With Married At First Sight in full swing, we’re finally edging closer to the reason we all continue to tune in to the Channel Nine social experiment year after year: the inevitable cheating scandal. Each season we’ve come to learn that a particular bride and groom choose to forgo their chosen partner and practice infidelity with each other, ultimately welcoming the juicy villain plot.
Seasons past scandals have included participants Davina Rankin and Deal Wells (who once touted himself as a “pioneer” for being the first to couple swap), as well as Ines Basic and Sam Ball, and technically, if you’re a mega-fan you’d also remember the partner swaps of Troy Delmege and Carly Bowyer, and Tracey Jewel and Sean Thomsen.
Honestly, it’s been a wild ride these past few years.
The 2021 season has already begun sprinkling our viewings with sneak peeks at what’s to come this season (read: drama), and below we’re breaking down exactly what the cast has said about this year’s scandal.
The teaser trailer reveals the groom in this year’s cheating scandal as Cameron Dunne.
Thanks to eagle-eyed fans and a sneaky teaser trailer, we already know which groom is going to be unfaithful for MAFS’ eighth season—Cameron Dunne.
In a scene from the season teaser, two contestants can be seen out of focus and only from the knees down. The groom in question can be seen holding another by the leg, saying “I wish that the experts matched us”, and thanks to his distinctive tattoos, we know exactly who it is.
Cameron was originally paired with Samantha Jayne, an entrepreneur from Canberra with two sons. She has already shared her past trauma with Cameron, confiding in him about her now-ex-husband who was caught cheating on her for its entire five-year duration, so it’s really great producers paired these two together…eye roll.
Fans are convinced the unfaithful bride is Coco Stedman.
While we have yet to be given the official identity of the unfaithful bride this season, fans are convinced it’s Coco—who was paired with Sam Carraro.
The Wash reports that on October 5, 2020, just five days after the first MAFS dinner party was filmed, Coco was photographed returning to the contestants’ apartment building in Sydney, but she wasn’t alone—the pilates instructor was busted alongside Cameron.
The publication adds that “as soon as Coco spotted our snapper outside… she [Coco] quickly walked ahead of Cameron so they weren’t photographed together.”
Samantha confirms she’s involved in the drama.
Appearing on Hit Hobart 100.9 with Jimmy & Nath on March 2, as reported by The Wash, Samantha was thrown plenty of hardball questions regarding the rumoured cheating scandal set to play out of the coming weeks—and she gave further evidence about who exactly is involved.
The hosts asked the reality TV star if her groom Cameron cheats on her, to which she responded: “Look, you guys are going to have to watch and see it all play out. This whole moral thing that is coming up now will be raised again later in the show… you guys are going to have to watch to find out because that’s a massive spoiler and I’m not going there.”
The hosts continued to poke for more answers, asking if she was going to be in the drama, and she replied very tellingly. “Yeah… I literally… I promised my mum and dad I’d go on the show and wouldn’t be in any drama. That I’d be the quiet little mouse at the end of the table, but… [laughs]”