Gladys Berejiklian, Barnaby Joyce, Scott Morrison text saga derails Married At First Sight drama

Just when we thought the dirt had been exposed, there was a twist with more leaked details that showed up MAFS’ premiere week. James Weir recaps.

It’s that special time of year when Australian politics and Married At First Sight clash in a battle to win the title of our nation’s ultimate reality show.

The competition is fierce. The stunts are outrageous. Betrayal is lurking at every turn.

Our political scene often rivals the drama we see playing out on screen. Just a few years ago, as MAFS villains Davina and Dean explored a secret affair, Barnaby Joyce’s life was blowing up with the news he was leaving his wife Natalie and shacking up with former staffer Vikki Campion, who was expecting the Deputy Prime Minister’s first son.

This week, politics wins again — thanks to Gladys, ScoMo, Barnaby and the never-ending stream of leaked text messages.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ll eat up any story that vaguely promises leaked footage or photos.

Sure, over on Channel 9 this week we had a MAFS husband telling his wife he reckons she’s bad at sex — but that doesn’t quite match the spectacle of leaked texts being aired for all of us to snoop through.

Having screenshots of catty text messages come back to haunt you is reality TV bread and butter. It’s a classic trick that’ll never get old. And it’s really what nudged politics up the leaderboard to pip MAFS.

The big question is: what emojis were used?

If you missed the explosive episode, it all blew up when Network 10 political editor Peter van Onselen ambushed Prime Minister Scott Morrison at the National Press Club and exposed texts reportedly sent between former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian and an unnamed federal Liberal minister.

In the texts — that date back to the Black Summer bushfires — Gladys allegedly described ScoMo as a “horrible, horrible person”, while the Minister labelled him a “fraud” and “complete psycho”.

ScoMo was completely blindsided — which is exactly what we want from our reality shows. Reality TV just wouldn’t exist if people weren’t getting blindsided with petty revelations.

And as if the ambush couldn’t get worse, PVO then blurted out that he isn’t sexually attracted to ScoMo.

… Wait. Sorry, no. Now I’m getting my shows confused. It was a MAFS husband who told his wife he wasn’t sexually attracted to her this week. It’s so hard to keep track of the drama.

Anyway, Gladys came out and said she had “no recollection” of sending the texts — but soon enough, we didn’t care about her texts anymore because new texts were getting leaked, this time from Barnaby.

MAFS experts Mel Schilling and John Aiken can’t hog all the drama.

Screenshots show Barnaby describing ScoMo as a “hypocrite and a liar” who could “rearrange the truth to a lie” in messages sent during the furore over Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation.

It’s just shocking. By now, we should all know how easy it is to get caught out on a smart phone. It’s almost like our politicians haven’t learnt from that time Kim Kardashian dragged Taylor Swift on Snapchat.

The big twist to the whole exposed text saga is that PVO wound up becoming the villain. The ambush came just a few days after his viral on-air stoush with The Project’s Carrie Bickmore about comments he made calling outgoing Australian of the Year Grace Tame “ungracious, rude and childish” for her less than enthusiastic behaviour during a meeting with ScoMo at The Lodge.

And book-ending the ambush was the news PVO had been named in a lawsuit former Ten colleague Tegan George had filed against the network, alleging it breached the Fair Work Act.

In documents filed with the Federal Court, George alleged the star political editor had belittled and humiliated her when they worked together in the press gallery bureau (Van Onselen denies her claims).

We’ve seen enough episodes of The Bachelor to know that reality TV villains always end up having the script flipped on them at the last minute. The blindsider becomes the blindsided!

And then they’re banished from the show in a flurry of action that ends with a storm-off and an expletive-laden rant that’s delivered in the back of a hire car as they’re driven away from the mansion.

If this were Married At First Sight, social media would’ve dubbed PVO this season’s mean girl and then he’d have to do an exclusive sit-down interview with New Idea in which he’d declare he’s the victim of a bad edit by the show’s producers.

With Gladys, ScoMo, Barnaby and PVO all involved, it’s just a shame we couldn’t force them into attending a drunken weekly dinner party to cap it off.

Twitter, Facebook: @hellojamesweir

Originally published as Gladys Berejiklian, Barnaby Joyce, Scott Morrison text saga derails Married At First Sight drama