May 15, 2025 • 19 mins
After joining forces with MAFS Funny, today Lachlan Guertin and Tahlia Pritchard, hosts of Confessions Of A Reality Star, are digging into Farmer Wants A Wife – and how the behind-the-scenes conditions, and producer involvement, compares to Married At First Sight.
Listen to part 2 of this episode, with spoilers and scandals about the current season of Farmer Wants A Wife, on the Confessions Of A Reality Star feed here.
Check out Lachlan and Tahlia's first season of Confessions Of A Reality Star and drop them a follow on Instagram too. Audio production by Sophie Coghill.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to the Maths Funny Podcast with
me Joshua Fox. And for weeks now, so so so
many of you guys have been telling me I need
to start watching and covering Family Wants a Wife, which
I've always just thought was like the quiet, wholesome alternative
to the monster that is Married at First Sight, until
(00:23):
very recently when someone in the industry kind of laughed
at me when I described the show that way, and
they suggested that people have no idea what actually happens
behind the scenes on the farms are with the farmers,
I think everything's on a farm? Is it again? I've
not watched it. Usually by the time it starts airing,
(00:43):
I am so burnt out for Maths I just can't
do it. But I know this show is huge. I
know a lot of you guys are watching it. And
whereas every year these endless stories and posts about what
went down with the producers and the cast during the
film of like Married at First Sight, like all that
behind the scenes gossip, there is rarely that level of
(01:06):
intel with Farmer. So for you guys, this week, I
asked journalist Lachlan Gerton and Tylia Pritchard, who hosts the
Confessions of a Reality Star podcast, which I host on
this feed to get digging and do a little investigation
into that side of farmer that no one seems to
(01:26):
know about, and I suppose to see how it compares
to the production of Married at First Sight, and Lachlan
and Talia have very much delivered the goods so enjoy.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Often known as Australia's most wholesome dating show, Farm Wants
a Wife is also one of the most successful reality
TV shows in Australia, producing eleven marriages, seven long term
relationships and twenty seven children since it premiered in two
thousand and seven.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
In more recent seasons, however, fans are starting to accuse
the show of drumming up more drama and likening it
to shows like Maths, and now former contestants have started
speaking out too.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
So like you get sweet fa in terms of money
from going on the show, and obviously it's all out
of your own pocket.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
By the end, you're so emotionally drained that you just
want to cry because she's so tired.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
So that was Ellen who was on Farmer Todd's Farm
last year. Now, admittedly the two of us haven't been
as well versed in Farm Wants a Wife as we
have other reality shows, but this year we're both covering
it for our respective workplaces, so we've got our finger
on the pulse.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
This is how I came across one of Ellen's tiktoks.
She was known as the mute on her season of
Farmer Wants a Wife, copping an edit where it appeared
like she just never.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Talked, which is pretty brutal. It's actually like.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
So mey, But it turns out Ellen actually has a
lot to say, except she didn't answer me on TikTok
when I asked for an interview. But luckily for me,
Lachlan is a better investigative journalist or stalker perhaps than
I am, and he tracked her down.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Just need to take into account the fact that there's
a lot more that goes on and the public.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
Doesn't know that.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
So through my investigative slash stalking skills, I ended up
getting in contact with Ellen and we wanted to ask
her the questions that fans have always wanted to know
about the reality show. We learned a lot about Farm
Wants a Wife and its secret scandals, and someone even
say that it makes maths look relatively sane. One thing
that stood out to me was the pretty horrendous pay
conditions that the FARMA wants a Wife participants have to
(03:28):
agree on. So contestants are paid eighty dollars a day
and forty percent of that is withheld until the show
finishes airing on TV, basically to prevent them from speaking out,
although it's been a year since Ellen was on the show,
so she's allowed to speak as freely as she wants.
For context, though, mass participants are paid one hundred and
fifty dollars a day, so that's almost double farm wants
(03:49):
of wife contestants. Here's what Ellen had to say about that.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
You definitely aren't thinking about the payment or anything when
you're going into the show. And I do want to
make that pretty clear because a lot of people are like,
you're not signing up to get paid, and you're not,
but you want your bills to be covered, and it's
pretty measly like to get your forty percent of eighty
(04:13):
dollars is pretty poor, I think. But then we had
to spend like weeks, like multiple weeks, actually asking for
that little bit of payment so we could pay our
rent and pay everything. Like they said, oh no, I would
to be go through the next pay cycle or to
go through the next pay cycle. But you know, and
especially our farm came into it so late, I think too.
