Married At First Sight Australia’s Richard Sauerman, 62, has defended his controversial comments regarding his and Andrea Thompson’s private life, after causing a stir on social media.
The groom offended his wife, and some viewers, after he made explicit remarks about his and Andrea’s intimacy during an awkward commitment ceremony.
Now Richard has come forward to discuss why he made those statements and reveal why he doesn’t feel apologetic for making them.
In an interview with Yahoo! Australia’s podcast Behind The Edit, the motivational speaker spoke about his thought process behind revealing those intimate details.
Richard stated: “I normally wouldn’t say under the spotlight we s***** and we f***** and we had a great week. I don’t go round talking about my sex life like that to anybody, it’s a show man, it’s intimacy week.
“It’s MAFS, like what do you mean, let’s go with it and have a bit of fun. It was intimacy week. This was the context in which I said this, it wasn’t just out of the blue as if I’m with a group of friends.”
These words come after Channel 4 cut parts of Richard’s statement and heavily bleeped out his less explicit comments when the episode aired in the UK.
This was due to the show starting at 7:30pm on E4, which is before the watershed, meaning some parts of the series have to be edited out.
At the time Andrea was not best pleased by her husband’s words, telling the MAFS experts: “The way Richie spoke about us and the words he used, I think that really affected me emotionally.”
The 51-year-old added that she “felt disrespected” and that her “bubble burst.”
Despite defending his comments, viewers were not convinced by Richard and Andrea’s relationship, with fans taking to X, formally known as Twitter, to discuss their marriage.
One user wrote: “FREE ANDREA FROM THE SHACKLES THAT IS HER RELATIONSHIP WITH RICHARD!!!!!!!”
Another added: “Richard and Andrea’s romance is dead and buried, thanks to Richard.”
With a third stating: “Richard and Andy are over. The communication between them is dreadful. He is super sensitive and needs consent assurance. She takes a lot of things to heart and just shuts down. Its a mess.”