Justin Fischer from 'Married At First Sight' Australia 2018 season spoke to Josie's Juice this morning and boy did it get interesting.
The conversation was an easy one, with Justin very clear about who he is, and how he was portrayed on the show, and the fact it was not aligned with his actual character.
And before you say, well, that's what they all say at the end of a reality TV show if they're not viewed favourably, Justin has some pretty solid words and stories to back himself up.
'Married At First Sight' finished filming in November last year, and the people on the show all then regrouped in January this year for two days of filming for the reunion shows.
So, how has he felt seeing it all unfold on TV, watching it as we are watching it?
"I could barely watch it, Josie, the way they portrayed me was absolutely disgusting," said Justin.
"It's not even close to my character," he added. "Luckily most of my clients are international clients."
"I export (soft serve ice cream) machines out of my head office which is Guangzhou in China. We manufacture and export around 2000 machines a month worldwide, and Australia is a very small part of that," he said.
"Thankfully for that my clients are business loaners and knew the show was fabricated or not a very accurate representation of me," Justin tells Josie's Juice.
What made Justin go on the show to start with, I ask him, as I hear him speak so eloquently about himself and his life.
"My cousin Trevor from Sydney was a huge fan of season four, and he called me up, we caught for a beer and he said, "You're 41 and you're still single, all you do is travel the world for work and you'll wake up one day at 50 and still be by yourself."
He said, "I think this is a good idea and you should go for it."
"I thought yeah... what can I say to that, Josie, he's pretty spot on there. All I do is work and travel the world and I'm on a plane every week, and when I'm not on a plane I'm spending time with my daughters," says Justin, who is dad to a nine year old and a two year old.
"I don't have time to be dating people and all that muck around so I thought, just getting straight to the point and getting married is perfect," he adds. "And then you get to know the person after that."
So, when did Justin realise during casting that he was in with a chance, and what did he think appealed to the producers about him?
"I can't answer that, Josie, it's been on my mind since we finished film the show," he says honestly.
"With Carly, we had so much really good footage, and they didn't show any of it whatsoever. They showed five percent of the not so good times and just made me look really weird and made me look like an incompetent mute. I'm a salesperson so I never shut up, during the show and in life, I'll talk your ear off for the next three hours straight if you let me," says Justin matter of factly.
"But the way they portrayed me is like I'm mute, or something, on the show.
"Sometimes we're filming for 15 or 16 hours straight, you get picked up at 11 o'clock in the morning but during that period you're not talking your head off, there will be moments or two where you will be looking out the window or relaxing and those are the moments they showed of me. They'd show someone talking to me and then they'd just show me staring out the window.
"It's not fair, it's disgusting," adds Justin.
"The biggest stitch ups I had were, one, they said, let's take Carly into your office. I said, 'My head office is in Guangzhou'. I have 500 staff in Guangzhou, where we build soft serve machines and export them around the world.
"They said, 'We can't go to Guangzhou.'
"I said, 'I will pay for Carly's flights, I don't care'. And they said, 'No, we won't get approval for that.'
"They captured me saying "global headquarters in Guangzhou in China." They cut off the "Guangzhou in China" bit and had only the "global headquarters" bit and then they showed me taking Carly to a little operation in Sydney.
"All the Sydney office is, is a base where I have five girls doing the books for me, and they showed probably one tenth of the office in Sydney anyway, and none of the girls wanted to be on camera so all the girls waited downstairs, and they showed five empty desks and played the sounds of crickets, and used footage of me saying "global headquarters."
"Even when I went to Milan, I begged and pleaded the producers to take Carly with me.
"I was going to pay for Carly's flights, business or first class to come with me, and Carly was agreeing, she wanted to come, because she's in marketing and we thought it'd be great to have her on the stand in Milan, she would have helped and we'd have had some good footage for the show, and they blatantly refused to let her go then made it look like I was the arsehole businessman that took off and left her," add Justin.
"For the first couple of weeks, it was really bad on my mental health because I kept questioning, 'Why would they do that to me?'
"I was polite, I was courteous, I did everything they asked me to do, I followed all the rules, I wasn't going out on drug and alcohol binges getting home at 9 o'clock in the morning, I was spending my spare time at the beach with my kids on the weekends. I'm a genuine person, I was so polite and courteous to them, anything they asked me to do, I did. While the others are going rogue and they were made to look like superstars, and they barely showed me on the show.
"The joke Ryan (cast member on the show) says, and Ryan and I are really good mates, is about my nickname 'Where's Wally.' You've got to watch an episode and try and spot me in the episode," adds Justin.