(04:35):
You know, not all of us had that savings built
up for months expecting to go on the show, because
I literally got confirmed two days before I flew out.
And so it's not like I had a big nest
egg to sit on, Like I had a little bit
in savings and I could use that, but then once
that burns up, it's it's pretty hard to sort of
keep up, especially when you're having to ask for your
(04:56):
bills to be paid when they're making a little bit
of money off.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
This is like they got had ASUSU obviously was a sponsor.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
I think they had RNUS Western, which I don't like anyway,
as a brand, and they had all of those guys,
like some big, big company sponsoring the show, let alone
the network as well that was behind it in Chapel seven,
which is obviously one of our biggest in Australia as well.
So like, it's pretty pathetic that we couldn't even get
our bills paid. And yeah, and I think they just
(05:27):
withhold that forty percent, so that you don't speak out
against your contract.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Also, it was wild to learn that the contestants don't
actually get paid on the days they're not filming, so
apart from like the measly pay they are getting being withheld,
they don't get paid on the other days they're just
hanging out on the farm. At this point, I'm like,
why are they even paid at all? Like it's actually shocking.
Ellen was only on the show for a couple of
(05:53):
weeks because farmer Todd entered as an intruder. So if
they're not paid every day and only paid when filming,
how much money Ellen received in total for uprooting her
life temporarily to take a chance at finding love.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Oh, wouldn't have even been a thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Like I was only there for a few weeks, but
like it was, it wasn't that much. And I was
like used to getting, you know, my full wages, plus
my little track griding job. Plus I'd also do a
retail job. I would do that like on weekends or whatever.
So yeah, growing from like, yeah, maybe one thousand dollars
(06:31):
in a week usually to about thousand dollars over two
and a half is pretty sad.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Now, I've heard from a few sources that there are
women who quit their jobs to go on Farm One's wife,
which personally, I think is a terrible decision, considering some
people don't even make it past the speed dates in
episode one, but Ellen said that not only are you
not making much money for going on the show, but
you also have to pay for a few things you
might not expect.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
So all the food we get, it's a give it.
We have a runner, and now a runner was really good,
like he was really nicy. We just say can we
have something, can we have that? And this is what
we want for dinner, and he'd go and he buy. Well,
obviously the production company would buy all of our groceries,
so that was usually covered days off. If we wanted
(07:18):
meal in town or something, we would have to pay
for that.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
But yeah, all the food at the farm was all
paid for by Eureka. So at least that was one
expense we didn't have.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
But if we did go out for you know, a
coffee or something, yeah, that would be all out of
our own pocket. But all the dresses and stuff, that
was another thing. It's all ours, all out. We do
all our own hair, all our own makeup all our
own wardrobe everything. I think the only time that they
didn't have wardrobe, it didn't have their own wardrobe was
(07:50):
at the ball, which I had gone by at that point,
and they'd had higher dresses.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
So yeah, a lot of a lot of out of
pocket expenses.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
So once you consider the fact that you've got a
bit of savings and then all of a sudden you
have to go out and buy all these outfits eight dresses,
eight farm outfits, eight casually outfits, blah blah blah blah blah, neat,
and you need shoes and everything to go with that.
Then yeah, you kind of drained the savings pretty quickly.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
A lot of discussion over the years too, has been
fans talking about the women's clothing when they get on
the farm. So we know, one shows like Mouths, the
girls get in touch with dress hire companies ahead of
the show and try to strike up some deals so
they're not always kind of out of pocket for paying
for their looks. But Ellen said on Farmer, there are
strict guidelines about what women can and can't wear.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
You cannot have.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Any brand names that are visible, so like if you
had a big Nike, think nah, because that's a promo.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
Small checks on your shirts and dresses. No good, white,
no good.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
So you pretty much had to You're pretty strict and
I'm kind of looking at my wardrobe.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
I live in a town it's like ten months of winter,
so it's like cold all year rounds, and what am
I going to do? I didn't have that much casual stuff.
But yeah, they were pretty strict on it, and they
had every night before filming.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
You would have to go and put three outfits on.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
They'd tell you what sort of outfit you were supposed
to wear for the next.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Day, but you wouldn't know what you're actually going to do.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
And then you'd take those photos and they'd send a wardrobe.
