As Final Test week continues on Married At First Sight (MAFS) 2025, we’ll see more of the participants be faced with the ‘Is The Grass Greener on The Other Side?’ challenge.
ICYMI: the challenge is all about testing the remaining participants before Final Vows by offering them a chance to meet another ‘scientifically proven’ compatible match for them, aka a backup bride or groom. Monday night’s episode saw some of our couples accept or decline the challenge (which you can read about here), and tonight will see our next lot of participants decide if they want to meet their alternate matches or not.
Spoiler, but not really because you clicked on this article, Awhina Rutene does decide to meet up with her match Tim King and he’s spoken with Chattr about the date and his unlikely connection to another bride.
Not only that, but Tim revealed he was originally meant to be one of the original Season 12 participants, before being offered the chance to come back as an intruder groom, only for things to go awry again.
Let’s unpack his rollercoaster journey.
MAFS’ backup groom Tim spills on his date with Awhina
After his start and stop journey with MAFS (more on that below), Tim said he came into the date to get to know Awhina and see why she was wanting to meet up with him, but he didn’t have the intention to romantically pursue her.
“She was awesome, a really nice, genuine, caring person, [but] I went into that date not wanting to be a homewrecker,” Tim told Chattr. “I didn’t want to be coming across as this guy being flirtatious in any way, or trying to pick her up, I was just genuinely curious as to why she was interested in meeting.”
Tim spoke more about their date, saying he thinks Awhina was there to get clarity on her Final Vows decision when it came to her connection with Adrian Araouzou.
“I was asking her what she sees in a partner, what she’s looking for, if her wants and needs were being met in the experiment, and she alluded to that they weren’t,” Tim said. “And although she had fun with her partner, she was looking for that deeper connection.”
Tim didn’t think that he or Awhina felt a romantic spark.
“I think my job on that date was to give her some clarity on her decision-making moving forward. We never reached out to one another post that date,” he said.
Tim’s surprising connection to MAFS’ Lauren Hall
While Tim will only be on our screens briefly, the backup groom revealed he originally had been cast as an OG cast member.
“My whole experience with MAFS was a bit of a debacle, to be honest. I was meant to be one of the original participants, and I got a phone call three days before I was meant to move to Sydney saying that my bride was flakey and they didn’t know if she’d come on the show or not,” he shared.
He then went overseas and while he was over there, the 2025 cast started to be leaked in the media and he said he knew “a couple of them”, saying that he and Lauren Hall had previously matched on Hinge.
“I actually reached out to her and I said, ‘Really random, I’m supposed to be on MAFS as well this season, and she said, ‘Whatever you do, stay in Europe, it’s an absolute disaster, my groom has just left me!'”
Tim went on to share that MAFS then tried to get him on as an intruder mid-season, when he and Lauren were still in conversation.
“We were speaking nearly every day, and she said, ‘Oh, they said to me they could remarry me in three weeks time as well,’ so we thought they were going to match us together,” he revealed. “We had a couple of phone calls being like, if they do match us together, can we pretend that we don’t know each other?”
Tim then came back to Australia and got a call from producers saying they had someone for him and he’d get married in “10 to 12 days”. In the meantime, Lauren also got a phone call closer to the wedding date, but 4 to 5 days out from Tim flying to Sydney, things got “wishy-washy”.
“I get a phone call and they said, ‘Hey we’re really sorry, we’ve gone with a different direction, you’re no longer required to be on the show,'” he said.
He later received a call about a month after that, where the producers told him his match was still on the show, and there would be an opportunity to meet her – and that match ended up being Awhina.
What a rollercoaster!
As for Lauren, Tim said they’re not really in touch anymore. What could’ve been!
Married At First Sight 2025 airs Sundays at 7pm and Monday – Wednesday at 7:30pm on Channel 9 and 9Now.
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