This week Married At First Sight Australia bride Poppy Jennings walked out on her TV husband Luke Eglin and her exit from the show has blown up to become the talk of the internet.
Despite opting to “stay” with TV husband Luke Eglin at the first commitment ceremony, which aired on New Zealand screens on Sunday night, she reportedly walked out on Luke less than 24 hours later.
The rumour mill has gone into overdrive about what really went down, as Poppy first claimed she left because she missed her sons, then said she’d seen no future with Luke, and then completely shredded him and the show’s producers in a Facebook post that has since been deleted.
Let’s start at the beginning…
Immediately after Poppy’s unexpected exit the mother of two claimed that she left because she just couldn’t bear to be apart from her twin boys any longer.
The Wollongong photographer told TV WEEK that she had regretted leaving her young twin sons the whole time she was away.
She said she had struggled with how much she missed them, despite Facetiming them every day.
“I’m very attached to them,” she said. “It’s been just me and them for such a long time. I tear up every time I talk about them.”
However, Poppy then went on to reveal that she had seen no future with Luke.
His incessant positivity had “annoyed the s…” out of her she said in a MAFS video on YouTube.
“I think we differed in the fact that he just annoyed the s…. out of me constantly,” she said.
“He was so overly positive and I was clearly struggling at times and he’d be so positive about it and that just made me want to throw him down a staircase.
“If I was feeling really down I didn’t want to be like ‘it’s all right it’s going to be a rainbow and butterflies’. It was just always like that and I felt like I was constantly overreacting,” she continued.
“I want to be with someone that brings out the really good side of me.”
Poppy and Luke are the first couple to leave the experiment.
And then came the Facebook rant. In a now-deleted Facebook post Poppy implied that events had happened off camera that had made her feel uncomfortable.
“I couldn’t say what was happening behind the scenes as it was too controversial. Why is Luke crying when I left??? Go and ask Luke why I was so uncomfortable????? … He’s petrified I am going to talk… Those tears from him are for his reputation and job!” she wrote.
Poppy wrote that she was “uncomfortable with all the things about this person I was matched with that didn’t add up”.
“But I was told [by the show’s producers], ‘Poppy, on camera and off camera doesn’t exist to the public,'” she said.
The mum-of-two accused Luke of being “fake on camera”, saying that he was on his best behaviour on the show to please his employers.
“You have seen minutes of footage here and there of a guy on his best behaviour because of his job,” Poppy wrote.
She revealed that she had received an avalanche of hate on social media since her exit.
“I’m obviously being hammered by media and trolls right now,” she wrote.
“I understand people are reacting to what they see on TV but they see 1% of what actually goes on in the show. A commitment ceremony for example goes for 15 hours, you see one hour. Our honeymoon was 4 days, they showed 6 minutes!”
In a radio interview on the Kyle and Jackie O radio show, MAFS bride Connie was probed about what had happened off camera.
“It’s a touchy one this one,” Connie eventually said.
“I just don’t feel comfortable really giving too much of my opinion on this matter because I guess it is big and it’s something Poppy and Luke need to deal with themselves.”
“Is it something that’s an inappropriate incident?” Jackie asked.
“Yeah, inappropriate’s one word to use definitely it’s just, yeah, it’s heavy,” Connie replied.
Luke has spoken to the Daily Telegraph saying he doesn’t wish to comment about Poppy’s allegations.
“I am not going to make any comments because, honestly, the best way to react is not to react,” Luke told the publication.
“To be honest, Poppy is a good person and best of luck to her. I am not going to comment on anything because it is not worth it, it really isn’t.”
Channel 9 and Endemol Shine have since reached out to both Poppy and Luke to offer their support.
In a statement to news.com.au they said:
“We have seen Poppy’s post and note her distress. We have reached out to her to offer support and won’t be making any further public comment and will focus on doing our best to support both Poppy and Luke.”
Poppy had gained instant popularity on the show after a video went viral in which she explained how she came to be a single mum (see the video below):
“I was married. We were together for nine years and we had two little boys,” she explained.
“But when our boys were six weeks old my husband had a terrible accident.
“It was a really, really hard time in my life…
“He tripped and fell and… landed in his co-worker’s vagina.
“And he’s still stuck there.”
But as quickly as her star rose, it plummeted: In the series’ first episode she fell apart on her wedding day, admitting, “I’m not over the fact that I’ve left my kids to do this.”
Despite Luke’s attempts to cheer her up, she continued to struggle with being separated from her sons – and viewers began to lose patience with her.
Then the proverbial hit the fan with her early exit.
If there’s a silver lining to this cloud, it’s that Poppy is reunited with her sons.
“As soon as I saw their faces I knew I did the right thing,” she told TV WEEK.
MAFS Australia is on Sundays 7pm and then Mon – Wed 7.30pm on Three