They'd come back and be like, change these, change that,
and it's say, well, only carry twenty three kilos.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
What else am I supposed to come up with? Because
you couldn't carry any more than that.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Speaking of maths, it's pretty well known that Married at
First Sight producers can be intense, especially how they grill
participants on their show in their interviews, and they sneakily
ask certain questions hoping to get an answer or bring
participants to tears. I feel like people would be surprised
to know though, that this also happens on Five Months
of Wife, which used to be one of the most
wholesome shows on TV. What Ellen had to say about
(10:01):
the moment she was feeling her boxy was pretty surprising.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Oh, it was just horrendous.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Like one day they grilled me dead set for forty
five minutes straight and I was just bawling my eyes
out and the whole time, and they were like, why
have all your relationships failed? Do you think you've deserved
to be loved? Do you love yourself? Like those questions
went for forty five minutes and I'm bawling and I
was just a wreck. And then yeah, the next day
(10:26):
I had a massive, like breakdown. I was just so
tired and just emotionally. You just you don't realize how
much talking about that sort of stuff actually takes out
of you.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
And the next day I was just like, you know,
I'm not okay.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
I can't go on camera, like I was doing laps
around Narrabriae because I was something set me off. I
won't get into what that was, but doing laps around
Narrabria and I said, I'm not okay. I just can't
go back on camera today, like it's just not for me,
and the like, no, you have to, so they literally
and I was like, do you.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
Know how that was for me to say I'm not okay?
And yeah, they made me go straight back on and
then they didn't show any of it. So it feels.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Like a bit of a waste of all that emotional
torture for or nothing.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I feel like that adds a lot of context to
the show, because when you're seeing girls in tears, they've
been hounded with questions, they're emotionally exhausted, and they're also
actually not really used to being in front of the
camera and having to be probed and talking about their feelings.
And I also remember in episode one of this season,
you see the girls balling after not being picked to
go back to the farms, and I was kind of like,
(11:28):
come on, like, you've just met the guy, it's only
been a day, Like you cannot be this invested already.
But Ellen says, there's a lot more that people don't
see on TV.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Because we only had one day to film our speed dates,
just because there was only one of us, so you
didn't have all of those farmers and everyone rotating around,
but they obviously at the start and for the girls
in our season, they filmed for three days straight their
speed dates, So they got up at dawn, did their hair,
(11:58):
did their makeup, put the same dress on every day
for three days straight and they and obviously you can
see that it's going filmed into the nighttime as well,
so you can imagine how long those days are.
Speaker 5 (12:11):
Like I think our first day was our speed date
day was fifteen hours.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
You get twelve minutes with the farmer, but you've got
fifteen hour filming days.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
And so I can only imagine after.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Three days of it what they would have been like,
because I know what I was like after one, like
that was hard enough, but three days of doing the
speed days would just have been just hell, I reckon,
And especially, like I think I said in my Instagram stories,
we got locked in our budget rental van for lunchtime,
we got delivered butter chicken. Like I don't know who
thinks of giving girls in dresses butter chicken, because that
(12:45):
is oily staining stuff, Like that's so stupid, but they did.
And yeah, we literally were crammed into this like little
twelve set of van, eight of us girls eating butter
chicken like and then couldn't even go to the toilet
by ourselves, like we had a mic Priones on.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
Still, so you're going up? Can they hear me? In
the porterlooth?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
After chatting with Ellen, I think one of the wildest
things that she had to say about her experience on
the show was that she and the other contestants were
regularly locked in rooms away from the farmer. Now, I
don't know if the doors were actually locked, I don't
know how easy it was to escape, but here's what
she had to say.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
So when we met Todd's friends and then they had
to make their big decision, we literally got taken to
one room in the part and just sat there for
like ages, nothing to do. We didn't have phones, books, magazines, nothing.
We were just literally sitting there a to our own devices.
