16 November 2023 , 12:36
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Married At First Sight stars have revealed how much they were paid for taking part in the series and it's not as much as you might think.
Stars of the Australia series have opened up on how they were compensated for signing up to the unconventional dating series. Jesse Burford, who starred in the 10th series which came to an end earlier this year, revealed the cast were paid AU$1,175 (£631.84) a week, which works out just over $150 (£80.66) a day.
Series nine star Domenica Calerco corroborated this when she previously revealed she was paid AU$150 a day. The star blasted the show's pay and claimed it was barely equivalent to “minimum wage”.
The cast have also revealed they weren't reimbursed certain expenses and were forced to pay for daily costs including food, clothes, bills and haircuts while filming on the show. One of season five's most controversial contestants, Nassar Sultan explained: "You get $150 for the day, that's it.
Jesse revealed how much he was paid for taking part (Nine)"But on top of that, you have to pay expenses – your living expenses with the woman that you marry," he told Now to Love. "It's not $150 clear. You still have to pay rent if you're renting, you've gotta pay your rego [vehicle expenses] and it's 12 hour filming days."
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"None of our groceries were covered," he said. "They filmed us going shopping and we had to shop at the same grocery store – which was really expensive, but it was out of our own money."
Meanwhile, season six icon Jessika Power revealed it was tough for some contestants, in particular, who wanted to return to their day jobs during filming. Speaking about her on-screen husband Mick Gould, she said: "Mick wanted to go for a really long time. He wanted to go back to his farm, back to his animals and he wanted to just go back to work."
The cast are also not able to return to work as soon as they finish filming. "You can’t work until the show finishes airing, and you’ve done all your publicity and that’s like a month. Probably about a six-seven month process [overall]," she told Metro.
*Married At First Sight UK airs the final episode of this series at 9pm on E4.