Here’s Why Madeleine Wasn’t At The MAFS Australia Reunion
29 April 2024, 19:00 | Updated: 30 April 2024, 15:34
If you watched the Married At First Sight Australia reunion then you may have noticed Madeleine Maxwell wasn’t in attendance. Here’s what we know.
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The Married At First Sight Australia reunion blew up on Monday night and between Sara Mesa and Tim Calwell’s messy fight and Ellie Dix and Jono McCullough’s terrible attitude, you’d be forgiven for not noticing one cast member was missing.
Madeleine Maxwell, whom the experts Alessandra Rampolla, Mel Schilling and John Aiken initially paired with Ash Galati, was noticeably missing from the drama, despite her on-screen husband being in attendance.
The pair had one of the shortest marriages the show may ever have seen, with them both leaving one week into the experiment, despite entering halfway through as intruders. Their marriage was so short, that some fans didn’t expect either of them to come.
- Read more: MAFS’ Ben Claims Show Producers ‘Criticised’ And Laughed At His ADHD
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But why was Ash there and Madeleine not? Why didn’t Madeleine go to the MAFS reunion? Here’s what we know.
Why was Madeleine not at the MAFS reunion?
Madeleine claimed she chose not to go to the reunion, speaking to the Daily Mail Australia she said, "I chose not to go to the reunion because I did not feel in alignment with the production itself."
Since leaving the show, Madeleine has spoken out about how she felt misrepresented by how she was edited on the show.
However, did Madeleine really choose not to go? Or was she heavily encouraged not to attend? After all, her departure from the show was equally as convoluted, with sources left right and centre claiming that she was let go because her her mental health felt unstable to producers.
According to the So Dramatic! podcast, Madeleine had allegedly ‘asked’ for permission to attend the reunion. A source for the podcast claimed she “rang production and asked if she could attend.”
“She wanted to go… They had a conversation around her attending the Reunion under certain conditions, but Madeleine wouldn’t agree to their terms, so they told her she wasn’t allowed to go.”
This source claimed that the show was out to get Madeleine and had gone out of their way to paint her as “bat sh** crazy.”
The insider told the podcast, “They have done an absolute number on her and have gaslit Australia into thinking she’s a nutter so that if she speaks out about what they actually did to her, she won’t be believed.”
According to Yahoo! Lifestyle, they had a source that claimed that producers of the show wanted to avoid Madeleine as she had an “unpredictability” that could “derail” the two-episode-long reunion.
We’ve seen examples of this ‘unpredictability’ when Madeleine began crying after seeing cows in a field on her honeymoon, or when she began communicating with spirits whilst at dinner with her on-screen husband.
According to the publication’s insider, “Most people in production thought that Madeleine struggled with the pressures of the experiment during filming, so it felt easier not to bring her back – especially for a dinner party that was inevitably going to be an intense one from the start.”
Whether that’s true or not, it is hard to confirm, however, close friends of Madeleine have spoken out on her behalf claiming she was definitely invited to the Reunion.
“Madeleine was absolutely invited,” a ‘friend’ told the So Dramatic! podcast, “She had a discussion around the show and why she was unable to make it.
Her on-screen husband Ash had previously spoken to the Daily Mail Australia calling her lack of attendance at the reunion a "blessing in disguise."
"I was expecting her to come back," he told the paper. "I followed things through till the end. I had an obligation to come back to myself, to the show, to the other couples. So I did the right thing and I showed up. But she didn't."
Ash also revealed that he had had no contact with Madeleine since filming, even blocking her number. He claimed no one else on the cast had heard or spoken to her either.
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