So Daisy was asleep, she could sleep at the job
(13:42):
of a hat, like I had my eyes closed and
the other two were communicating silently. But yeah, So you'd
literally get locked in a room, they'd have someone sitting
there and making sure you didn't go anywhere, and if
you needed to go to the toilet or something, they'd
have to call someone to I'm back and accompany.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
You and in case you did a runner, which I
wish I did.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
But yeah, and then another time when I on the
night I left, I went and had a chat with
Todd because I was told I should, and then came
back in and they put me in one of the
bedrooms and they're like, you have to stay in here,
and I was like, okay, like what's going on.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
I didn't know what was going on. And then I
came back out and they're like, you don't know where
Toddy is. He's just gone. He's just disappeared. I was like,
what are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Like huh, And that was just part of the storyline
that they wanted to have that, you know, he's off,
he's tortured because he can't make a decision on who
to send home, and I.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
Just knew I was going anyway.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
So yeah, they literally locked me in a bedroom away
from the other girls, and yeah, it was just really
it was just really bizarre, like the things that they
would do, and it was kind of like they would
lock you up to try and drive you crazy. Literally
don't need any of that enough. I've got enough as
it is. But yeah, it was it was just bizarre,
Like the whole experience was really weird, and I cannot
(15:04):
sit still, Like I'm not someone that sits still for
very long at all.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
I'm so active and yes, so.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Sitting in rooms just for hours on end, nothing to do,
just torture me with you except for your own thoughts.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
So I think it's pretty obvious after hearing that that
Farmer is actually definitely getting more similar to Maths, which
is what we always have been seeing in the past
few years, because there's more drama and controversy on the show.
See as she's gone through the experience herself, we had
to ask Ellen whether she thinks Farmer Wants a Wife
is still a wholesome show all about finding love or
the focus is now too much on drama.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
A bit of column and a bit of Columba.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
I think I think they still have that pretty good
strike right, but there is that drama field. You know,
this is what sells, So this is what we're going
to put on there whereas and it's just such a
shame because I feel like it Farmer's Wife is one
that targets even just so like an older generation of
people that do want to see that wholesome stuff and
(16:03):
they love real people and they love real stories, and yeah,
I just yeah, I do think it's turned into a
little bit of a mass like drama without the mass.
Speaker 5 (16:15):
Following, I suppose, but.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Yeah, but it still does have that little bit of
an element of success when it comes to finding love.
But you're going to get that when I mean, I guess,
like married at first sight, they get picked one person
and one person, whereas this is one farmer and eight
girls to start with. So you've got a little bit
more of a chance of finding someone within that group
(16:40):
as well.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
So yeah, I don't know a little bit of both.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So we're only a few weeks into this year season
I five wants a Wife, But I think it's going
to be pretty interesting watching the rest of the season,
keeping in mind what Ellen has said about the filming conditions,
how much the girls are being paid, and what kind
of tactics producers are doing to get them to act
how they're appearing on TV.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I think Ellen speaking out is really important too, because
as the show starts to be compared to Maths more,
there's different narratives that play out. So we see Clarette
right now getting the villain edit but the thing with
Clarette is she's either going to fall in love and
farmer Thomas Pixer or he doesn't, and they don't get
the same levels of fame or the same influencer lifestyle
(17:18):
that Maths people get at the end of their season.
So not only are they not being paid very much,
but they're bringing in the villain edit with like no
career potential afterwards. And people are now really turning on
people that are betrayed as villains on this show when
they will just disappear if they don't get the love
story at the end as well. So I just kind
(17:40):
of worry that making a wholesome show more dramatic is
going to do more damage than good in the long run.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
It's interesting you say that as well, when you think
that all the people applying for Maths are destined to
be influencers, they want that career in the spotlight, the
people going on farm once a Wife are just the
girls from the country, the girls next door, at least
most of them. Some of them might want a career,
but really they're just genuinely there for love.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Yeah, and it's not a show known for kind of
boosting those kind of careers. So if they do get
the villain at it and they don't fall in love
or don't get the love story at the end, there's
potential they could be losing their jobs so they can't
go back to normal life. But like they're also not
getting the influencer deals either to kind of propel them
into stardom.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
It'll be interesting to see how farm Wants the Wife
continues to evolve. Maybe there'll be more dinner parties where
they're throwing wine at.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Each other, Maybe a panel of experts will come in
and give them last minute relationship counseling. Who knows. I
can't say the drama has gripped me the same way
as maths does anyway, So will be interesting to see
if they keep going down this trajectory of making it
a bit more dramatic.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Maybe they'll learn their lesson and go back to a
more wholesome format next year. But I guess we'll just
have to wait and see.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
And if you want some more behind the scenes farmer drama,
which I've just realized that rhyme's farmer drama, And if
you want some big spoilers and scandals around this year's
season that's airing on channel seven. Please go listen to
part two of Lachlan and Talia's episode on their feed,
The Confessions of a Reality starle podcast feed by giving
(19:10):
them a search on whatever podcast app you're listening to
this on now, or I will link them below, because
if you enjoy Farmer, or you just enjoy reality TV
drama and behind the scenes secrets, you'll enjoy that part two.
