‘Someone is going to die’: MAFS star Clare Verrall on reality TV toll

Former MAFS contestant Clare Verrall has revealed the “torture” she endured on the reality TV show and the intense toll it has taken.

Former Married At First Sight contestant Clare Verrall has taken a swipe at producers of the popular reality TV show warning about the dangerous toll it takes on participants.

Ms Verrall appeared on season two of MAFS in 2016, but struggled with depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts following her time on the show.

She accused producers of bullying, manipulation, selective editing and forgoing a duty of care for contestants that left her suicidal.

“I didn’t sign up to be bullied to the point where I want to kill myself,” she told Channel 7’s Sunday Night program.

“I didn’t sign up to have no support. I didn’t sign up to have my life completely ripped to shreds.”

Ms Verrall claims she suffered from anxiety and panic attacks after the reality show aired and tried twice to end her life.

She admits to being gullible and naive when going on the show and understands the public might find it hard to have sympathy for someone who volunteered to have a pretend marriage with a stranger on national TV.

But she says she was genuinely there for love.

“I really believed them. I just wanted a love story,” she said.

But the process didn’t turn out like she expected.

The premise of the show is that a team of relationship experts and psychologists would help contestants find an appropriate love match among the others who had signed up to the show.

“That never happened,” Ms Verrall said. “I never met the psychologist until we were filming and we were already matched.”

Clare Verrall has opened up about her time on the show.

The Sunday Night program was highly critical of the tactics used by producers of Married At First Sight which airs on rival TV network, Channel 9.

Ms Verrall said producers forced her and her partner into “an impossible and potentially very dangerous situation that was going to cause mental anguish and harm” during filming.

“It’s actually torture,” she said. “You get to the point where you’re so tired and you’re so broken and you just want to stop, that you will say whatever they feed you.

“They set us up into a situation to fail.”

She also accused the show of deliberately misleading viewers by contriving situations and conversations that didn’t actually happen through clever editing.

“They can create you into whatever character they want you to be by cobbling things together,” she said.

“They can make you say anything. You are a character. You just don’t know what the character is until it’s on air.”

Clare Verrall and her “partner” Jono hanging on the couch during an episode, looking like a typical married couple.

After filming wrapped up, Ms Verrall said she received very little support from Channel 9.

“I was having panic attacks. I mean, like, lying on the floor, crying, I can’t breathe. Feeling like you’re going to die,” she recalled.

That was before the show had even gone to air, and the public attention made things worse.

“I got a lot of death threats. Just really specific threats like, ‘I hope she gets raped and then dies in a fire.’”

It was around then that she attempted to take her own life, she told the program.

“It’s dangerous. Someone is going to die. And that someone was very, very, nearly me.”

Two contestants on the British version of popular realty TV dating show Love Island have taken their own life after appearing on the show.

Ms Verrall was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder when she signed up for MAFS after being attacked on a street in 2015.

On the reality show she was matched with Jono Pitman, who it was later revealed was ­ordered to complete an anger-management course after ­admitting assault and recklessly causing injury to a man in a 2008 bar brawl.

“I was very disappointed that, knowing my history of PTSD after a violent attack and knowing I had joined the show earnestly trying to put myself out there to find love, the show and psychologists partnered me with someone who had known anger management issues and who has been arrested for violent behaviour,” Ms Verrall told The Herald Sun in 2016.

Married At First Sight star Jono Pitman and Clare Verrall

Earlier this week she took to Instagram to explain why she decided to go on the Sunday Night program to spill the beans.

“I have to admit, I’m so anxious for this to screen as I know I’m going to be raked over the coals again by trolls,” Verrall wrote.

“I didn’t say anything bad about my match Jono as he, like me was just one of their puppets. I earnestly wish him nothing but happiness.

“My beef is with @channel9 as the situation they put us both into was very damaging, particularly for me as I went on the show right after a experiencing a major trauma, resulting in me developing PTSD which they were aware of.

“I want to get the message out though that as these shows become more & more SUPER-SIZED, the absolute lack of duty of care for the cast all in the name of ratings is horrific.

“Viewers should know that as soon as the network have made their money from you, the network simply kicks you to the kerb leaving you to scramble around in the dirt, trying desperately to piece your life back together.”

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