ‘Well, this lady seems pretty pissed off, I don’t want them saying I stole their property’. So I left the ring there,” he said.
According to Adrian, the woman on the phone was “probably the highest point up there in production”.
In the lead-up to the new season, PEDESTRIAN.TV chatted to one of the executive producers to gain some insight into the show’s production.
“I like dealing with everyone but that’s not to say that it doesn’t come with confrontation,” Endemol Shine’s executive producer Alexandra Spurway shared.
“It goes both ways and there’s a mutual respect and trust. If you’re open and transparent with me, I’m going to be exactly the same with you. What I don’t like is when participants are disrespectful to production.
“That’s when I’ll step in and have something to say.”
Interesting!!!!
Perhaps it was Alexandra putting Adrian in his place? Or maybe it was someone else who had reached breaking point? Or, maybe Adrian is telling a cheeky little fib and did leave the experiment because he wasn’t included in the promo?
Who bloody knows!!! That’s the tricky thing with MAFS, there are always two (or three!) sides to every story.