Have a lovely day. Everyone say y
Hello, and welcome back to the Maths Funny Podcast with
me Joshua Fox. And for weeks now, so so so
many of you guys have been telling me I need
to start watching and covering Family Wants a Wife, which
I've always just thought was like the quiet, wholesome alternative
to the monster that is Married at First Sight, until
(00:23):
very recently when someone in the industry kind of laughed
at me when I described the show that way, and
they suggested that people have no idea what actually happens
behind the scenes on the farms are with the farmers,
I think everything's on a farm? Is it again? I've
not watched it. Usually by the time it starts airing,
(00:43):
I am so burnt out for Maths I just can't
do it. But I know this show is huge. I
know a lot of you guys are watching it. And
whereas every year these endless stories and posts about what
went down with the producers and the cast during the
film of like Married at First Sight, like all that
behind the scenes gossip, there is rarely that level of
(01:06):
intel with Farmer. So for you guys, this week, I
asked journalist Lachlan Gerton and Tylia Pritchard, who hosts the
Confessions of a Reality Star podcast, which I host on
this feed to get digging and do a little investigation
into that side of farmer that no one seems to
(01:26):
know about, and I suppose to see how it compares
to the production of Married at First Sight, and Lachlan
and Talia have very much delivered the goods so enjoy.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Often known as Australia's most wholesome dating show, Farm Wants
a Wife is also one of the most successful reality
TV shows in Australia, producing eleven marriages, seven long term
relationships and twenty seven children since it premiered in two
thousand and seven.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
In more recent seasons, however, fans are starting to accuse
the show of drumming up more drama and likening it
to shows like Maths, and now former contestants have started
speaking out too.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
So like you get sweet fa in terms of money
from going on the show, and obviously it's all out
of your own pocket.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
By the end, you're so emotionally drained that you just
want to cry because she's so tired.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
So that was Ellen who was on Farmer Todd's Farm
last year. Now, admittedly the two of us haven't been
as well versed in Farm Wants a Wife as we
have other reality shows, but this year we're both covering
it for our respective workplaces, so we've got our finger
on the pulse.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
This is how I came across one of Ellen's tiktoks.
She was known as the mute on her season of
Farmer Wants a Wife, copping an edit where it appeared
like she just never.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Talked, which is pretty brutal. It's actually like.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
So mey, But it turns out Ellen actually has a
lot to say, except she didn't answer me on TikTok
when I asked for an interview. But luckily for me,
Lachlan is a better investigative journalist or stalker perhaps than
I am, and he tracked her down.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Just need to take into account the fact that there's
a lot more that goes on and the public.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
Doesn't know that.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
So through my investigative slash stalking skills, I ended up
getting in contact with Ellen and we wanted to ask
her the questions that fans have always wanted to know
about the reality show. We learned a lot about Farm
Wants a Wife and its secret scandals, and someone even
say that it makes maths look relatively sane. One thing
that stood out to me was the pretty horrendous pay
conditions that the FARMA wants a Wife participants have to
(03:28):
agree on. So contestants are paid eighty dollars a day
and forty percent of that is withheld until the show
finishes airing on TV, basically to prevent them from speaking out,
although it's been a year since Ellen was on the show,
so she's allowed to speak as freely as she wants.
For context, though, mass participants are paid one hundred and
fifty dollars a day, so that's almost double farm wants
(03:49):
of wife contestants. Here's what Ellen had to say about that.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
You definitely aren't thinking about the payment or anything when
you're going into the show. And I do want to
make that pretty clear because a lot of people are like,
you're not signing up to get paid, and you're not,
but you want your bills to be covered, and it's
pretty measly like to get your forty percent of eighty
(04:13):
dollars is pretty poor, I think. But then we had
to spend like weeks, like multiple weeks, actually asking for
that little bit of payment so we could pay our
rent and pay everything. Like they said, oh no, I would
to be go through the next pay cycle or to
go through the next pay cycle. But you know, and
especially our farm came into it so late, I think too.
(04:35):
You know, not all of us had that savings built
up for months expecting to go on the show, because
I literally got confirmed two days before I flew out.
