What Collins And Natalie Have Said About Each Other Since Leaving MAFS
If you haven’t been watching Married At First Sight, then the names Natalie and Collins might not ring a bell. But they have been the most unexpectedly dramatic couple on this season of MAFS.
They were firmly planted in the ‘cute, nerdy couple’ casting box from the get-go, both being big gamers and bonding over their mutual love of Essendon. (That’s an AFL team, in case you too were about to Google it like I had to.)
They instantly hit it off at the altar, and I was convinced they were going to be a rare success story for the franchise. But then Collins got a little shaky at the wedding reception. He seemed a little, well, actually extremely overwhelmed.
He just kept saying, “what a day! What a BIG day!” Which didn’t flood me with confidence.
Image credit: Nine Network
Their honeymoon was a certified flop, with Collins building a pillow wall on their bed immediately and spending as little time as possible together. Then, when Natalie was losing all faith in their connection, Collins planned a romantic day for the two of them. Only issue being that he planned a day out on a hot, hot beach where Natalie’s skin cells felt literally and figuratively attacked.
They then moved in together to the Skye Suites and Collins went full ick. He barely blinked the entire time and everytime he was asked a question by Natalie, or anyone for that matter, he froze up and looked utterly lost.
During the first dinner party of the season, Natalie decided enough was enough and emotionally pulled the pin on their relationship. The pair announced to the group that they were leaving and you could spot the exact moment where the penny dropped for Collins that he wasn’t just leaving Natalie (which he didn’t seem that bothered by) but leaving Married At First Sight too. And that truly devastated him.
All the fellow brides and grooms sniffed out the insincerity immediately and labeled Collins a bit of a fake, but that didn’t really matter anymore because he was gone.
…Until he wasn’t.
You see, Natalie decided she didn’t give things a fair shot, so rocked up to Collins flat (who was still clinging onto the show and hadn’t left the Skye Suites yet) and shocked the heck out of him.
“You’re back?!” he squeaked.
The two attempted to rebuild from the scraps of their short-lived relationship, but surprising no one, it didn’t go well. By the next commitment ceremony, Natalie wrote ‘leave’ and Collins wrote ‘stay’, forcing the two to stick it out another week. Natalie said she didn’t trust Collins and was convinced he was just saying things to her that she “wanted to hear”.
Then truly the most bizarre scene in MAFS history played out. Collins headed over to Natalie’s room to tell her that he wanted to “fight for this” (AKA their relationship) and Nat responded with a “nah thanks” before hitting him with some hard truths. My favourite line from her speech was, “I can’t listen to you speak without hearing an orchestra,” ripping into him for his Oscar-worthy performance of ‘husband’.
Please enjoy the fully cooked scene in all its glory right here:
@itspunkee Surely this is scripted?! #mafs #mafsaustralia #marriedatfirstsight ♬ original sound – Punkee
That was the official end of Natalie and Collins Married At First Sight on-screen journey, but the two are now out and about slagging each other off in press interviews and on social media, so of course I’ve captured every comment I could find and laid it out for you here.
Natalie was first out of the gate, going on Hit Network’s The Pulse with Seany B & Emma G and told the hosts she “had to get out of there” and away from Collins STAT.
“He could just see that he had lost control of what was going on and that his journey was coming to an end,” Natalie said. “I knew within my heart I was like, ‘Nope! We are done’.”
Looking back at their journey, Natalie admitted that they hit it off at first, but then when “there was no spark after the wedding day, I was very sad”.
Natalie was asked if she had been in touch with her former-fake-husband since they left the experiment she said that she had reached out to check in on Collins, but all she “got a one word answer” in response.
In case you were wondering what that word was, it was the punch-in-the-guts-single-syllable, “Cheers!”
Natalie is convinced that Collins is “bitter” about her decision to leave MAFS, but she’s not too fussed about it. “He might hold resentment to me, towards me, [if] that’s how he chooses to respond to the situation, that is not a person I want to be married to.” Roger that, Natalie.
Meanwhile, Collins decided to throw himself under the bus by going on the Kyle & Jackie O Show. If you got that spooked on a TV show, why the heck would you decided to go on live radio with a notorious shock jock I will never understand.
But alas, he did.
Kyle straight up asked him if he was gay (permission to eye roll heavily to that question being asked in the first place), and Collins said: “Am I gay? No, I’m not gay, not gay at all!” When asked if he’s “dabbled” (again, eye roll), Collins responded: “I remember back in maybe, Year 6, I watched gay porn just to see…I knew straight away I’m not gay!”
Returning to his Married At First Sight experience, Kyle and Jackie O asked him what actually transpired at the end of his relationship with Natalie.
“I tried to be as supportive as I could, but during the two to three weeks that we were on, it was very apparent, and Nat was really struggling with grief and home sickness and I think even the producers picked up on it,” he said.
In a mildly admirable move, Collins did admit that he “sucked” at being supportive of Natalie.
“I sucked! I absolutely sucked at times. I just wasn’t supporting and even with words and being a loving husband, that’s something that is all foreign territory to me, for sure.”
Image credit: Nine Network
After all of this, I assumed that these two would skip out on the MAFS reunion (which is usually filmed a few months after the show has wrapped). But Natalie has confirmed she’s gonna go!
“I’m going into the reunion with a mindset of, ‘I’m going to treat him how I felt I wanted to be treated at that first dinner party,’” Natalie said.
“I wanted someone to be there, to welcome me, to make me feel included in the group so when he walks in those doors at the reunion, I’m going to welcome him with open arms to show there’s no hatchet, there’s no battlegrounds, there’s no hate, there’s no animosity from me and hopefully he reciprocates.”
Okay, that’s actually bloody lovely. Good on ya, Nat.
Image credit: Nine + Punkee