MAFS’ Tori On Becoming The “Villain By Association” & Whether Her “Edit” Is Accurate

In every reality television show, we know there are roles every person plays, whether they like it or not. You've got your hero who everyone roots for, the class clown who makes everyone laugh, and of course, the villain — the person who is usually at the centre of drama. Unsurprisingly, Married At First Sight Australia is no different. Over the course of a few months, we're shown how people interact with one another under extreme pressure, not only as one half of an arranged couple but also as part of a bigger group of people who would never usually be thrown together.

Tori Adams and Jack Dunkley have already made headlines several times during this season of MAFS, usually as a result of Jack making several controversial comments. These have included telling a woman that she needed to be "muzzled", and him allegedly calling a group of people "whales" (something that he later apologised for in the form of supplements).

But according to his on-screen wife Tori, the pair began suspecting they were about to get the illusive 'villain edit' not long after they had begun filming the experiment. "Meeting Jack and seeing where our lines of questioning were and how things were going, we knew very early on that that's what we were staring down the barrel of," Tori tells Refinery29 Australia in an exclusive interview.

"I always knew that I would have a significant role within the show," Tori explains. "I think with my personality type, it was going to be impossible for me to be the person that sat there at the end of the table each and every week and didn't say much.

"I am quite outspoken," she says. "I'm quite over the top. I'm happy to say the thing that people arae thinking but don't want to say."

Tori explains that although she knew she would get a prominent "edit" in the show, she admits she didn't expect it to go exactly the way it has. "Did I think I would be a villain by association? No," she says.

But after meeting Jack, Tori knew very early on that it was what they were both grappling with, if not simply because of the ongoing questioning towards the two of them, which has included fellow castmates questioning her on why she has stayed with Jack, week after week.

However, Tori says that while the audience has seen some of what Tori is really like, there was a lot left on the cutting room floor. "The depiction of me on TV, is it accurate?," she posits. "I think we're starting to see a tiny sliver of what I'm like — happy to speak up, happy to just say what I'm thinking, very unapologetically myself."

"But it's not 100%," she says. "I have so much more to say."

When it comes to her on-screen husband, Jack, Tori is quick to defend any negative depictions of him, stating that she has spent more time with him than anyone. "We (the audience) see 1%," she says when speaking about Jack's 'edit'. "I spent 24 hours a day with him. We actually had no time apart, it was just us. We were each other's best friends during filming. And the person that I got to know in our time together is not this crass person who doesn't respect women."

"He was brought up on these very traditional values," she says, explaining that he didn't believe in women opening doors or taking out the trash. "He's an old school romantic, and that's the Jack I know." Tori also adds that she said some "really silly things" but these weren't shown on television, while Jack's mishaps were.

"It's just not what was shown," she says. "It is what it is. It's TV."