After trying for just over a month to make their relationship work (or not trying, depending on who you ask), Mel Akbay and Luke Fourniotis have officially quit Married At First Sight (MAFS) 2026.
Alongside Julia Vogl and Grayson McIvor, the couple wrote “leave” at the third Commitment Ceremony of the season and decided to go their separate ways — which should’ve happened in week one, if we’re being real.
Following their exit, Luke and Mel have both appeared on separate episodes of Abbie Chatfield’s podcast It’s A Lot where they unpacked their breakup and the public’s reaction to their relationship.
While Luke has been hailed as a “fan favourite” thanks to his good looks and emotional vulnerability, Mel was described as a “villain” in the first few weeks of the experiment after she seemingly refused to try to form a connection with her match because she didn’t feel an initial spark.
MAFS‘ Mel speaks out about her ‘bad edit’
Now, Mel has addressed her “bad edit” and told Abbie that she agrees she didn’t have a positive portrayal on the show.
“If I watched myself, I’d be like, ‘Who the fuck’s that?’,” she said. “I want to make it clear — I’m not a bad person. I am not depressed, I am not mean, I’m not cruel. That version of me that you saw was someone in a really bad place because I was just like, ‘Oh my god, I don’t have feelings for him, I’m out of my depth’.”
Mel said she takes full accountability for how she acted towards Luke, and admitted that she wishes she developed feelings for him because her storyline would be “so different” and her life would be “so much easier right now”.
“I feel like we genuinely didn’t have chemistry and we weren’t compatible, and I think what people online are mixing this with is calling me an abuser,” she continued. “I just want to say, just because I’m not compatible with someone, doesn’t mean I’m an abuser.”
Mel says she’s the most hated person in MAFS history
When it comes to MAFS “villains”, there have objectively been plenty of worse people than Mel. She didn’t cheat on her partner, she didn’t punch a wall, she didn’t throw a wine glass, and she certainly didn’t call any of her fellow brides a “dog” or a “ratchet idiot” at a Dinner Party.
However, the 28-year-old told Abbie that she believes she received more hate on social media than any of the male participants across the show’s 13 seasons.
“I was someone that didn’t like a boy and I was choosing not to engage, and I feel like personally, I got more hate than any of those people,” she said, which Abbie somewhat agreed with.
Mel also revealed that the hate got so bad that she deleted Facebook, TikTok and “blocked every single page off Instagram”, and also didn’t leave her house for the first two weeks that the show aired.
Thankfully, it appears the public opinion of Mel has shifted — or at least died down — since the start of the season. However, like clockwork, the MAFS fandom has since turned its attention towards other participants in the experiment.
Let this be a reminder, though, that MAFS is a reality show designed for your entertainment — not a presentation of people for you to troll on social media. These are real people on the show with real feelings, and most of the time, they already know that what they did was wrong.
So yes, you can call out bad behaviour, but keep it in the group chat — and don’t leak the group chat to the media like some brides have started doing.
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