reality tv

Last night's MAFS best man speech was bad, but it wasn't the worst we've seen.

To catch up on all the Married at First Sight recaps and gossip, check out the MAFS hub page. We've got you covered. 

Married at First Sight returned with a vengeance on January 29, with the first episode giving us a quick glimpse of some of the cast members before introducing the first two couples.

Cassandra and Tristan are proving to be the experiment's most wholesome match, with Cassandra revealing that she lost her ex-boyfriend in a motorcycle accident and joining the experiment to find love again. 

I'm not crying, you're crying.

Thankfully, Cass and Tristan hit it off with their wedding going off without a hitch.

Then there's Sara and Tim, who had a much rockier ceremony. Even before they clashed at their honeymoon over a miscommunication, the wedding showed early signs of trouble.

Things weren't looking... great when Tim admitted during the wedding that he'd ended a long-term relationship only six months earlier, and then came his best man's speech.

This speech, delivered by a man named Ben, was so bad that it could go down in history as the show's worst.

"I was not surprised to hear Tim was partaking in this experiment because Tim is a man of science," best man Ben began. Innocent enough, right?

"He's quite fond of experimentation," Ben sneered... sounding vaguely threatening. 

Ben then went into the running gag of the speech, listing Tim's various experiments. And yes, I'm playing fast and loose with the word 'joke'.

"Experiment 551: Romance at high speed. Is road head safe?

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"Experiment 552: Is it okay to get head in the ER since you crashed your car and you're here now anyway?"

Sara was not thrilled. Image: Nine.

If you think this is where the speech plummeted to new depths, Ben says 'hold my beer'.

"Tim had the idea to pack his own lunch on a four-day musical festival in the middle of an Australian summer. On the last day, we sat in awe as we watched him devour four-day-old rancid chicken," Ben said, before coming to his disgusting conclusion: labelling new wife Sara (a woman with thoughts/feelings) as his final 'experiment'.

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"Sara, you can find solace in the fact that, rancid or not, Tim will still eat you."

It doesn't take a genius to clock that Ben was talking about Tim performing oral sex on his new wife – said in front of her friends and family.

Not only was this likely embarrassing for Sara, there's also the added layer of Ben insinuating that her vagina could be 'rancid'... which is misogynistic, objectifying, and frankly offensive to women on every level.

One of Sara's bridesmaids, Lauren, was visibly offended and later in a private confessional referred to the speech as "derogatory, disgusting, and to say some of those things in front of people you've never met before – especially the bride – it was absolutely not okay."

Hard agree.

But the thing is, this isn't the first time MAFS viewers have been offended by a speech delivered by a best man. Not even close.

Back in 2018, Ryan Gallagher's best man, Mat, gave a truly baffling speech that could be filed in the 'too much information' category.

"Ryan and I have this ability that, when we get together, our decision-making abilities pretty much disappear. Usually end up doing something stupid, probably getting drunk, actually always getting drunk really," Mat began.

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Editors left most of the speech on the cutting room floor, but it featured snippets of Mat making rogue statements like, "I woke up, and to this day, it was [one of the] weirdest sexual experiences of my life."

Watch the speech below. Post continues after video.


Video via Nine. 

Ryan's TV bride, Davina Rankin, was annoyed at the BM's antics (and Ryan, by default). "Is it your 21st birthday or is it your wedding?" Davina questioned as Ryan sat frozen, exclaiming "this is bad" and "this is dreadful".

But this was tame compared to what was to come the following year at Mick Gould and Jessika Power’s wedding – a speech so bad that the bride's family kicked off.

Mick’s best man, Broxy, delivered a painful speech about the time his friend ended up in hospital after taking Viagra that just wouldn't... end.

"We went up to Airlie Beach. Just for a couple of drinks and ah, we’ve drunk the whole bar dry. Just me and him, and Mick's gone to me, 'I'm going to take some Viagra.' So he's taken the Viagra as a bit of a gee-up. He's raring at everything but nothin's coming at him," Broxy's wildly uncomfortable speech began.

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"Obviously the Viagra's worked and I'm asleep, and I've woken up and I can hear some noises. Open me eyes and he's made himself a bloody tent over himself and he's having a go."

Ummm. Okay.

Jessika's brother, Rhyce, and dad, Troy, confronted Mick by the end of the wedding. "Obviously I am very protective and from what I've seen from his best man, I really don't think too highly of [Mick] at the moment," Jessika's brother said at the time.

According to The Daily Mail, Troy was even overhead telling a producer he wanted to punch Mick for permitting the speech to go ahead.

Funnily enough, there isn't a maid of honour counterpart when it comes to... unpleasant MAFS wedding speeches.

Seems it's just the best men who stuff it up – undoubtedly thanks to the very Australian cultural phenomenon of male friends embarrassing, mocking, teasing and just generally taking the piss out of each other as a means to bond. 

Female friends do this too, of course – but they perhaps understand where the line is (i.e. doing it at your friend's nationally televised reality TV wedding), and choose not to cross it.

Feature image: Nine.

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