The ‘Secret Pact’ Jack And Tori Had On MAFS
Jack and Tori, without a doubt, were the most divisive couple on Married At First Sight.
They arrived at the altar wonky, with one half having a ‘sexual spark’ and the other sensing a gust of wind at best. Jack then went on to fumble nearly every interaction, making enemies of the rest of the cast as he called them “whales” and told them to “muzzle” their women. Despite the misgivings of her groom, Tori stuck by Jack and developed real feelings for him – which saw them make it all the way to the final vows and commit to each other beyond the show.
And that they’ve done! The two have been seen together on the Gold Coast (where Jack lives and Tori plans to move to) in the six months since filming wrapped and appear to be very much in love. But now they’ve got elements of their life back (ahem, their social media accounts) and don’t have to keep their relationship a secret, they’re having a chat about their experience on the show.
The latest chat Jack has had was with Yahoo Lifestyle where he revealed the secret “pact” he and Tori had to survive the reunion episodes – which were a two-part dinner party and couch session to close of the chaos of the season.
“We had been out of the show for a month and Tori was pretty emotionally dejected from the experiment at that point,” Jack tells Yahoo Lifestyle, hinting that Tori wasn’t down for the grand reunion with the rest of the cast. However, Jack thought it best if they closed off their MAFS chapter properly.
“I kind of softly encouraged her, ‘Let’s just finish it off babe, we’ve come this far. Let’s go in there, own our s**t like we do, and hopefully, they show some positive moments and have a discussion as to how we’ve been navigating long distance and if we’re in a good place and we’re happy, and we can tell them and show them that we are legit, we are happy, this is what we’ve been doing’.”
“We went in with a pact. I said to Tori, ‘If at any moment you don’t want to be there, it does turn into a s**t show and it’s getting toxic, let me know and I’ll take you home’, and that’s kind of what you saw on TV,” he shares.
Fans will have seen this scene play out already – where after seeing a montage of their time on the show and getting grilled by the experts on the couch, Tori abruptly says, “I want to leave”. The two stand up, walk out of the room and are filmed having what looks like a heated exchange before waltzing right out of there.
Jack confirmed in the same interview with Yahoo Lifestyle that this was exactly what happened.
“As soon as she said she’d had enough and she wanted to go, I knew that was trigger time. We walked outside and I picked her mic off myself and I pulled my own mic off, they were still filming us at this point. Tori looked like she wanted to explode and I said, ‘Babe, just keep it together. This is probably what they want. Don’t give them the reaction they do not deserve at this point of the experiment’. So I gave her a hug and I kissed her on the cheek and I said, ‘Let me take your mic off babe and I’ll take you home and we can get some yummy food and go home and watch a movie and you can vent to me all you like’.”
For those watching along at home, it all seemed a bit of a full-on response from Tori and Jack, but Jack has provided context as to how they were really feeling at the time.
“Everyone else sat down and they had a 10-minute video and went through some ups and downs, and then the experts gave them an opportunity at the end, whether the couple was together or not, to finish on a high note and say some nice things and they got thanked for being there,” Jack tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “We had one 10-minute video and it was all negative. They asked us a couple of questions about that which was pretty brutal and it was just a s**t show to watch,” he says.
While that’s fairly rough for the couple to go through, I will just flag that it’s a recap of Jack’s rather shitty behaviour – which he’s failed to take account for here, yet again. So I have sympathy, but also a sigh for darling Jacob.
But what the ‘secret pact’ tells me about Tori and Jack now is that Jack may have stepped up his game in supporting his wife. From him inviting his meanest client to grill Tori so “she could be in the hot seat” to him planning an escape route for her when she feels uncomfortable feels like a hard switch in the right direction.
Image credit: Nine + Punkee