And so it's not like I had a big nest
egg to sit on, Like I had a little bit
in savings and I could use that, but then once
that burns up, it's it's pretty hard to sort of
keep up, especially when you're having to ask for your
(04:56):
bills to be paid when they're making a little bit
of money off.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
This is like they got had ASUSU obviously was a sponsor.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
I think they had RNUS Western, which I don't like anyway,
as a brand, and they had all of those guys,
like some big, big company sponsoring the show, let alone
the network as well that was behind it in Chapel seven,
which is obviously one of our biggest in Australia as well.
So like, it's pretty pathetic that we couldn't even get
our bills paid. And yeah, and I think they just
(05:27):
withhold that forty percent, so that you don't speak out
against your contract.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Also, it was wild to learn that the contestants don't
actually get paid on the days they're not filming, so
apart from like the measly pay they are getting being withheld,
they don't get paid on the other days they're just
hanging out on the farm. At this point, I'm like,
why are they even paid at all? Like it's actually shocking.
Ellen was only on the show for a couple of
(05:53):
weeks because farmer Todd entered as an intruder. So if
they're not paid every day and only paid when filming,
how much money Ellen received in total for uprooting her
life temporarily to take a chance at finding love.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Oh, wouldn't have even been a thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Like I was only there for a few weeks, but
like it was, it wasn't that much. And I was
like used to getting, you know, my full wages, plus
my little track griding job. Plus I'd also do a
retail job. I would do that like on weekends or whatever.
So yeah, growing from like, yeah, maybe one thousand dollars
(06:31):
in a week usually to about thousand dollars over two
and a half is pretty sad.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Now, I've heard from a few sources that there are
women who quit their jobs to go on Farm One's wife,
which personally, I think is a terrible decision, considering some
people don't even make it past the speed dates in
episode one, but Ellen said that not only are you
not making much money for going on the show, but
you also have to pay for a few things you
might not expect.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
So all the food we get, it's a give it.
We have a runner, and now a runner was really good,
like he was really nicy. We just say can we
have something, can we have that? And this is what
we want for dinner, and he'd go and he buy. Well,
obviously the production company would buy all of our groceries,
so that was usually covered days off. If we wanted
(07:18):
meal in town or something, we would have to pay
for that.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
But yeah, all the food at the farm was all
paid for by Eureka. So at least that was one
expense we didn't have.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
But if we did go out for you know, a
coffee or something, yeah, that would be all out of
our own pocket. But all the dresses and stuff, that
was another thing. It's all ours, all out. We do
all our own hair, all our own makeup all our
own wardrobe everything. I think the only time that they
didn't have wardrobe, it didn't have their own wardrobe was
(07:50):
at the ball, which I had gone by at that point,
and they'd had higher dresses.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
So yeah, a lot of a lot of out of
pocket expenses.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
So once you consider the fact that you've got a
bit of savings and then all of a sudden you
have to go out and buy all these outfits eight dresses,
eight farm outfits, eight casually outfits, blah blah blah blah blah, neat,
and you need shoes and everything to go with that.
Then yeah, you kind of drained the savings pretty quickly.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
A lot of discussion over the years too, has been
fans talking about the women's clothing when they get on
the farm. So we know, one shows like Mouths, the
girls get in touch with dress hire companies ahead of
the show and try to strike up some deals so
they're not always kind of out of pocket for paying
for their looks. But Ellen said on Farmer, there are
strict guidelines about what women can and can't wear.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
You cannot have.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Any brand names that are visible, so like if you
had a big Nike, think nah, because that's a promo.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
Small checks on your shirts and dresses. No good, white,
no good.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
So you pretty much had to You're pretty strict and
I'm kind of looking at my wardrobe.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
I live in a town it's like ten months of winter,
so it's like cold all year rounds, and what am
I going to do? I didn't have that much casual stuff.
But yeah, they were pretty strict on it, and they
had every night before filming.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
You would have to go and put three outfits on.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
They'd tell you what sort of outfit you were supposed
to wear for the next.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Day, but you wouldn't know what you're actually going to do.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
And then you'd take those photos and they'd send a wardrobe.
