We really are obsessed with how much reality stars get paid here at heat towers (srsly, we have entire articles dedicated to this obsession) ; especially Married at First Sight and Love Island stars, as on paper those jobs all come with free food and drink, dinner parties, canoodling with hotties and OH YEAH, free holidays – not to mention all the influencer perks that follow.
If you've been watching Celebrity Big Brother, you'll know that Ekin-Su would probably fight us over this article intro and she'd probably win.
Anyway, pretty much every time we get some one-on-one time with an Islander or a MAFS bride or groom – sans any PRs breathing down our necks – we simply have to ask: do you get paid for being on the show and if so, how much? Love Island 2022 bombshell Jay Younger gave us a cracking answer re: Love Island once upon a time, and now, MAFS UK 2023 star Thomas Kriaras has given us a cracking answer re: Married at First Sight.
Although a little hesitant to reveal any money secrets that might get him in trouble at first, Thomas did give heat a rough idea of how things work during his recent visit to our office.
He exclusively told us, "You just get paid your monthly salary relative to the time you were on the show. That’s how it works. I think it’s pretty standard."
So they're unlikely to ask Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk to go on the show anytime soon then...
That makes sense actually – all of these MAFS kings and queens are stepping aside from their day jobs to provide content for the show and take part in the experiment, so it makes sense that production would subsidise this.
But sorry, Ekin-Su, to us, this still sounds like a bunch of cuties being paid to go on a holiday of sorts. We'd go on a honeymoon with Boris Johnson if it meant we could spend a week in the Caribbean or go on a cruise round the Med. That's such a lie. No we wouldn't.
During our one-on-one, Thomas also revealed why MAFS producers showed ‘the worst’ of him on his series and even spilled some show tea on the 2024 cast. You might want to go underground for a couple of weeks now, Thomas – producers will be looking for your wrist to slap.
We're kidding, obv; he's an absolute gem through and through.
From badly-timed pecks to calling his own wife a stranger, Thomas made for some awkward AF TV, but in the best way. However, we also got some genuinely lovely moments, and saw him fall in love with Rozz Darlington and open himself up on last year's series.