Senior staff on Married at First Sight UK had an “unhealthy” focus on whether cast members were having sex, former workers on the show have told BBC News.
Producers would deliberately try to make contestants angry or upset for the sake of generating watchable drama, former workers have alleged.
The claims follow a Panorama investigation into the Channel 4 show, after which two former cast members said they were raped by their on-screen partners, and a third alleged a non-consensual sex act.
Their on-screen partners have denied all the allegations made against them.
Lawyers for CPL, the production company behind the show, say the latest allegations come from a small minority of former workers, and the company’s “commitment to welfare… is evidenced by the high consecutive return rate of crew across the MAFS series”.
Channel 4 has said contributor welfare is “always our primary concern across all productions”.
The format of the show sees single people agree to “marry” total strangers, meeting for the first time at mock weddings, but former workers say there was an emphasis on sex from the outset of filming.
One former worker who agreed to be named, Soraya Spiers, describes the culture on the show as “toxic from the top down”.
“On the wedding night, there’s an expectation, for those of us who were working on the show, that you should get some sort of hint if the couples are going to sleep together,” Spiers told BBC News, adding “even though they’ve only known each other for two seconds by that point.”
Another former worker, who attended multiple filmed set-piece events, claims a senior member of the production team told her: “Don’t you get it? We want them to sleep together.”
Crew members made bets on who would sleep together first, the former worker alleges, saying “they would high five each other when [the contestants] did.”
CPL’s lawyers say the allegation that staff took bets on whether contestants would have sex “is not something which our client recognises at all”.
Senior producers would express concerns if a couple were not having sex, according to one worker, who said “it wasn’t good for storylines.”
Spiers says the emphasis on sex was “unhealthy”, arguing that placing intimacy “in the framework of a TV show makes it much harder to just walk away.”
Lawyers for CPL say contributors are not pressured in any way or expected to have sex, and that cast members are informed there is no expectation to share a bed on their wedding night.
Former workers also allege that producers manufactured confrontations between cast members, with one describing staff approaching contestants and saying “do you know so-and-so said so-and-so” with the deliberate aim of stoking anger.
“The premise of the show is people finding love, but that isn’t what viewers want, that’s boring to watch and gets icky,” said Spiers. “They’re looking for fireworks, clashes and drama.”
At one of the show’s dinner parties, a former worker claims she saw cast members plied with alcohol, saying “that is not gold-standard welfare.”
CPL’s lawyers told the BBC that alcohol intake during dinner parties is limited and overseen by executive producers and the welfare team.
Hours before the Panorama edition aired, CPL sent an email to current and past crew and contributors advising them about talking to the press, which one worker called “a hush email” and “an effort to damage control.”
Spiers replied to that email directly, accusing CPL of “a spectacular lack of duty of care to both cast and crew” and writing “I hope the investigation reveals the toxicity that oozes out of every pore of this show and production company.”
CPL’s lawyers say its email was not intended to silence employees but to provide support and protect the anonymity of cast members who had made rape allegations.
Channel 4 says it commissioned an external review of contributor welfare on the show within days of being contacted by the BBC, adding that the review “needs to run its course.”
Spiers now believes the show should be decommissioned entirely, saying its model is “completely flawed”, while another former worker calls it “a car crash waiting to happen.”