Former Married At First Sight bride Davina Rankin reportedly turned down a five-figure sum to appear in the upcoming all-stars reunion, while a bunch of others seem perfectly content with their comparatively measly $3,000 appearance fee.
On the So Dramatic! podcast, host Megan Pustetto leaked some behind-the-scenes info about who’s appearing in the special and how much they were offered or asked for.
Most people appearing in the reunion episode are reportedly getting $3,000 in return for two days of filming and having their private lives once again paraded before the entire country onscreen.
“There was no negotiating for most of them, which is just embarrassing because they can’t every say that they did it for the money, because the money’s shit,” Pustetto said.
Without further ado, here’s who’ll reportedly star in the MAFS all-stars reunion.
From Season 5 (2018), there’ll be Ashley Irvin, Charlene Perera, Dean Wells, Jo McPharlin, Nasser Sultan, Ryan Gallagher, Sarah Roza and Tracy Jewel.
From last year’s Season 6, we’ll get Cyrell Paule, Ines Bašić, Jessika Power, Martha Kalifatidis, Michael Brunelli and Mike Gunner.
And finally, from this year’s Season 7, Lizzie Sobinoff and Sebastian Guilhaus will reportedly make an appearance.
Out of them, Michael and Martha apparently managed to negotiate around $15,000 between them, which is a decent upgrade.
Similarly, Ines and Mike apparently got around $10,000, while Dean reportedly got around $8,000.
But more interesting is who isn’t going to be there, and how much moolah they turned down to keep their dignity.
Davina Rankin from 2018 reportedly turned down $40,000 (!!!) so life must be pretty alright for her atm.
“Davina was someone they really wanted to get but she said no,” Pustetto said.
“She kept saying no, she stuck to her guns. She was offered numerous amounts by the network who upped their price every single time in a bid to get her to agree to come on the show.
“She said she wanted nothing to do with them, she has well and truly moved on, and she won’t even sell her soul for a five-figure sum, so hats off to her for keeping her dignity intact.”
On the other hand, Cameron Merchant and Jules Robinson – who are currently married – reportedly tried to strong-arm the producers into paying an even bigger appearance fee of around $50,000, and it ultimately blew up in their faces.
“They apparently wanted big bucks and the network just couldn’t afford them,” Pustetto said.
One former contestant also told Pustetto: “[The poducers] had enough people to make something happen, [Cam and Jules] weren’t really needed anyway. There was enough material to make a really cool show, they just couldn’t match their asking price. They got way too greedy and then missed out altogether.”
With all this dough being dished out left, right and centre, let’s hope it’s all worth it and the reunion manages to distract from the “boring” next season of MAFS.
While we’re not 100% sure when the special will go to air, Pustetto reckons it’ll be sometime around January 31.
