MAFS star Davina Rankin suffered ‘rough’ few months after ‘villain’ portrayal aired

Davina Rankin has broken down over her “villain” portrayal on MAFS, revealing on I’m A Celeb that she didn’t leave her house when the show aired.

Davina Rankin has revealed she didn’t leave the house for three months while her season of Married At First Sight aired.

The Brisbane mother-of-one, who was paired with Ryan Gallagher on the Channel 9 show’s fifth season in 2018, became the “villain” of the franchise when she engaged in an affair with fellow MAFS groom, Dean Wells.

Now a contestant on Ten’s I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here, Rankin is seen opening up to fellow campmate Beau Ryan about the impact of the public backlash.

“When it all came out and MAFS was airing, I didn’t leave the house for three months,” Rankin began through tears, as the former NRL player comforted her.

“My parents were so devastated for me. It was just rough.”

Davina said she "didn't leave the house for three months" while MAFS was airing.

Rankin also called out Gallagher for contributing to her negative portrayal on the show, accusing him of pretending to like her during his confessionals even though, she claims, they’d agreed in private they weren’t keen on each other.

“He was sleeping on the couch the whole time – we did hook up purely at the beginning to see if there was anything, and then we did and we were like, ‘OK that was f***ed. Let’s never do that again,’” Rankin said.

“It was so annoying for me … whenever he had his interviews he’d talk about me as if he adored me, and I was speaking too much, I was being too open and honest. But then I was the villain.”

Rankin and Wells ultimately met up behind their partners’ backs on the show, with the pair agreeing they shared a connection.

But Wells got cold feet before outing their “affair” to the group.

Dean and Davina on Married At First Sight. Picture: Channel 9

“The plan was to come back into the experiment together but at the last minute everyone screwed me. He [Wells] had decided to stay with his Mrs but he outed that we’d been doing this whole thing, and then Ryan pretended that he was really upset because ‘we were getting along so well’, but we hated each other,” she said.

“It’s just so weird. For so long I’ve been worried about what people think of me, and even the years after it used to gut me because I could tell people thought they knew me.”

It appears there’s still hard feelings between Rankin and Gallagher, with the latter taking a swipe at her on his Instagram page last week.

“Yes, I am very aware that my ‘ex-wife’ is on a TV show, I’m quite aware of it,” he said in a video posted to his stories.

Ryan and Davina were paired on MAFS in 2018. Picture: Channel 9

“Nope, I don’t wish her any bad at all, I wish her the best. It’s a shame it wasn’t filmed in South Africa where cheetahs are native.

“Do I mind my ex-wife now? Well there’s a reason why Channel 10 won’t be on for the next month, I can assure you.”

I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! continues tonight at 7.30am AEDT on Channel 10

Originally published as MAFS star Davina Rankin suffered ‘rough’ few months after ‘villain’ portrayal aired