What would Married At First Sight Australia be without a fresh scandal every single week? This season has already had its fair share of drama, with a honeymoon blow-up, “glassing” incident and a highly uncomfortable cheating scandal.
WATCH: Carolina keeps Dion waiting on their wedding day
Uncomfortable because it meant someone else was being set up to be crushed on national television. And boring because sitting court-side to a bunch of adulterous dates where they mostly just talked about the gym was not something we felt like watching.
But it’s what we had to endure, to see the “blossoming” romance of Carolina Santos and Daniel Holmes play out on our screens.
The pair first met at a Dinner Party after entering the show as intruders. To quote literally anyone from the Love Island cinematic universe, they were vibing.
“There was something about it that… I felt something between us. I just knew something was there,” Daniel tells WHO of his first encounter with Carolina.
The 30-year-old groom reveals his first conversation with the 33-year-old bride made him feel butterflies, how he had expected to feel upon meeting his actual bride, Jessica Seracino.
“At the time I thought, this is a good feeling. I can’t explain it but it was the feeling I thought I was going to have with my bride,” he says.
“My whole demeanor changed when I was talking to Carolina. I was more confused, but I was intrigued. There was so much going on in my head.”
Meanwhile, Carolina – who was married to Dion Giannarelli – tells our sister site TV WEEK basically the same thing.
“Daniel is a handsome guy… there was a bit of flirtation and chemistry that I didn’t have with my husband,” she told the publication.
Daniel and Carolina came clean in the Commitment Ceremony on March 13, after roughly two weeks of affair-having behind Dion’s back.
The group were obviously shocked, with Samantha Moitzi saying she was “going to be sick” and Domenica Calarco calling it “disgusting.” Most of the couples walked out of the room upon finding out, with producers making them return so that the experts could finish off the episode.
John Aiken told Carolina and Daniel there was “no way” they would be allowed to stay and called out how their behaviour had hurt the others.
At a recent reunion episode, where the contestants split off into groups of boys and girls for the evening, Daniel and Carolina re-joined their co-stars for a night of awkward tension.
Dion and Daniel went head-to-head during “boy’s night” over the affair, with Mitch Eynaud even joining in the pile-on to mock the cheating scandal.
“The way you handled yourself is truly disgusting, disrespectful, to not only me, to every person sitting here and to this experiment,” Dion said. “Carolina. She threw away a diamond, and she picked up a rock.”
In an interview with Nine, Daniel hit back to say “Dion, I’m sorry your feelings got hurt, I can’t say that enough. But come on like how many Oscar awards do you want for these big elaborate speeches?”
He also took aim at Mitch over his involvement in the night’s uncomfortable energy.
“She’ll just have a bit of fun and she’ll move on I reckon,” Mitch told Daniel on the night.
“You’re in love with that p***y ay bruv? You’re in love with that p***y. That’s what I reckon man,” Mitch also said, when Al asked Daniel if he was in love with Carolina. “It’s a short term fling, just have a bit of fun and she’ll move on. That’s what I reckon chief.”
“Mitch showed his true colours that night. He’s weird,” Daniel told 9Entertainment. “I didn’t see it coming. But I guess he had a few drinks and forgot to keep up his persona.”
Regardless of that drama – which played out four months ago – Daniel and Carolina appear to have made it through unscathed.
But are they together now? In new photos obtained by The Wash, the couple were seen walking hand-in-hand through Sydney Airport on Saturday, February 26.
According to the publication, Daniel has been staying with Carolina and her 16-year-old son in Sydney and they were on their way to visit his family in Brisbane.
In an interview with our sister site TV WEEK, Daniel confirmed the news that they have moved in together.
“Carolina and I are in love,” he said. “We’ve had our own struggles, coming together the way in which we did and the pressure it’s brought, but that’s only made us stronger as a couple.”
While fans are always happy to see a “genuine” couple come out of the show, many can’t get past the way Carolina has been treating Dion, when she could have just been honest.
“I want you to know that I would do it all again. I will choose you every time,” Carolina wrote on Instagram after the explosive episode aired.
While they didn’t stay with their partners, Carolina and Daniel might be one of this season’s lasting “success stories” as they confirmed their relationship status today.
“We all came here for the reason to meet some undeveloped feelings and fall in love and obviously the both of us didn’t get that with who we were initially matched with,” Daniel tells Nine of their relationship.
“I don’t know why we weren’t worthy of a chance [to stay],” Carolina added. “When clearly it has happened before in the past on other seasons.”
So, how did we get here? Take a look back at Carolina and Daniel’s “unconventional love story” – as he described it in the latest episode.
Following the Dinner Party where the pair first met, came their first Commitment Ceremony, which resulted in Daniel staying with Jess and Carolina staying with Dion.
But in the next episode, pretty much as soon as Jess and Daniel moved in together, she told him she was leaving the experiment. It was a brutal end to what had been an unpleasant journey for Daniel.
“This relationship wasn’t it. It was never going to be it,” Jess says. “I came here for love and if I don’t have love then I’m leaving.”
Meanwhile, he said he felt “robbed” of a real partner. But don’t worry, he seems to have a plan to get one.
After Jessica’s speedy departure, Daniel asked Carolina to come to his hotel room and say goodbye before he also had to leave the experiment.
“I feel bad for Daniel that Jess has decided to leave. I had a lovely chat with him at the dinner party. I hope he’s okay,” Carolina told the cameras on her way there, and she may as well have thrown a wink in.
The pair spoke about their “broken marriages” – an interesting statement from Carolina, since she told her groom she doesn’t rate his looks or personality in this same episode. She also later told him he was “empty” and “has nothing.”
“I think Daniel is flirting with me, but I’m in this experiment with another guy,” she said to the cameras. Viewers all knew where this was going. And there’s some evidence to back it up.
In the later episodes, the pair continued their behind-the-scenes romance and finally locked lips in a super seedy bar. How very “18-year-old at a nightclub for the very first time” of them.
The pair have met up and gotten steamy on two occasions that we know of, along with a boring gym date, with fans wondering whether or not they made it through the scandal.
While they weren’t allowed to remain in the experiment, it’s clear they stayed together in Sydney for some time after.
In paparazzi photos obtained around the end of filming in November 2021, Carolina and Daniel were snapped enjoying a dinner date together at Sydney’s Saga Bar.
“They were all over each other and couldn’t keep their hands off one another,” an anonymous source told Daily Mail Australia. “They were kissing for a solid three minutes straight and appeared in a hurry to get back to their apartment.”
And, now, we know that led to a romance that is still going today! Who’d have thought?
Married At First Sight Australia airs Monday to Wednesday, 7:30pm, and Sunday, 7pm, on Nine Network and 9Now.
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