This Is The Real Reason Why Alyssa And Tahnee From ‘MAFS’ Don’t Like Evelyn
The MAFS cast is continuing to air their messy drama in public, and there have been rumours of some broken friendships swirling for months. It all came to a head at The Logies, and it looks as though Evelyn Ellis has no interest in being friends with Alyssa Barmonde (fair, I mean, she is Duncan James’ ex), Melinda Willis or Tahnee Cook.
Alyssa jumped onto Tahnee’s podcast Chuffed this week to discuss why they’re no longer friends with Evelyn and dropped a couple of bombshells along the way.
If you don’t have time to listen to the full chat, I’ve picked out the juiciest bits you’ll defs want to know.
Everything we learned from Alyssa’s appearance on Tahnee’s podcast Chuffed.
Evelyn Ellis, Tahnee Cook and Alyssa Barmonde at a Married at First Sight dinner party. Photo credit: Channel 9, MAFS
Alyssa tried to get Duncan to leave MAFS early with her.
Alyssa told Tahnee that she’d actually asked Duncan to leave MAFS early with her so they could continue working on their relationship in the real world. At that point, she was convinced production were pushing her too far, and she was simply, “over it”.
“I said, ‘What do you think about you and I leaving the experiment together? Like, f**k production, if this is really me and you, and this is real, let’s leave’,” she said. Apparently, Duncan was concerned about the contracts the pair had signed, but assured Alyssa he’d be there to support her through it.
“He’s like… ‘I don’t want you to ever feel blindsided or feel hurt by production. I’m going to start sticking up for you, and then we can get through this together and we’ll come out the other side’,” she said. Welp. I guess that didn’t exactly go to plan.
Alyssa Barmonde and Duncan James during Final Vows on Married at First Sight. Photo credit: Channel 9, MAFS
How did Alyssa hear about Duncan and Evelyn’s relationship?
The Utah-born bride has been vague about how she first heard about Duncan and Evelyn’s new romance, and up until now, all we’ve known is that the couple didn’t reach out first. But now, it makes sense that Tahnee and Evelyn have beef, because Tahnee was the one to spill the beans. It gets even more complicated when you realise that Alyssa considered Evelyn a good friend during the experiment.
“We were coming up to an event that we were all going to be attending together,” Tahnee explained. “I was like, I cannot have Alyssa come to this event with everyone else knowing they’re together, and she doesn’t know… I was really shocked that Evelyn completely ghosted [her] and didn’t tell [her] anything.”
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Evelyn and Duncan announced their relo publicly through a Channel 9-approved social video, tackling a MAFS-styled honesty box game. According to Tahnee, this is how Alyssa would have found out about their romance.
“I just can’t comprehend how nasty that is for someone to find out that way… I think that’s in poor taste personally. I was really, really disappointed from the both of them,” Tahnee added.
Why are Tahnee and Evelyn no longer friends?
Tahnee didn’t get down into specifics when it comes to why her friendship with Evelyn is over – which probs makes group outings awkward – but it basically boils down to a bit of backstabbing behaviour. Yep, it looks like we’re still in high school.
The podcast host claimed that she’d reached out to Evelyn multiple times after the experiment, as she thought they were friends, but was stunned to find out what was happening behind the scenes.
Evelyn Ellis, Tahnee Cook and Alyssa Barmonde at a Married at First Sight dinner party. Photo credit: Channel 9, MAFS
“[I] was hearing all this stuff [Evelyn] was saying behind my back… now I know she seems to have a problem with me, that she just doesn’t like me, which is fine. But I don’t appreciate not doing something to someone, and then having such a strong, nasty opinion of me, and then spreading that to other people,” Tahnee said.
“I had that perception of Evelyn that she would pour things out, be direct with you, be honest with you, but when I found out she couldn’t come to me and tell me she had a problem with me… it seemed very strategic to me.”
Wait a sec, let’s cast our mind back to something Tahnee’s boyfriend Ollie said on his podcast Tosser. At the time, people were wondering if he was speaking about Claire – but his remarks seem to line up with what Tahnee is hinting about Evelyn.
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“The one thing I hate most… I get very defensive about somebody, I would say, taking advantage of my partner. It’s all well and good if you don’t like someone to say, I don’t like you, and then you know where you stand with that person… but make it seem like everything’s okay and then through the grapevine all this stuff gets back to them,” Ollie said at the time. Yikes.
Why was Alyssa frustrated with Evelyn and Duncan’s behaviour?
Alyssa said that she wished Evelyn had told her about her new romance with Duncan, and claimed she would’ve given the pair her blessing.
“If she’s gonna be a ‘girls girl’, which is what she was on the show, where was that respect for me?” she asked. “Always sticking it to Harrison and spitting the hard truths and the facts, where was the respect for me when we were friends?”
The reality TV star then questioned why Duncan and Evelyn didn’t take to the #FreeAlyssa campaign in May this year. At that point, Alyssa was being heavily trolled, receiving death threats and threatening messages. Fair play to her, she did manage to turn her ‘I have a child’ catchphrase into some merch, but it defs wasn’t all peachy in her world at the time.
The MAFS cast came together to support Alyssa on social media earlier this year. Photo credit: Instagram/@melindarichelle, @10dall
“Every single person on our season bar two, came out with the Free Alyssa movement [on social media], except him. That is literally all he had to do, was say, ‘Hey guys, please stop sending Alyssa death threats, please stop finding her phone number online and saying she’s a worthless piece of s**t and a bad mother’,” she claimed. “I could not explain to you these messages that I was receiving from total strangers, that [were] obviously Team Duncan.”
So which MAFS brides are still friends?
It’s a huge mess when it comes to MAFS friendships. You’ve got Janelle and Caitlin, who seem to be friends with basically everyone, and then the rest split into a few groups.
Claire, Sandy and Evelyn seem to have a problem with Melinda, which became obvious at The Logies. Tahnee and Alyssa are friends, but seem to be at odds with Evelyn. And then Alyssa, Sandy, Tayla, Bronte and Lyndall also appear to be friends – with the group attending a MAFS boxing match together. Claire and Bronte’s friendship previously was on the rocks, but the pair have since made up.
I’m seriously going to need a running spreadsheet to keep track of all of this.
Punkee reached out to Evelyn for comment but she wishes to avoid talking about MAFS at the moment.
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Image credits: Channel 9, MAFS, Instagram/@melindarichelle, @10dall