They'd come back and be like, change these, change that,
and it's say, well, only carry twenty three kilos.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
What else am I supposed to come up with? Because
you couldn't carry any more than that.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Speaking of maths, it's pretty well known that Married at
First Sight producers can be intense, especially how they grill
participants on their show in their interviews, and they sneakily
ask certain questions hoping to get an answer or bring
participants to tears. I feel like people would be surprised
to know though, that this also happens on Five Months
of Wife, which used to be one of the most
wholesome shows on TV. What Ellen had to say about
(10:01):
the moment she was feeling her boxy was pretty surprising.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Oh, it was just horrendous.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Like one day they grilled me dead set for forty
five minutes straight and I was just bawling my eyes
out and the whole time, and they were like, why
have all your relationships failed? Do you think you've deserved
to be loved? Do you love yourself? Like those questions
went for forty five minutes and I'm bawling and I
was just a wreck. And then yeah, the next day
(10:26):
I had a massive, like breakdown. I was just so
tired and just emotionally. You just you don't realize how
much talking about that sort of stuff actually takes out
of you.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
And the next day I was just like, you know,
I'm not okay.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
I can't go on camera, like I was doing laps
around Narrabriae because I was something set me off. I
won't get into what that was, but doing laps around
Narrabria and I said, I'm not okay. I just can't
go back on camera today, like it's just not for me,
and the like, no, you have to, so they literally
and I was like, do you.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
Know how that was for me to say I'm not okay?
And yeah, they made me go straight back on and
then they didn't show any of it. So it feels.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Like a bit of a waste of all that emotional
torture for or nothing.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I feel like that adds a lot of context to
the show, because when you're seeing girls in tears, they've
been hounded with questions, they're emotionally exhausted, and they're also
actually not really used to being in front of the
camera and having to be probed and talking about their feelings.
And I also remember in episode one of this season,
you see the girls balling after not being picked to
go back to the farms, and I was kind of like,
(11:28):
come on, like, you've just met the guy, it's only
been a day, Like you cannot be this invested already.
But Ellen says, there's a lot more that people don't
see on TV.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Because we only had one day to film our speed dates,
just because there was only one of us, so you
didn't have all of those farmers and everyone rotating around,
but they obviously at the start and for the girls
in our season, they filmed for three days straight their
speed dates, So they got up at dawn, did their hair,
(11:58):
did their makeup, put the same dress on every day
for three days straight and they and obviously you can
see that it's going filmed into the nighttime as well,
so you can imagine how long those days are.
Speaker 5 (12:11):
Like I think our first day was our speed date
day was fifteen hours.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
You get twelve minutes with the farmer, but you've got
fifteen hour filming days.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
And so I can only imagine after.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Three days of it what they would have been like,
because I know what I was like after one, like
that was hard enough, but three days of doing the
speed days would just have been just hell, I reckon,
And especially, like I think I said in my Instagram stories,
we got locked in our budget rental van for lunchtime,
we got delivered butter chicken. Like I don't know who
thinks of giving girls in dresses butter chicken, because that
(12:45):
is oily staining stuff, Like that's so stupid, but they did.
And yeah, we literally were crammed into this like little
twelve set of van, eight of us girls eating butter
chicken like and then couldn't even go to the toilet
by ourselves, like we had a mic Priones on.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
Still, so you're going up? Can they hear me? In
the porterlooth?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
After chatting with Ellen, I think one of the wildest
things that she had to say about her experience on
the show was that she and the other contestants were
regularly locked in rooms away from the farmer. Now, I
don't know if the doors were actually locked, I don't
know how easy it was to escape, but here's what
she had to say.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
So when we met Todd's friends and then they had
to make their big decision, we literally got taken to
one room in the part and just sat there for
like ages, nothing to do. We didn't have phones, books, magazines, nothing.
We were just literally sitting there a to our own devices.
So Daisy was asleep, she could sleep at the job
(13:42):
of a hat, like I had my eyes closed and
the other two were communicating silently. But yeah, So you'd
literally get locked in a room, they'd have someone sitting
there and making sure you didn't go anywhere, and if
you needed to go to the toilet or something, they'd
have to call someone to I'm back and accompany.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
You and in case you did a runner, which I
wish I did.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
But yeah, and then another time when I on the
night I left, I went and had a chat with
Todd because I was told I should, and then came
back in and they put me in one of the
bedrooms and they're like, you have to stay in here,
and I was like, okay, like what's going on.
Speaker 5 (14:24):
I didn't know what was going on. And then I
came back out and they're like, you don't know where
Toddy is. He's just gone. He's just disappeared. I was like,
what are you talking about?
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Like huh, And that was just part of the storyline
that they wanted to have that, you know, he's off,
he's tortured because he can't make a decision on who
to send home, and I.
