Richard Wilkins all but confirms long-standing TV rumour
Richard Wilkins has quite abruptly revealed and all but confirmed a long-standing TV rumour while speaking on Nova’s Fitzy & Wippa on Tuesday morning – and that is that there appears to be a largely celebrity version of Married At First Sight in the works.
The veteran Today showbiz reporter confirmed that Nine has been workshopping a celebrity iteration of the show when he said, "[Former Nine CEO] David Gyngell once said to me, ‘Mate, I’ll give you … I won’t mention the amount of money, but a lot of zeros ... if you do Celebrity Married At First Sight.”
While Wilkins did not elaborate further, it remains unknown when he was offered the lucrative opportunity. Nine is yet to confirm plans for a star-studded version of the smash hit dating series, however leaked texts from MAFS expert John Aiken from 2020 sent the rumour mill into overdrive.
The Instagram DMs showed Aiken messaging a mystery contestant named ‘Reece’, in which he wrote: “Hi Reece. As you know by now from our email conversation you will not be the only celebrity on MAFS 2021. We are currently trying to figure out if we want celebrity marrying a celebrity for the season or celebrities paired up with strangers on the outside.”
This year’s season, which won the 7:30 pm slot every night, absolutely blitzed ratings, recording a national average audience of 1.9 million viewers per episode.
It only makes sense that Nine wants to expand the franchise after the finale which aired last month became the highest rating non-sports program, with a national average audience of 2.3 million.
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