Melissa Sheppard, the star of Married At First Sight Australia, actually pulled out of a previous season after discovering her match had a STI.
The reality personality was cast in a previous season but opted to leave after learning of the groom’s health problems just 10 days before their wedding.
‘When you start doing the auditions for being a part of the series, you go through tests and personality type tests and STD checks and health checks, which is great,’ she explained.
However, the tests revealed something about her boyfriend, and she had to be informed.
‘Unfortunately, my partner’s test results had come back with a few things that weren’t right for him, which I felt so terrible for, and they had to make me aware of it,’ she said in an interview with Yahoo Lifestyle.
Her match was diagnosed with a ‘incurable STD,’ and while producers encouraged her to stay, she was hesitant to continue with the wedding.
She added: ‘I think it’s the hardest thing when someone comes to you saying, “Hey, I’ve got this STD that’s not curable”. It’s not something that you can take a tablet and go away, it’s something that he has to manage for the rest of his life.
‘It’s not like you meet someone out and you have a chance to get to know them and go, “Hey, I really like you, I’ve got a disclaimer, I’ve got XYZ, I really want to be with you, blah, blah, blah”.
‘That’s not the version of the story. The version of the story is you’re meeting a stranger to sleep next to and build a relationship with that you know nothing about, but knowing there’s this big cloud over the top of your head.’
Melissa, on the other hand, wanted to be sure she was making a decision she was ‘comfortable with,’ so she walked away.
She said: ‘I just felt like I knew too much information and I just needed to make a health decision if that was something that I’d be comfortable with going forward, and unfortunately, I just had to pull the pin.
‘It just was something that I wasn’t comfortable with, knowing he could be the greatest guy.’
Melissa eventually featured on season 10 of MAFS Australia, where she was matched with Josh White, however they decided to part ways during the experiment.
