Okay, girly.
After some midnight stalking on Facebook, this MAFS wife is shocked to discover some opinions about … her. Lots of opinions. James Weir recaps.
A Married At First Sight bride makes a shocking discovery: her husband’s family can read, write and use Facebook – where they leave comments about how mean she is.
Remember the Burn Book from Mean Girls? The one Regina George used to destroy lives with carefully documented insults? Turns out, it’s real. It just lives on Facebook now. And one Mafs bride has found it.
After weeks of tormenting her husband on national television, she decides to stalk his family online and stumbles upon the unfiltered remarks they’ve written about her. The solution? Don’t reflect or change behaviour. Instead, recruit a posse of mean girls and declare war. Because nothing says “girl’s girl” quite like mandatory blind loyalty regardless of truth.
Last night, Luke fled Trash Tower following a week of bullying from Mel. What tipped him over the edge? The revelation that she stalks her exes in the dark of night while eating Magnums from the servo.
With no pesky husband stinking up the place, Mel has been diligently investigating him online and fallen down a social media rabbit hole where she has found his family trash talking her in the comments. Stalkers are gonna stalk – and haters are gonna hate.
“Last night I read some comments from Luke’s friends and family that really hurt my feelings,” she sniffles to us. “They were comments about my personality, they were comments about my character.”
Oh my gosh! Really? We’re so surprised. Your personality is so warm and polite and not at all putrid!
“Luke’s sisters left some comments saying I’ve got a mad resting bitch face. That I’m not genuine. That I don’t deserve someone like Luke!”
She’s saying all this like she’s a sulky little girl in the principal’s office, dobbing on an innocent kid who has finally bitten back after she has been torturing them for weeks.
When Luke finally returns to Trash Tower, she confronts him.
“It really hurt me. The comments left by your friends and family about me on social media,” she pouts.
Luke is surprised. Not so much about his sisters trash talking Mel. He’s more surprised that apparently no one has ever told her that her behaviour stinks.
The patience and grace he has shown his wife over three weeks is wearing thin. Nothing’s more annoying than a person who has a set of rules for themselves and a different set of rules for other people. Mel can treat everyone atrociously, but one wrong word about her and the earth will be scorched.
“The way you’ve treated me in this whole experiment has been horrible,” she gaslights her husband, seemingly forgetting that she’s the one who has been dishing out the horrible treatment.
We know one thing’s for sure: if those are the comments the sisters made on a public forum like Facebook, just imagine the more insulting things they’re spewing into the family WhatsApp chat.
Fellow bride Brooke has also found the Facebook comments. The beauty queen is feeling empowered after scolding her husband yesterday for his fatphobic and misogynistic comments – and she grabs the chance to loudly defend Mel.
“I’m a girl’s girl!” she chants.
“I’m seeing Luke’s sisters get involved and saying nasty things about Mel online. And I think that’s petty to have your sisters comment rude things online about Mel. It doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t like people who tear girls down in that way.”
Huh. That’s interesting. Because, just moments after boldly asserting these self-righteous claims, Brooke is at the pub, tearing girls down.
As part of Revelations Week, the wives are sent off to get drunk and b**** about their partners.
But when Alissa raves about her husband David and refuses to list a single red flag, Brooke rolls her eyes and starts heckling.
“Have ya f***** yet?” she bellows. “Bulls***! I’m calling bulls***!”
The token elderly bride is so embarrassed to be involved in this petty drama that she breaks the fourth wall and stares directly into the camera lens to express to us her exasperation.
Brooke doubles down, joining forces with Gia to jeer and taunt.
“Girls, shut the f*** up!” Alissa shrieks while they keep interrupting her.
Then Brooke lobs a bitter claim: “I think it’s a fake showmance!”
So much for that impassioned speech about not tearing women down.
Maybe she’s just defensive because her own marriage to the fatphobic groom isn’t what she hoped for. Or maybe Miss Congeniality is actually just a Regina George.
Then comes the moment for Mel to give her very one-sided (and not at all accurate) account of her marriage to Luke.
“There are no green flags. None,” she sulks to the other brides.
“[But] red flags? He has made my life a living hell. He’s trying to be malicious to me at every chance he gets. He hates me so much that he’s trying to find any reason to be mean.”
Huh. That’s a very interesting tale you’re weaving, Melissa. It’s funny that, even though you’re being trailed 24/7 by a crew of five cameramen, none of them have seemed to capture any footage of your husband’s alleged malicious acts. And it’s weird that there’s an abundance of tapes that show you yourself behaving poorly. We’re totally not saying you’re lying! We’re merely observing that it’s … peculiar.
Mel rallies the mean girls and manipulates them into launching a military operation to destroy Luke.
But not all the wives are blindly supporting Mel.
When Stella says maybe we need to see Luke’s side, Mel and her girl gang of Brooke and Gia turn on her.
Brooke steps in as the spokeswoman again – offering a call to arms.
“I’m a girl’s girl. I’m a GIRL’S. GIRL,” she declares, basically accusing Stella of hating women.
She presents her solid theory: Stella’s a girl and Mel’s a girl – and girls should always support girls no matter what the truth is.
While all the other wives are now drunk on warm prosecco following an arvo of day drinking, Brooke is intoxicated with something else: the high that comes from being a self-appointed moral crusader.
“People love me for me,” she smiles. “I feel like I’m on fire!”
Producers naturally score the moment to haunting music from a horror movie.
Married At First Sight Australia screens Sundays to Wednesdays on Three and Three Now.