Surprise salaries of MAFS contestants revealed

Being on Australian TV’s most watched show might make you a household name, but it doesn’t exactly mean you get the pay packet to match.

They might be starring on Australian TV’s most successful show but that doesn’t mean the stars of Married At First Sight are raking in millions.

According to one of last year’s contestants MAFS stars Jessika Power and Ines Basic would be making a rather modest pay packet despite their attention-grabbing antics.

Telv Williams, who was “married” to Sarah Roza last year, revealed in an Instagram question and answer session the “s**t” pay contestants make.

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“You get paid $150 dollars a day, tax free. It’s s**t, it’s rubbish. Everything is off your own f***ing back,” Telv revealed.

But if a tax free daily rate to attend dinner parties may sound like a sweet deal to you, Telv added that Nine didn’t cover any of their personal costs they incurred for appearing on TV.

“You gotta do all your own hair and makeup,” he said. “You gotta do your own dress, buy your own clothes.”

Last year’s MAFS contestant Telv Williams confirmed the modest salaries of the show’s stars. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

The modest salary MAFS contestants receive in recent seasons is a marked improvement on the first few years of the reality show.

Married At First Sight season two contestant Jono Pittman said contestants only got $150 a week.

However, he acknowledged there were much less filming commitments required as contestants did not yet live away from home in rented apartments together.

“We were able to continue with our normal lives at the same time, so we were able to go to work,” he told KIIS FM in 2017.

“We only had to take about a week off of annual leave for the honeymoon.

“Ours was a whole different aspect to this year (the 2017 season). This year they had to take eight weeks off work.”

2018 MAFS contestant Nasser Sultan told Now To Love in January that he hadn’t had much money left after groceries and other living expenses on his $150 per day wage.

He also claimed that some of the female contestants got creative when it came to fitting themselves out for the camera.

“The girls would message companies on Instagram and ask for free clothes to be sent to them, and so we’d be sitting there and these deliveries would show up,” he claimed.

Despite going on MAFS hardly proving a lucrative exercise on its own, several of the show’s stars have used their infamy to earn money on sponsored Instagram posts and appearances.

Cyrell Paule made a paid appearance at a Melbourne nightclub last weekend while Cheryl Maitland from the 2017 MAFS season now works as an Instagram influencer.

Meanwhile, other contestants have claimed going on MAFS hurt their existing careers, with Dean Wells revealing his portrayal last year forced him to take time off work because of “the hysteria and whatnot over the show”.

“I’m taking leave from my own company and stepping down a little bit,” he told the Herald Sun in March last year.

Dean’s MAFS “wife” Tracey Jewel also had similar problems, with the 35-year-old revealing last year she was being supported by her parents.

Tracey claimed she had lost work because of trolls targeting her online and a messy public split from her boyfriend Patrick Kedemos.

Tracey told Who at one stage she “had a radio show contract, I had clients interested in working with me, I had social media sponsorship deals” before they were abruptly canned.

“Everyone’s cancelled their contracts with me. Any way I had of earning an income has disappeared,” Tracey claimed.

“I had a lot of big plans and dreams for my life and because of the situation, with Patrick and the trolls, no-one wants to touch me, no-one will employ me.”