Married At First Sight’s 2024 bride Sara Mesa has taken to social media to reveal the tactics producers use to create maximum drama.
In two TikTok videos, Sara, 29, who was paired with Tim Calwell on the experiment, urged viewers to remember the show ‘is built for entertainment, not love.’
She made shocking claims about how the show’s producers orchestrate drama each year.
Sara claimed the entire 2024 cast agreed to start airing their dirty laundry and ‘calling each other out’ so they could ‘go home’ from filming dinner parties – which went from ‘early in the morning’ until 4am.
She also claimed that if the cast were being ‘too tame,’ they would be given extra alcohol and a stern warning that ‘if things don’t start happening, we’re going to be here all night.’
Sara also revealed how most of the cast are scouted by producers on Instagram.
‘A lot of times people ask “Why did you apply if you’re not looking for love?” I’m telling you right now most of the people that go on TV shows are scouted by producers on Instagram,’ she said.
‘There was one or two people in my season that I think actually applied.’
Sara also revealed there are ten interviews that brides and grooms go through before being accepted for the show.
‘A lot of people get rejected. They are looking for one narrative for each person, and if you don’t fit that narrative, you are not going to get accepted.’
In Sara’s case, she was approached on Instagram and received a phone call from MAFS producers telling her they’d found a match two weeks before filming began.
The New South Wales bride admitted that she entered the experiment thinking of the exposure it could provide for her small business.
‘Most of the people that go on this reality TV show are very aware of the opportunities that come after it. The success rate for couples finding love is one per cent.
‘I thought, if I do meet someone, it’ll be an added bonus. However, it’s not the main reason I would be going on a show like this.’
‘They say even if we like you, if we don’t find you a match, you won’t get on the show. So it makes you believe they’re actually trying to find you a match. I now don’t believe that’s the case,’ Sara said.
She explained filming for the show lasts 10 to 12 hours per day from Monday to Friday.
Contestants have a 9pm curfew during the week and a 10pm curfew on weekends, with a live-in assistant producer approving any time they leave their rooms.
At dinner parties, couples are split up and put into tents to wait for their entry. The first and last couple to enter are either the happiest or fighting Sara explained.
‘They could either start the dinner party off nice and it leads into something, or the couple that knows something everybody else doesn’t gets the opportunity to talk to themselves first.
‘One couple is brought in every half an hour, so you could be in those tents for a very long time.’
She continued: ‘The first few dinner parties people were being nice and more formal and then towards the end, we realised the trick to getting home early was getting everything out in the open.’
‘After we got the gist of it, we’d all go to town. That is why it’s so dramatic, because we are forced to talk about our problems. If we didn’t, it’d be a very boring television show.
‘If we didn’t call each other out, it’d be boring. That is what we are prompted to do.’
While the show isn’t scripted, Sara said it is ‘highly edited, which can come off like it’s scripted.’
‘I was always so confused when I watched the show before being on it, as to how there could possibly be this much drama. Now looking back on it, I see producers would ask us questions to prompt drama,’ she explained.
Ultimately, the MAFS veteran reminded fans of the show that ‘it’s built for entertainment, not love. And it shows in the success rate.
‘When you are watching a show like this, you want to see people fall in love. I know that’s what you think you want to see, but you are actually watching it for the drama.’
‘So before you start coming for people for not doing it for the right reasons, please ask yourself why you’re watching this show.’