The hype around Married at First Sight 2025 (MAFS) is already off the charts, and this season is shaping up to be one of the spiciest yet. Fans are eager to know which couples will make it, and which ones will flame out.
One pair that grabbed viewer’s attention early on was this season’s “quirky couple” Ashleigh Ackerman and Jake Luik.
So, are these two still together after tying the TV knot on MAFS? Here’s what we know.
Jake and Ashleigh’s pairing
Ashleigh is a Gold Coast creative with a business mind. She owns and operates the Ashleigh Lee Dance Company with her mother and sister.
Per the company’s Instagram, it focuses on building confidence and having fun through dance, and it’s been a family affair since it opened in 2012.
According to The Daily Mail, friends of Ashleigh describe her as “a lovely girl” who’s just come out of a messy breakup.
Meanwhile, MAFS TV groom Jake is a well-being coordinator for Southern River College, an independent public high school in Gosnells, Western Australia, where he works with Year 10 students.
He’s clearly a caring guy – but will his heart be enough to win over Ashleigh?
Are the couple still together?
Unfortunately, love did not bloom for Ashleigh and Jake. The couple did have a very solid start to their relationship, though. Jake was open to building a love that would last, Ashleigh was ready to settle down, and both participants spoke passionately about wanting children in the near future. Their personalities also seemed to align, with their partnership full of banter and laughter from the moment they met at the altar.
However, their fun-loving connection began to break down after the couple moved in together. Ashleigh felt Jake lacked emotional maturity and that his jokey nature was sometimes reflective of that. Everything then took a disastrous turn during a highly controversial Photo Ranking task. When Jake made derogatory comments about other MAFS 2025 brides, plus a racist statement related to MAFS bride Awhina Rutene, Ashleigh began to question whether they were a good fit.
With Ashleigh turning to fellow MAFS bride Sierah Swepstone to discuss Jake’s comments, which Jake saw as a betrayal, and the comments then being revealed to everyone at the first Commitment Ceremony, it seemed their relationship had reached a point of no return. Jake wrote “Leave”, but interestingly, Ashleigh wrote “Stay” – with this locking the couple in for another week, viewers had hope that the damage could be reversed.
That hope turned out to be unfounded, with Jake making the surprise decision to walk away from his marriage to Ashleigh the following day. After a very awkward conversation in which Jake told Ashleigh he could no longer trust her, the groom left their apartment and hopped on a plane back to Perth. With Jake gone, Ashleigh was left with no choice but to also exit the experiment.
