Jaimie From ‘MAFS’ Has Given A Revealing Tell-All Interview About What Happened Off-Camera
Married at First Sight might be done and dusted for the year, but that doesn’t mean the trolling has ended for some of the contestants painted as villains.
One contestant who, arguably, copped one of the worst edits this season was Jaimie Gardner: an intruder bride who was matched with Chris Jensen. These two were only on the show for a handful of episodes, but their relationship was tumultuous to say the least. From what was shown, Jaimie was super critical of Chris and they ended their relationship after Jaimie apparently suggested faking their relationship. However, rumours quickly circulated that what was shown of Chris did not realistically reflect what went on. Shortly after exiting the show, it came to light that Chris had been previously arrested on drug charges, including one count of trafficking dangerous drugs. He was granted bail before filming began.
Over a week since the MAFS finale aired, Jaimie has broken her silence, giving a detailed tell-all interview to the So Dramatic! podcast to share her experience on the show, along with announcing that she is auctioning off her wedding ring to donate to charity.
The interview was super emotional, with Jaimie breaking down in tears several times throughout. The MAFS bride claims she was blocked from doing media interviews, so felt that doing the podcast was the only way to share her side of the story. “I said to them [producers] from the day that I left the experiment that if they don’t show the truth, that I will not be silent on it,” she said.
Here are some highlights from Jaimie Gardener’s interview on So Dramatic! podcast:
On being contacted last-minute on Instagram to marry Chris:
“Maybe they were just looking for a certain type of person and I fit the bill. I got a message and it was like, ‘Are you over a certain age? Are you single? Would you consider getting married on TV?’. I was like, ‘Well, I’m happy to have a conversation about it’, and it went like a whirlwind since then,” she told host Megan Pustetto. “Basically as soon as I said yes to the show, they were like, ‘Alright, well you’re getting married in a week.'”
On the infamous hand-washing scene:
“The hand-washing for me was really, I guess, a confronting moment to watch back on TV because obviously it came across terribly, but I was genuinely having a joke with him. We’d spent the day doing a tasting at the winery, we had had plenty of wine…but yeah, when Chris sat on the couch, I knew in the way that he responded that he didn’t get it, or he didn’t see the humour in that. There were many times in the two days before where I’d make a joke and he would be like, ‘I don’t understand or I don’t get it’,” she said. “I wish I could have handled it better, but does that mean that we would have been any better for each other? I don’t think so.”
Jaime claims that the whole scene was played up as a big argument, when in fact they moved on from it quickly. “If this hand-washing scene was such a big deal and caused such a rift between us, then it kind of doesn’t make sense that he then gave me a diamond necklace that he brought into the show and gave it to me at the end of our honesty box. [If that scene was included then it] would have actually shown that we weren’t fighting.”
On how things took a turn on their honeymoon:
“On the honeymoon, it was an all-male crew, which kind of made me feel uncomfortable as I was part of a boys club and didn’t have anyone to talk to,” she said. Jaimie then detailed the events of one morning when there was “no mics, no cameras, just us” and the couple had to rush to get ready for filming.
Chris decided to help the crew do the dishes from breakfast and Jaime told him, “I said…you know you’re not here to help the producers do the dishes, just spend five minutes getting ready,’ and the response I got to that…he would have been about a metre away from me, this 6-foot-3 guy, and turns around and says: ‘Don’t you ever fucking speak to me like that again! I’ve had people try to fucking control me in the past. Don’t you ever fucking do that to me again!’ and he turned around and slammed the door and walked out,” she said.
“To go to 0 to 1000 in level of aggression, I was terrified. So I got my diary cam out and recorded a video because I was like, I’ve got no one to speak to. I held the camera shaking, like my hand was literally shaking… I wish I had sent it to my phone at the time.”
On why she didn’t talk about this alleged incident on-camera:
“I was always really mindful that he had young kids, he had talked about the fact that they might watch the show and he was concerned about what might be said about him to his children. So I didn’t want to give them [producers] ammo to make him look bad. It’s probably something I do in all relationships, I think about the other person more than I think about myself.”
In the following days, Jaimie says she tried to move past it. “I was trying to keep face after being screamed at,” she said. “I don’t like holding grudges, it makes me uncomfortable, but Chris’ energy was very angry. Chris’ energy was so angry, and he turned around to me and was like, ‘If you weren’t such a fucking bitch!’ and so from that moment on, I was like ‘OK, I can’t even talk to you.'”
