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Married At First Sight UK: New series to welcome first gay couple

‘To have people from the LGBTQ+ community is just phenomenal,’ said show’s relationship therapist Charlene Douglas

Ellie Harrison
Monday 16 August 2021 11:14 BST
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Married at First Sight trailer Channel 4

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Married At First Sight UK will welcome the first gay couple to the series this year.

A line-up of 14 straight contestants and two gay participants will be matched up by experts Melanie Schilling and Paul C Brunson in the forthcoming season.

“I’m so excited about us having our first gay same-sex couple here this season,” Schilling told Metro.co.uk.

Schilling explained that she and Brunson had cast the two gay men – whose identities have not yet been disclosed – because they were confident they would be a “good match” and “we don’t always find that”.

Relationship therapist Charlene Douglas said that the show’s diversity was one of the reasons she wanted to be involved in it.

“To have people from the LGBTQ+ community is just phenomenal,” she said. “To have diversity, different races and nationalities is phenomenal.”

Married at First Sight UK, which will air on E4 soon, sees strangers participate in a social experiment in which they are paired together by experts in an unofficial marriage.

The couples meet for the first time at the altar, before spending their wedding night in a hotel and then embarking on a honeymoon.

Upon return, they live together for a period of time and decide whether they will continue their relationship.

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