Annette Sharp: Reality TV’s two-faced stars take us for a ride
Married At First Sight “love rat” Daniel Webb appeared in court last week over an alleged investment scam. This just serves to highlight the problem organisations and charitable foundations alike face in screening potential candidates, Annette Sharp writes.
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The appearance of a Married At First Sight star in a Brisbane court on Friday on charges of conducting an alleged telemarketing scam only serves to highlight the problem organisations and charitable foundations alike face in screening potential candidates.
Daniel Webb, 35, a Gold Coast car broker, was a contestant on the 2019 season of MAFS and was partnered with admin worker Tamara Joy before infamously starting a relationship with fellow cast-member Jessika Power, earning him the tag “love rat”.
The pair then left their respective TV spouses and re-entered the show as a couple.
It was a very public betrayal.
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Here was a handsome chancer, a man who might best be described as being romantically reckless who showed little respect for TV broadcaster Nine’s admittedly fake marital contract.
Nine’s TV show would offer Webb and everyone else on the show a shot at fame and at taking home a pile of cash.
But more troublingly it would also offer them a future platform upon which to broadcast their brand and their personal business pitch to tens of thousands of new social media followers, later.
Risky? Um, yes, particularly if the new “stars” haven’t been vetted properly.
In real life too, as was alleged in court on Friday, Webb is something of a chancer who, along with 11 others, is accused of running a telemarketing scam to dupe nearly 600 people of $15-$20 million. Police investigated Webb for his part in the alleged 2013 cold-calling scheme years ago.
Initial proceedings occurred in court in 2016 — well before Webb was cast on MAFS.
Yesterday Nine was sticking to the line it trotted out earlier this year in defence of its talent screening process.
“We and our production partners take the matter of vetting participants seriously and on many levels (with) both police checks and psychologist checks,” said a network spokeswoman yesterday.
Procedures which have clearly failed Nine to date.
The spokeswoman refused to discuss Webb specifically: “We won’t be making individual comments on matters that are before the courts.”
Some might argue Nine is guilty of duping audiences by hiring actors to play unlucky-in-love singles on the show; among those in the latest series who pursued acting careers and work as extras being Webb’s first wife Joy, Dino Hira, Billy Vincent, Susie Bradly and Sam Ball.
While the program was still wrapping up, Power, Webb’s second on-screen wife, described her on-screen husband and then new ex as “scum”.
In three months he’ll face a judgement of a different kind in court.
“In plain sight” has long been the preferred hiding place of the chancer.
History is littered with people who lead high profile but essentially double lives. With no rigorous way of vetting their own staff, charities too are struggling to pick a good egg from a bad one,
The RSL, the Victorian Guide Dogs, Cairns Street Level Youth Care, Guardian Youth Care, House of Hope Foodbarn and Adelaide’s Service to Youth Charity have all been robbed by staff.
If Nine wasn’t able to find out that one of its contestants was facing a criminal charge, who does a little not-for-profit fundraising operation?
It’s an important question and one a TV show like MAFS probably can’t help answer, but I’d like to challenge them to try.
Originally published as Annette Sharp: Reality TV’s two-faced stars take us for a ride
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