'It is a scandal': MKR adds a touch of MAFS with friends-with-benefits twist


My Kitchen Rules looks to have borrowed from the Married at First Sight rulebook, with allegations a behind-the-scenes relationship has been affecting who stays and who goes home.

On Monday night's episode of the cooking show, it was revealed that two contestants from different teams – therefore, competitors – had begun seeing each other, in what is a first for Seven's long-running reality TV series.

The secret tryst was revealed in a heated conversation at the table during one of the show's dinner parties, when contestant Veronica revealed that her teammate Piper "leaves at night time and goes into [Victor's] bed".

The reveal came after Victor, his teammate G, and Piper all left the dining table in a huff after facing a barrage of questions from the other teams about the relationship.


Now, Veronica is defending how it all played out and hints at a television portrayal that's slightly different to reality.

My Kitchen Rules' Veronica, left, with teammate Piper.

My Kitchen Rules' Veronica, left, with teammate Piper. Credit:Seven Network

"They kept digging and digging," Veronica says of her fellow contestants. "It got to a point where, you know what, they just wanted me to say Victor and Piper were together. I'm not sure why it's portrayed as me telling everyone. Everyone already knew they were together. It's very unfair to Piper and Victor."

The former beauty queen was adamant that, despite Piper's relationship with Victor, she and Piper had always scored every team fairly. She also said the less-than-flattering portrayal of the couples' relationship was having an impact on her friend.

"It's quite upsetting because all they're showing is this [one] side of Piper," Veronica says. "Obviously the editing is full on, but we didn't expect it to this extent. I really feel for Piper because she was going through a hard time on the show and now she's having to put everything back together again. That's why I'm there as a friend.

"She's got two kids. They're quite young, so she's obviously switched [the show] off. But one day if her kids Google her name, all these stories will come up and that's not very nice. Having all this horrible information about their private life out there is very upsetting."


Veronica and Piper's fellow contestant Romel, who kicked off the events on Monday night with his unrelenting questions, sees things very differently. He believes the show's scoring would have been affected by Piper and Victor's relationship (contestants on the show score each other's cooking, with a final group score then combined with scores awarded by hosts Manu Feildel and Pete Evans). With hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money on the line, he isn't happy about the potential conflict of interest.

"It is a scandal," he says of Victor and Piper's relationship. "You can sleep with whoever you want. But ... when relationships are going to be formed to that extent, it's going to make the game unfair. You're going to improve the scoring for the person you're having sex with.

"You're going to want to keep that person in the show because it's your closest ally, so to speak."

The clash has come at a convenient time for the show. With Married at First Sight (broadcast by Nine, the owner of this masthead) still soaring in the ratings – it beat MKR by approximately 685,000 metropolitan viewers on Sunday night – a little romantically-charged drama might be just what Seven needs to secure a stronger viewership than it's seen in the last few weeks.

Romel, for one, agrees. "If only we'd done that from the get-go, we'd have more viewers," he says with a laugh. "Drama sells."

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