David Cannon from Nine’s hit reality TV show Married At First Sight has taken a swing at production house Endemol Shine and its producers for treating contestants like “prisoners”.
In a two-part interview posted on the Get Real Entertainment YouTube channel, Cannon said: “prisoners are treated better than the cast on Married At First Sight”.
A disclaimer on the video said it was filmed at the end of 2019, which was before Cannon would have seen how he was portrayed on the phone. Get Real Entertainment said Cannon’s comments were therefore not “influenced by public criticism or how his character was portrayed in the show.”
Cannon said: “In this show, if you want to be hungry, overworked and overtired, paid absolute pittance, manipulated and stressed, locked in your room at a curfew, your phone constantly taken off you, if you want this kind of treatment, go on Married At First Sight.”
He added: “We weren’t asking for much. We were asking to be fed, asking to be given enough rest between shooting days and asking to be spoken to with the level of respect that you would speak to an employee.”
Nine declined B&T‘s request for comment, while Endemol Shine did not respond at the time of publication.
Cannon said his reason for doing the interview was so that anyone going on the show in the future would not “have the wool pulled over their eyes” like he said he had, claiming he had never been “so emotionally tested”.
While Cannon said he wasn’t “a complete angel on the show”, he claimed staff manipulated contestants to get them to say things that would produce better content.
Cannon is a notorious contestant on the show, known for scrubbing the toilet with partner Hayley’ Vernon’s toothbrush.
This season of MAFS, in line with previous seasons, has been a ratings hit for Nine, with each show averaging one million or more metro viewers each night.
