MAFS’ Mel Says Her Villain Treatment Highlights Double Standards Faced By Women

Married At First Sight (MAFS) bride Mel Akbay didn't think she was going to be this year's villain. She's a quiet, well-mannered woman who went on the show for love, but didn't feel a connection with her conventionally attractive farmer husband, Luke Fourniotis. And here's the kicker: the groom admitted he wasn't attracted to her, either. Flash forward to the first week of MAFS airing, and Mel suddenly became one of the most-hated people in Australia. From being called names online to receiving actual verbal abuse in the streets, the reality TV star has had to go into "hiding" and refuses to take public transport to work.

"I've had two separate incidents where people have said something not very nice and made me uncomfortable," Mel tells Refinery29 Australia. "When I opened my Instagram, the first thing I would see was someone calling me a c**t, or someone making a nasty video about me... I just felt like my life [was at] the lowest point [and] I genuinely felt like I didn't want to be here anymore because of the backlash I received." Mel's only mistake, if you can call it that, was not liking her onscreen husband. This has happened countless times on the show, and most of the men get away with it scot-free. "I remember thinking, but I just didn't like [Luke]. That's all it is. I just didn't have a crush on him, [so] why are people hating me so much?" Mel asks.

The edit portrayed her as extremely cold towards Luke, but she was put in an impossible situation. If she led Luke on, she'd be crucified. If the bride didn't throw herself at Luke, well, we saw how that played out. Not to mention the inbuilt trauma we have as women in a patriarchal society, where we have to constantly protect ourselves from unwanted advances or wriggle out of situations that seem unsafe. "I think any woman can relate to being guarded straight away, because you don't want to give someone the wrong impression, because of past history of what you've heard, because you don't want them to get angry at you," Mel muses. "You've got all this stuff ingrained into your brain, and also at the same time, I know what it feels like to be led on by someone, and I would never want to do that to someone else."

At the same time, if you like your husband and they're not feeling it, you could be treated like Rachel Gilmore, who is being knocked down by viewers for being too keen on Steven Danyluk. "It's this ongoing conversation about women, and there's sort of like... if you like this guy too much, you're crazy or you're insecure. He doesn't like you. [Or] in my situation, if you don't like them, there's something wrong," Mel says. And while the bride agrees that some of her actions were out of line, she was trying to deal with heightened emotions in a pressure-cooker environment.

"There are things that I said and I take full accountability for, you know, the way I acted and what I said, but at the end of the day... I didn't swear at him or gaslight him or anything like that. I'm not perfect... but the way it's affected me is beyond words," the bride adds. She doesn't want to say anything bad about Luke, but concedes some context was missed. "There were times as well that [Luke] would turn around to me and say, just so you know, I'm not attracted to you either," she claims. "I don't want to say anything bad about Luke, but I don't think that it's fair that I was the [only] bad guy in all of this."

The show airing has been a rude awakening for Mel, as she never expected to get a bad edit. She doesn't cause drama at Dinner Parties, and mostly keeps to herself. But instead of being portrayed as an everyday woman on TV, she became a villain while her husband became a victim. "I thought that women would be able to relate to me, because I'm sure everyone's gone on a date with someone that they find they're not attracted to, that they don't have romantic feelings for, and then after that date, they go home and they don't see that guy again," Mel says. "Whereas in my situation, I was on the date for six weeks, sharing a home, sharing a bed, and then I tried to leave and I couldn't, I was still stuck on the date. So I don't know why people couldn't empathise with me about that."

Two of the big insults thrown at Mel is that she "doesn't deserve Luke", and that she's a "narcissist and abuser". Firstly, she doesn't want Luke, so that's water off a duck's back. Secondly, she wants to make it clear she never harmed Luke — otherwise, why would he choose to stay in the experiment when it clearly wasn't working, and stop her from leaving? "There's a big difference between not being compatible with someone and being abusive. Just want to make it clear, like I never yelled at Luke, I never swore at Luke, I never tried to control Luke. I never attacked his character or his appearance," Mel says. "I just expressed what wasn't working for me. And I definitely think that I could have done that more gently, but I don't think that warrants the amount of hate that I got."

Mel realises now she was too "naive" during her reality TV stint, and by not "playing the game", she has been reduced to a storyline that has left her with anxiety. "I think some other people were more aware of the actual reality of the television series sort of strategy," the bride says.

"It's a game. You've got to play the game. But me, personally... I was so honest."