On MAFS producers’ reaction when she told them about Chris’ alleged behaviour:
“As soon as I had some time away from him and I was alone, I absolutely broke down to a producer and just said this happened this morning and I am terrified. I was bawling my eyes out…I didn’t sign up for an experiment to be put with someone who is aggressive. I went to find love,” she said.
“I’ve known this guy for two days and he’s screamed at me in that way. I honestly didn’t know how to handle it, so the producers’ advice was: we’ve got to get that on camera. You’ve got to have a conversation on camera…But when Chris came back for this conversation where I was meant to confront him about his behaviour that morning, he had been fed words to confront me with, saying that I was picking on him,” she claimed.
Jaimie also said that she was not asked about her mental state off-camera. “The only time I was ever asked if I was okay to continue and share a room with him was on-camera and on-mic…how honest can I really be in this situation?”.
On why she didn’t bring up her concerns at the commitment ceremony:
“I was sitting there just dying to be like, hang on a second, can we talk about the way that you were aggressive on the honeymoon?” she said. “But then in the back of my mind, I’m like it’s 2:30am, I have to go back and share a room with this guy. Do I just bury it and hope that he’s truthful in saying he’s sorry or do I risk going home and experiencing that behaviour again?”.
On how it actually ended between herself and Chris:
The morning after the commitment ceremony, after Jaime spoke to friends and family, she said she decided to pull Chris aside for a chat. She spoke to him about why they wouldn’t work in a relationship, listing their differences and that she wouldn’t be willing to relocate to Queensland. Jaimie said she told Chris she wanted to take the pressure off their relationship and give it one more week, “If in a week’s time nothing develops, then we can both be comfortable that we tried,” Jaimie says she told him. But then, apparently, it all kicked off. “When I said that to Chris, he just exploded. He started storming around the apartment and throwing things into his bag and it was that aggressive energy again that I had experienced on the honeymoon,” she said.
“This was all off-camera…That’s when I messaged producers, I just said I’m fearful, I don’t feel safe, and when we go to the next hotel, I want a separate room. They didn’t reply for an hour and a half, [leaving] enough time to capture the next scene in the next hotel,” Jaimie said, adding, “Usually they were quite responsive, so I definitely felt alone, and the only time we were around a producer was when Chris was there.”
Then at the next hotel, Jaimie claimed “he was yelling at me,” which is something that other contestants have said they could hear in the hall. “He stormed out, that’s when I got the text saying someone [from production] was coming to talk to me, we were separated…I had a conversation with producers and basically just broke down about everything that had gone on and the result of that conversation was: ‘Well, we don’t have a storyline.’
“So, because I tried to have a reasonable conversation with Chris off-camera, they didn’t have the footage of when he yelled at me. They were like, ‘We will have to go back in and film the rest of the scene so that we have a storyline that you can exit the show on.'”
On almost getting cut out of the show entirely:
“They threatened to cut us from the show…not to me but to Chris. I’ve been told from another contestant that they got told that if they could have cut us out they would, but for some reason they couldn’t. Obviously, I would have preferred they just cut us out, otherwise I wouldn’t have to be here having to tell my story, right? For me, they had an opportunity to tell the truth and to highlight that this kind of behaviour towards women is not acceptable.”
On attending the reunion without Chris:
“I never expected Chris to not turn up to the reunion. I went into the reunion…I was never told that I had an option over whether to come to the reunion or not. It’s in our contracts to come,” she said. “The reunion was the first time that I actually felt comfortable interacting with people and that I could be myself, because at the time, he wasn’t there.”
On finding out that Chris was out on bail when he filmed MAFS:
“I mean, you couldn’t write this as a script, right? It’s insane,” she told Pustetto.
“They [producers] either knew and they didn’t care, or they didn’t know…I don’t know whether it’s option one or option two, I think there’s only one real person who has failed and it’s quite obvious in this situation and that’s the person who didn’t tell the truth to begin with…He spoke so much about being honest, but at what point was he honest?”.
Jaimie said that ultimately these charges have made it clear that MAFS choosing to edit her as the villain was a bad call. “I just think they had the opportunity to tell the truth and to show that what I experienced wasn’t okay and they’ve chosen the wrong horse to back — because it’s blown up in their face.”
We have reached out to Channel 9 regarding the allegations made in the interview.
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