Speaker 5 (14:40):
Just knew I was going anyway.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
So yeah, they literally locked me in a bedroom away
from the other girls, and yeah, it was just really
it was just really bizarre, like the things that they
would do, and it was kind of like they would
lock you up to try and drive you crazy. Literally
don't need any of that enough. I've got enough as
it is. But yeah, it was it was just bizarre,
Like the whole experience was really weird, and I cannot
(15:04):
sit still, Like I'm not someone that sits still for
very long at all.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
I'm so active and yes, so.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Sitting in rooms just for hours on end, nothing to do,
just torture me with you except for your own thoughts.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
So I think it's pretty obvious after hearing that that
Farmer is actually definitely getting more similar to Maths, which
is what we always have been seeing in the past
few years, because there's more drama and controversy on the show.
See as she's gone through the experience herself, we had
to ask Ellen whether she thinks Farmer Wants a Wife
is still a wholesome show all about finding love or
the focus is now too much on drama.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
A bit of column and a bit of Columba.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
I think I think they still have that pretty good
strike right, but there is that drama field. You know,
this is what sells, So this is what we're going
to put on there whereas and it's just such a
shame because I feel like it Farmer's Wife is one
that targets even just so like an older generation of
people that do want to see that wholesome stuff and
(16:03):
they love real people and they love real stories, and yeah,
I just yeah, I do think it's turned into a
little bit of a mass like drama without the mass.
Speaker 5 (16:15):
Following, I suppose, but.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Yeah, but it still does have that little bit of
an element of success when it comes to finding love.
But you're going to get that when I mean, I guess,
like married at first sight, they get picked one person
and one person, whereas this is one farmer and eight
girls to start with. So you've got a little bit
more of a chance of finding someone within that group
(16:40):
as well.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
So yeah, I don't know a little bit of both.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So we're only a few weeks into this year season
I five wants a Wife, But I think it's going
to be pretty interesting watching the rest of the season,
keeping in mind what Ellen has said about the filming conditions,
how much the girls are being paid, and what kind
of tactics producers are doing to get them to act
how they're appearing on TV.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I think Ellen speaking out is really important too, because
as the show starts to be compared to Maths more,
there's different narratives that play out. So we see Clarette
right now getting the villain edit but the thing with
Clarette is she's either going to fall in love and
farmer Thomas Pixer or he doesn't, and they don't get
the same levels of fame or the same influencer lifestyle
(17:18):
that Maths people get at the end of their season.
So not only are they not being paid very much,
but they're bringing in the villain edit with like no
career potential afterwards. And people are now really turning on
people that are betrayed as villains on this show when
they will just disappear if they don't get the love
story at the end as well. So I just kind
(17:40):
of worry that making a wholesome show more dramatic is
going to do more damage than good in the long run.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
It's interesting you say that as well, when you think
that all the people applying for Maths are destined to
be influencers, they want that career in the spotlight, the
people going on farm once a Wife are just the
girls from the country, the girls next door, at least
most of them. Some of them might want a career,
but really they're just genuinely there for love.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Yeah, and it's not a show known for kind of
boosting those kind of careers. So if they do get
the villain at it and they don't fall in love
or don't get the love story at the end, there's
potential they could be losing their jobs so they can't
go back to normal life. But like they're also not
getting the influencer deals either to kind of propel them
into stardom.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
It'll be interesting to see how farm Wants the Wife
continues to evolve. Maybe there'll be more dinner parties where
they're throwing wine at.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Each other, Maybe a panel of experts will come in
and give them last minute relationship counseling. Who knows. I
can't say the drama has gripped me the same way
as maths does anyway, So will be interesting to see
if they keep going down this trajectory of making it
a bit more dramatic.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Maybe they'll learn their lesson and go back to a
more wholesome format next year. But I guess we'll just
have to wait and see.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
And if you want some more behind the scenes farmer drama,
which I've just realized that rhyme's farmer drama, And if
you want some big spoilers and scandals around this year's
season that's airing on channel seven. Please go listen to
part two of Lachlan and Talia's episode on their feed,
The Confessions of a Reality starle podcast feed by giving
(19:10):
them a search on whatever podcast app you're listening to
this on now, or I will link them below, because
if you enjoy Farmer, or you just enjoy reality TV
drama and behind the scenes secrets, you'll enjoy that part two.
Have a lovely day. Everyone say y
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com