First posted on Instagram
Channel 4 has cancelled Married at First Sight UK after three women who appeared on the show alleged they were raped and sexually assaulted by the men they were matched with on screen, the broadcaster announced on Thursday.
The decision follows an external review commissioned after a BBC Panorama investigation broadcast in May, "The Dark Side of Married at First Sight," in which three former brides came forward. Two of the women alleged they were raped by their on-screen husbands, while the third, Shona Manderson — the only woman publicly identified — accused her on-screen husband, Bradley Skelly, of a non-consensual sex act. All three men have denied the allegations.
One of the women also said her partner threatened to throw acid at her. A second woman told both Channel 4 and the production company CPL before broadcast that she had allegedly been raped by her on-screen husband, yet her episodes were still aired.
Channel 4 chief executive Priya Dogra announced the decision on Thursday, saying the show had "run its course over 10 years." The already-filmed series that was in production when the review was commissioned will not be broadcast, and the planned spin-off, Second Married at First Sight, has also been abandoned. The money previously allocated to the series will be reinvested in new programmes.
The review had two strands. Law firm Clyde & Co examined how Channel 4 and CPL handled the allegations when they first emerged, reviewing 31,172 documents, 20 hours of aired and unaired footage and 15 interviews with former participants. Former BBC One controller Lorraine Heggessey examined whether the programme could continue with strengthened safeguarding measures. The review found Channel 4's and CPL's welfare practices compliant with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code and the format not "inherently unsafe" — but it did not have the authority to rule on the allegations themselves, which Dogra said "remain a matter for the relevant authorities." Dogra apologised to the three women. "I would like to repeat that I am very sorry for the distress those women have clearly felt," she said.
In June, a male cast member was arrested on suspicion of rape; he has not been publicly identified. Ofcom, Britain's broadcasting regulator, has opened its own investigation into the programme. All series of the UK programme have been removed from streaming platforms and from the show's official social media accounts.