EXCLUSIVE: The loved-up couple share what might have happened if the experts paired them together.

Jacqui Burfoot and Clint Rice have revealed what might’ve happened if the experts paired them together in the experiment. Photos: Yahoo / Instagram/jacquelineleejewellery

Over the past three seasons of Married At First Sight, 37 couples have been paired together in the experiment. Two couples are still together today; however, the success rate of participants who weren’t matched by the experts but started dating after the show is surprisingly higher.

2023’s Evelyn Ellis and Duncan James and 2024’s Ellie Dix and Jono McCullough are still going strong, and Jacqui Burfoot and Clint Rice from this year’s season recently announced their engagement. Each of these six participants failed to find love with their assigned partner on the reality show, which begs the question: how would they have gone in the experiment if they were matched with their current partner?

Jacqui and Clint tell Yahoo Lifestyle that they believe their MAFS experience would’ve been very different if they were paired together by the experts from the get-go.

“In our everyday life, there’s no friction or issues. If we have a problem or something comes up, we talk about it. There wouldn’t have been drama, so we wouldn’t have actually probably got a lot of airtime,” he says with a laugh.

“We would have navigated through our relationship and hung out in the apartment and probably got along really well, if it’s anything like our normal everyday lives. We would have just sailed through it.”

Scroll back up to restore default view.

Clint’s surprising admission: ‘Maybe we wouldn’t have lasted’

The couple admits there’s a chance the experts’ tasks and certain pressures within the experiment could have caused issues in their relationship, and they may have left early on to continue seeing each other in the outside world.

“If I had Clint, he would have been like, ‘No, we’re not going to go to the dinner party because we don’t want to be around people yelling’,” Jacqui shares. “I think we would have been like, you know what? We’ve found something real here, we’ve been matched, and just left.”

“The only thing it probably could have done is driven us apart, I think,” Clint remarks. “After being on there, knowing that a lot of things create friction in your relationship and with other cast members, I think if we had been matched on there, maybe we wouldn’t have lasted. Maybe there would have been friction created from external factors.”

Would Evelyn and Duncan have worked in the experiment?

Evelyn and Duncan also told Yahoo Lifestyle, following their hard launch in May 2023, that they would have been “bloody boring” if they were matched together in the experiment because they get along so well.

“It would honestly be two people just really into each other,” Evelyn shared. “It would have been really easy, I think, if Duncan and I were paired with each other from the start.”

“It just wouldn’t have been good viewing,” Duncan laughed. “You need a few love stories each year, which is why people watch the show. I think everyone wants to see relationships evolve and people fall in love, so we’d probably be on that end of the spectrum.

“It’d be boring. It would just be two people getting along too well.”