Over the weekend, a shocking video began circulating social media of MAFS 2022 groom Jackson Lonie smooching a girl who wasn’t his bride Olivia Frazer.
The series villain told Daily Mail Australia she’s “speechless” and a friend of hers told the publication she’s understandably “broken” by what’s happened.
Social media quickly became flooded with comments opining that Olivia’s humiliation is supposedly well-deserved after what she did to rival Domenica Calarco on the show.
This got me thinking about where things stand in the aftermath of the most bonkers season of the show and how we, as a society, react to people who do fucked up shit.
Here’s the thing, I was very much on the “Olivia sucks” bandwagon along with the most of you.
I thought her behaviour on MAFS was beyond deplorable. BEYOND.
And she lost a lot from it! Including her job. Which, again, I thought was somewhat fair considering we shouldn’t have someone who thinks it’s OK to circulate revenge porn teaching the next generation of young people.
I get it. I 1000% get it!
But at the same time, have I enjoyed watching her lose literally everything and become the source of public humiliation? Uh, not really. I think it would be not just bizarre, but pretty damn cruel to enjoy watching someone get cheated on in such a public way.
Just like I didn’t enjoy (and was fucken furious!) about Olivia circulating Domenica’s OnlyFans, I also don’t enjoy what’s happening now.
Especially given that Olivia has been very vocal about her mental health struggle.
Olivia’s behaviour on MAFS sucked. Ya know what else sucks? Laughing at someone else’s pain. (Credit: Nine)
Speaking on the Where’s Your Head At? podcast, Olivia said she’s “never had depression like this.”
She even credited Jackson as being her “absolute anchor” over the past few months.
So I ask again: is it enjoyable to watch her lose her “anchor”, after already losing her job and now maybe her man and becoming the source of public hate?
Sorry to my fellow members of the “Olivia’s Behaviour Sucks” club, but no. Not for me, anyway.
Remember how Olivia infamously said on the show that she has no empathy? Well the reason why we were so critical of her was because all humans should have empathy for other humans.
Therefore, despite her shitty behaviour in the past, I still have empathy for her now and hope that she heals.
If we don’t have empathy for Olivia, aren’t we just as bad?
Which leads me to my next point: cancel culture.
Comedian Sarah Silverman made some excellent points on her podcast about cancel culture that have really stuck by me.
I know this seems like a tangent, but you’ll see what I mean in a sec:
“In this cancel culture, if you take someone and expose them and say, ‘This person should be no more! Banish them forever!’ They’re gonna find some place where they are gonna be accepted, and it’s not gonna be with progressives, which ironically means to be changed, progress.
If we don’t give these people a place where they’re accepted, then they’re gonna go where they are accepted. Which is the motherfucking dark side.
I think there should be some kind of path… Do we want people to be changed or do we want them to stay the same? To freeze in this one moment so we can point to ourselves as right and them as wrong.”
That’s my thing with Olivia.
Like, do we want her to continue to be nasty so we can vilify her forever? Or do we want her to grow and change as a person and ultimately apologise for her behaviour?
That’s what I was hoping for, anyway.
I was hoping she’d ride off into the sunset with her man and finally be happy. Then eventually become a better person and change her ways and one day issue a well-deserved apology to Dom.
What happened over the weekend is not what I wanted for her and it’s not what you guys should want for her either. We’re better than that!
Wishing ill upon someone else isn’t the answer, so I truly genuinely feel bad for her and hope she can heal.
Matty Galea is the Senior Entertainment Editor at PEDESTRIAN.TV, as well as our resident astrologer who pens our weekly horoscope series, ‘Your Horos Are Here’. He also Tweets about pop culture and astrology and posts spicy content on Instagram.