Justin's company BrĂ¼llen has his Guangzhou base and they get all the parts for the machines from Europe, so all then components come from Germany, France, and Italy, and he imports them into Guangzhou, and they build the machines there and export them all over the world.
What led Justin to this path in business?
"This was also all in the footage they filmed, Josie, they talked me into going into my Sydney office, they said all of the couples are going into each other's places at work, saying it was part of the contract and part of the show."
"I said (to the producers) when we go there just film inside my boardroom, I have the girls there, and IP (intellectual property) material.
"When I got there, they were there an hour before me and had already started filming, and they filmed the empty desks, and when I got there I did a presentation for Carly to show my rags to riches story
"I have a 'Justin scrapbook', I want to write a book one day. (My journey) shows me when I was completely broke and moved to Sydney, and I was sharing a place with a bunch of backpackers. I couldn't afford a fridge so I had a polystyrene box a fruit shop gave to me and I'd get a bag of ice each day from the servo for two bucks and I put my milk there, and I started from there. I have never had a job, I have always worked for myself.
"I just get passionate about this stuff, how it all began, and even the camera guys were interested in my story... and Carly was almost in tears. What they (film crew) did was so cool, and then they cut the whole lot out. They could have made a really cool, way more interesting story out of Carly and I, but I don't know what they didn't do that," says Justin.
When you first set eyes on Carly what did you think?
"When I first set eyes on Carly I thought wow, she's gorgeous, she's not the type I would normally go for, but what I am doing is not working so I am going to trust I'm this experiment. They put us together for a reason."
Was it weird in the beginning, the whole doing things backwards thing?
"To be honest we clicked straight away as friends and by the time you meet the person at the altar you're anxious because you're not sure how it's going to go, so by the time I met Carly we were both experiencing the same emotions and feelings because up until that point you don't know how it;s all going to go you're doing all this footage on you own and whiny finally meet you've got that common bond immediately so we hit it off as friends pretty much from the fisrt right and felt comfortable immediately."
"Following on from that, the honeymoon week was the most accurate portrayal of me, and of Carly, and from that point they just assassinated my character throughout the show.
"That week was one of the best weeks of my life. There was no pressure from producers to be intimate. We have a similar lifestyle active sporty and all the things I like in a girl."
The conversation was an easy one, with Justin very clear about who he is, and how he was portrayed on the show, and the fact it was not aligned with his actual character.
And before you say, well, that's what they all say at the end of a reality TV show if they're not viewed favourably, Justin has some pretty solid words and stories to back himself up.
'Married At First Sight' finished filming in November last year, and the people on the show all then regrouped in January this year for two days of filming for the reunion shows.
So, how has he felt seeing it all unfold on TV, watching it as we are watching it?
"I could barely watch it, Josie, the way they portrayed me was absolutely disgusting," said Justin.
"It's not even close to my character," he added. "Luckily most of my clients are international clients."
"I export (soft serve ice cream) machines out of my head office which is Guangzhou in China. We manufacture and export around 2000 machines a month worldwide, and Australia is a very small part of that," he said.
"Thankfully for that my clients are business loaners and knew the show was fabricated or not a very accurate representation of me," Justin tells Josie's Juice.
What made Justin go on the show to start with, I ask him, as I hear him speak so eloquently about himself and his life.
"My cousin Trevor from Sydney was a huge fan of season four, and he called me up, we caught for a beer and he said, "You're 41 and you're still single, all you do is travel the world for work and you'll wake up one day at 50 and still be by yourself."
He said, "I think this is a good idea and you should go for it."
"I thought yeah... what can I say to that, Josie, he's pretty spot on there. All I do is work and travel the world and I'm on a plane every week, and when I'm not on a plane I'm spending time with my daughters," says Justin, who is dad to a nine year old and a two year old.
"I don't have time to be dating people and all that muck around so I thought, just getting straight to the point and getting married is perfect," he adds. "And then you get to know the person after that."
So, when did Justin realise during casting that he was in with a chance, and what did he think appealed to the producers about him?
"I can't answer that, Josie, it's been on my mind since we finished film the show," he says honestly.
"With Carly, we had so much really good footage, and they didn't show any of it whatsoever. They showed five percent of the not so good times and just made me look really weird and made me look like an incompetent mute. I'm a salesperson so I never shut up, during the show and in life, I'll talk your ear off for the next three hours straight if you let me," says Justin matter of factly.
"But the way they portrayed me is like I'm mute, or something, on the show.
"Sometimes we're filming for 15 or 16 hours straight, you get picked up at 11 o'clock in the morning but during that period you're not talking your head off, there will be moments or two where you will be looking out the window or relaxing and those are the moments they showed of me. They'd show someone talking to me and then they'd just show me staring out the window.
