Revising for her end-of-year exams, my 13-year-old daughter has been reading about popular forms of entertainment in Elizabethan times.
‘Can you believe people used to watch as packs of dogs were let loose on chained-up bears? For fun?’ She shook her head sadly and continued reading from her notes.
‘And that they’d make cockerels fight each other, so that everyone would bet on which one would win? How barbaric!’
As I listened to my daughter, I imagined teenagers 400 years from now, studying the reality TV that passes for entertainment in 2026. ‘Can you believe people used to watch as men on bail for domestic violence offences were married off to women they’d only just met, all in the name of entertainment? How barbaric!’
Alas, here we are, as Married At First Sight, one of the UK’s most popular television shows, is pulled off air after two female contestants alleged they were raped by their on-screen husbands. It’s also emerged that another contestant was cast on the show despite being on bail for domestic violence offences at the time.
‘We are not judge and jury,’ a senior executive on the show is alleged to have said in its defence.
One man is said to have raped his on-screen wife and threatened her with an acid attack. Now police are urging contestants on the Channel 4 programme to come forward, in a story that seems to get darker by the day.
And I don’t know about you, but as horrified as I am, I’m also amazed that something like this hasn’t happened sooner. As the chair of the Culture Media and Sport Committee, Caroline Dinenage put it, making people share a bed and a life immediately after meeting ‘feels like an accident waiting to happen’.
Married At First Sight, one of the UK’s most popular television shows, has been pulled off air after two female contestants alleged they were raped by their on-screen husbands
TV like this has so far escaped censure because it brings in huge audiences who have been happy to believe TV companies when they say that contestants are looked after. We can justify watching it because we are told the contestants are fully briefed on what will happen, that they know what they are signing up for when they apply.
Of course, the not knowing what they are signing up for is the actual appeal of these shows – the premise that makes Married At First Sight so gripping – but the viewer comforts themselves in the knowledge that no matter how much the contestants might be emotionally manipulated, they will at least be physically safe.
But this week’s BBC Panorama investigation into the Channel 4 show blows that all apart. Our desire for televisual guilty pleasures is not, as it turns out, without consequences, and perhaps it never has been.
Two Love Island contestants have died by suicide in the last eight years, while the show’s host, Caroline Flack, took her own life in 2020.
Jake Hall, a former star of The Only Way Is Essex (Towie), died in a tragic accident earlier this month after a night out in Majorca. His death came just two months after that of former TOWIE star Jordan Wright, who was found in a drainage ditch in Thailand.
In 2021, the domestic violence charity Women’s Aid was so shocked by behaviour on Married At First Sight UK it released a statement.
‘The relationship on-screen includes what looks like humiliation, belittling and intimidation, which is not what a healthy relationship looks like,’ it said of the situation between Franky Spencer and Marilyse Corrigan. ‘These are all characteristics of coercive control …abuse is not entertainment.’
Two Love Island contestants have died by suicide in the last eight years, while the show’s host, Caroline Flack (pictured), took her own life in 2020
Meanwhile, the most recent series in Australia has caused outrage after one contestant told his ‘wife’ she was ‘frigid’ because she would only agree to one kiss during a wedding photoshoot. He also accused her of being ‘too masculine’ as she had a career.
Love Island, Virgin Island, Married At First Sight, Too Hot to Handle … there is now so much distracting reality TV that we’re suffering a sort of crisis of attention, with producers having to create ever-more salacious material to keep us hooked.
But where have we got to, culturally, when abuse is considered TV gold? Do we really want to exist in a society where our brains are so saturated in cheap, nasty dopamine that television bosses will prioritise ratings over human safety?
Many people dismiss the complaints of badly treated reality stars, by pointing out that they don’t have to take part in these shows. But nor do we have to watch them. The power is not in the hands of producers, but the viewers at home.
We must vote with our remote controls and switch this exploitative rubbish off, before we all become complicit in a 21st-century form of bear-baiting.
Well done keeping your cancer secret, Kylie
Oh Kylie, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. In her new Netflix series, the wonder from Down Under talks about everything from her relationship with Michael Hutchence to the return of her breast cancer, which she managed to keep private.
‘I don’t feel obliged to tell the world, and actually I just couldn’t at the time because I was just a shell of a person,’ said Minogue of the awful moment in 2021 she was told the disease had come back.
‘I don’t feel obliged to tell the world, and actually I just couldn’t at the time because I was just a shell of a person,’ said Minogue when she learned the cancer had come back in 2021
She’s thankfully recovered, and is now reminding us that in a world where some celebrities feel the need to document every cough and spit, it’s perfectly possible to keep your private and public life separate. Yet another reason to love her.
Ten hours of exercise a week is nuts!
Another day, another bit of health advice. Research in the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests you need to be exercising for about 90 minutes a day for it to significantly benefit your heart health. That’s more than ten hours a week of running, weight-lifting and swimming.
Even as someone who runs long distances – in the last month, I’ve done a marathon and a half-marathon – just reading this report has left me completely exhausted.
Research in the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests you need to be exercising for about 90 minutes a day for it to significantly benefit your heart health
Brad Pitt, 62, has been spotted out and about in Los Angeles with his much younger girlfriend, Ines de Ramon, 33. Meanwhile, Earl Spencer – also 62 – has been photographed, just up the road in Arizona, getting married to his fourth wife, Cat Jarman, who is 43. They’re men born months apart, but in Earl Spencer’s case, it’s clear that having a younger partner hasn’t been quite as anti-ageing as it’s been for Pitt.
Brad Pitt, 62, has been spotted out and about in Los Angeles with his much younger girlfriend, Ines de Ramon, 33
Why ARE so many A-listers Arsenal fans?
Congratulations to Arsenal, who have won their first Premier League title in 22 years. As a lifelong Gunner, I couldn’t be more excited, and will be at the victory parade in Islington, London, next weekend.
Almost as thrilling as clinching the title has been seeing all the famous fans celebrating on social media. Actresses Lily James and Gemma Chan, film director Spike Lee, actor Douglas Booth… has there ever been a team with a more glamorous cast of supporters? It’s not just the Premier League that Arsenal have won, but the hearts of the Hollywood elite.
