Get daily celeb exclusives and behind the scenes house tours direct to your inbox We have more newsletters Get daily celeb exclusives and behind the scenes house tours direct to your inbox We have more newsletters The emotional journeys of this year’s Married At First Sight UK’s newlyweds have only just begun, but the show’s relationship expert, Mel Schilling , is already back in her native Australia guiding another group of hopeful romantics as they bravely walk down the aisle to marry complete strangers and then attempt to build successful marriages. For Mel, 52, returning home to film the Aussie version this summer was bittersweet as she, husband Gareth and daughter Maddie now live in the UK , and they couldn’t stay with her in Australia once it was time for Maddie to return to school. “We managed it pretty well,” Mel says.
“Filming began in August, so Gareth and Maddie came to Australia with me, and we based ourselves on the Gold Coast right next to the beach. I had a lot of downtime and beautiful beach time with them. But they’ve gone home to the UK now, because school’s started again.
So now I’ve just got a couple of months here by myself before I can get back to them again.” Gareth and Maddie have been a great comfort to Mel following her colon cancer diagnosis in December 2023. She was also supported by the MAFS team, who she says were “wonderful” to her while she was going through treatment during the filming of the current series earlier th.