In New Zealand, Married at First Sight UK was available on ThreeNow, Sky TV’s free-to-air streaming platform, up until yesterday morning.
Married at First Sight UK was available on ThreeNow – it’s now been removed.
“Sky made the precautionary decision [on Tuesday morning] to remove all seasons of Married At First Sight UK from ThreeNow, following the media reports overnight,” a Sky TV spokeswoman told Media Insider.
Channel 4, which airs the show in the UK, has also removed the show from its platforms.
It says it has commissioned an external review of the welfare of the show’s contestants “after being presented with serious allegations of wrongdoing”.
The rape allegations, first aired in a BBC Panorama investigation, raise serious questions about the future of the show in the UK.
MAFS is an international franchise, with various, separately produced versions across the world, including an ongoing MAFS Australia series and an on-again, off-again MAFS NZ.
Asked about future seasons of the franchise, the Sky TV spokeswoman said there was no news on that. “Clearly, we take this issue seriously so will be monitoring closely.”
The latest seasons of MAFS Australia and MAFS US as well as MAFS NZ (from 2024) are still available on ThreeNow.
“As the allegations relate specifically to the UK production of Married At First Sight, we are not removing any other programming from our platforms at this stage,” said the Sky TV spokeswoman.
ThreeNow has removed Married at First Sight UK.
The UK allegations
According to the BBC, one woman said her onscreen husband had raped her and threatened her with an acid attack. She alleged her on-screen husband would sometimes “just explode” and go into an “absolute focused anger”, the BBC reported.
She said she “froze with fear” during the alleged rape, which left visible fingerprints on her. “He said that if I told anybody what had happened, that he would get someone to throw acid at me,” she told the BBC.
Through his lawyers, the woman’s on-screen husband denied the claims against him.
A second woman told Channel 4 and the show’s UK production company, CPL, about being allegedly raped by her onscreen husband. The episodes featuring the pair were still aired.
She said she had previously engaged in consensual sex with her on-screen husband, but she alleged that on one occasion, he had started to have sex with her even after she said no.
The man allegedly continued before recognising she was not participating and stopped.
Shona Manderson appeared on the 2023 series of Married at First Sight UK. Photo / CPL Productions
A third woman, Shona Manderson – the only woman of the three who was identified by the BBC – accused her onscreen husband of a non-consensual sex act during the 2023 season of the show.
In an earlier statement to the BBC, Channel 4 had said the allegations were uncorroborated and disputed.
Lawyers for CPL said its welfare system was “gold standard” and industry-leading, and that it had acted appropriately.
MAFS Australia
While there have been no similar allegations involving MAFS Australia, commentators have highlighted a growing toxicity on the show, specifically referring to this year’s series.
In a review in April, The Spinoff website described the 2026 MAFS Australia season as “ugly, unruly and joyless”.
The Spinoff’s Alex Casey wrote that the series “seems hellbent on eroding whatever tiny shred of faith in humanity the audience has left, giving men the floor to say the most nonsensical manosphere guff they want and leaving the women to tear apart each other’s ‘ratchet hair extensions’ and ‘stripper boots’ while also insisting they are a ‘girl’s girl’.”
She wrote: “Every year, the season purports to hold up a mirror to society, and every year that reflection is looking worse and worse.
“We used to have comic relief … but now the show feels relentless in its pursuit of destruction and drama. The storylines are incoherent, the people in charge can barely keep it together, and everyone is furious and scared.”
MAFS Australia – the 2026 season has been described as the unruliest and ugliest yet.
The Guardian reported that Channel 4 in the UK had moved to adopt the style of the Australian series in recent years.
“It was originally a very different kind of show, more like a documentary where relationships proceeded very organically. It was like public service television,” one former Channel 4 executive told The Guardian.
“There was still a lot of duty of care at the time, belt and braces, but then the Australian version influenced the UK and introduced more conflict.”
Behavioural psychologist Jo Hemmings, who has worked on Married at First Sight UK and Big Brother, told The Guardian that duty of care standards were exceptionally high.
However, reality shows had to keep increasing conflict to draw big audiences.
“Participants are in a bubble and quite vulnerable. They are thoroughly checked psychologically throughout the process,” Hemmings told The Guardian. “Duty of care psychologists and welfare staff keep meticulous notes and reports all the way through filming.
“But the boundaries of entertainment are always being pushed for each series. They have to keep the audiences. The welfare teams are highly aware of this, but the more you push the boundaries, the more incidents might happen no matter what you do.”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.