Married at First Sight Australia has wound down again for its tenth series, with the UK show soon to hit the small screen later this year with a bunch of new contestants hoping to find their true love at the end of the altar.
The Channel 4 experiment is overseen by three relationship experts, who have one-to-one chats with the couples during the commitment ceremonies each week and give them well-intentioned advice on how they can work at their marriages.
But a thought that might have gone over some people's heads when watching the show, is what about their own love life? Well, you would assume being so knowledgeable on how to craft relationships and work hard at communicating would mean they pretty much had it nailed down.
So if you are just that little bit nosey and would like to know some more on their backgrounds, let's take a look inside their relationships - and some you will be glad to know are happily married with kids.
Melanie Schilling
Mel, as she is often referred to on the Channel 4 show, appears on both the Australian version and UK adaptation of the programme and has worked as a therapist and business consultant for the past 20 years.
Her role is to step in when it comes to "human behaviour and performance" and the 51-year-old is happily married to her husband Gareth Brisbane, who is originally from Northern Ireland.
The pair have been married for almost three years, and Gareth runs a successful online betting business. He first met Mel in person while they were both living in Australia, having started their relationship off online.
“I was single for my entire thirties,” Mel told OK! Magazine. “I wasn’t interested in anyone. I was busy travelling the world, and working overseas, I was all about building my business and just living a great life.”
Mel and Gareth were in their late thirties when they met on eHarmony, and like many couples on MAFS, had the hurdle of a long-distance relationship in its early days, having not been able to physically meet for six weeks.
“We were communicating every day and it was mostly email and text. I couldn’t talk to him on the phone at first, because I couldn’t understand his accent!” Mel explained.
And the couple are now parents to daughter Maddie, who she gave birth to at 42 after an IVF journey, with the family moving to Brighton in 2021 to be closer to filming for MAFS UK.
John Aiken
Expert John Aiken is often seen as the leading man in MAFS Australia, and he doesn't shy away from his opinions on people's marriages or putting them in their place.
He met his wife Kelly 17 years ago after spotting her on TV in New Zealand, she was a widow when they first met after her husband at the time died in a canoeing accident.
It wasn't an easy ride for the pair, with Kelly being guarded due to her traumatic past, but we all know John would be the perfect person to navigate this and they went on to tie the knot in 2007. John put in the work and would frequently fly between Auckland and Wellington when he and Kelly were dating.
“She is someone I am very grateful that I met,” John told 9Honey. “She had a lot of people around her that were very protective and didn’t want her to jump into anything else.”
The couple have two children together.
Alessandra Rampolla
Sex expert of the group Alessandra Rampolla is the only single one on the panel of MAFS Australia, however she had been married previously for four years before divorcing her husband.
The clinical sexologist's marriage reportedly broke down to John Hernandez because she wanted to stay in Argentina to start a family when he wanted to go back to Puerto Rico to be closer to his own blood relatives.
Alessandra has spoken openly about her marriage according to reports in The Tab and said her divorce has helped her “understand what some of these couples will go through".
“I did everything possible for us to be happy together and I don’t regret anything I did,” she said. “There was no drama between us, we love each other and we are friends but at a certain point, life just took us on a different path.”
Married At First Sight Australia is now available to watch on catchup on E4/Channel 4.
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