"It's not fair, it's disgusting," adds Justin.
"The biggest stitch ups I had were, one, they said, let's take Carly into your office. I said, 'My head office is in Guangzhou'. I have 500 staff in Guangzhou, where we build soft serve machines and export them around the world.
"They said, 'We can't go to Guangzhou.'
"I said, 'I will pay for Carly's flights, I don't care'. And they said, 'No, we won't get approval for that.'
"They captured me saying "global headquarters in Guangzhou in China." They cut off the "Guangzhou in China" bit and had only the "global headquarters" bit and then they showed me taking Carly to a little operation in Sydney.
"All the Sydney office is, is a base where I have five girls doing the books for me, and they showed probably one tenth of the office in Sydney anyway, and none of the girls wanted to be on camera so all the girls waited downstairs, and they showed five empty desks and played the sounds of crickets, and used footage of me saying "global headquarters."
"Even when I went to Milan, I begged and pleaded the producers to take Carly with me.
"I was going to pay for Carly's flights, business or first class to come with me, and Carly was agreeing, she wanted to come, because she's in marketing and we thought it'd be great to have her on the stand in Milan, she would have helped and we'd have had some good footage for the show, and they blatantly refused to let her go then made it look like I was the arsehole businessman that took off and left her," add Justin.
"For the first couple of weeks, it was really bad on my mental health because I kept questioning, 'Why would they do that to me?'
"I was polite, I was courteous, I did everything they asked me to do, I followed all the rules, I wasn't going out on drug and alcohol binges getting home at 9 o'clock in the morning, I was spending my spare time at the beach with my kids on the weekends. I'm a genuine person, I was so polite and courteous to them, anything they asked me to do, I did. While the others are going rogue and they were made to look like superstars, and they barely showed me on the show.
"The joke Ryan (cast member on the show) says, and Ryan and I are really good mates, is about my nickname 'Where's Wally.' You've got to watch an episode and try and spot me in the episode," adds Justin.
Justin's company BrĂ¼llen has his Guangzhou base and they get all the parts for the machines from Europe, so all then components come from Germany, France, and Italy, and he imports them into Guangzhou, and they build the machines there and export them all over the world.
What led Justin to this path in business?
"This was also all in the footage they filmed, Josie, they talked me into going into my Sydney office, they said all of the couples are going into each other's places at work, saying it was part of the contract and part of the show."
"I said (to the producers) when we go there just film inside my boardroom, I have the girls there, and IP (intellectual property) material.
"When I got there, they were there an hour before me and had already started filming, and they filmed the empty desks, and when I got there I did a presentation for Carly to show my rags to riches story
"I have a 'Justin scrapbook', I want to write a book one day. (My journey) shows me when I was completely broke and moved to Sydney, and I was sharing a place with a bunch of backpackers. I couldn't afford a fridge so I had a polystyrene box a fruit shop gave to me and I'd get a bag of ice each day from the servo for two bucks and I put my milk there, and I started from there. I have never had a job, I have always worked for myself.
"I just get passionate about this stuff, how it all began, and even the camera guys were interested in my story... and Carly was almost in tears. What they (film crew) did was so cool, and then they cut the whole lot out. They could have made a really cool, way more interesting story out of Carly and I, but I don't know what they didn't do that," says Justin.
When you first set eyes on Carly what did you think?
"When I first set eyes on Carly I thought wow, she's gorgeous, she's not the type I would normally go for, but what I am doing is not working so I am going to trust I'm this experiment. They put us together for a reason."
Was it weird in the beginning, the whole doing things backwards thing?
"To be honest we clicked straight away as friends and by the time you meet the person at the altar you're anxious because you're not sure how it's going to go, so by the time I met Carly we were both experiencing the same emotions and feelings because up until that point you don't know how it;s all going to go you're doing all this footage on you own and whiny finally meet you've got that common bond immediately so we hit it off as friends pretty much from the fisrt right and felt comfortable immediately."
"Following on from that, the honeymoon week was the most accurate portrayal of me, and of Carly, and from that point they just assassinated my character throughout the show.
"That week was one of the best weeks of my life. There was no pressure from producers to be intimate. We have a similar lifestyle active sporty and all the things I like in a girl."
"Ninety percent of the boys’ night was just talking about sport and work," says Justin.
An anonymous source told Josie’s Juice that during the boys’ night, a producer walked into the room and said, 'Guys, what you are talking about... it's really boring. Can’t you add something interesting to this?'
I ask Justin about this, and he says: "So, they posed the question, 'If you could be with anyone else on the show, who else would you date?'
"And we all said who we would date, totally as a hypothetical game, and that’s what they aired.
"And I actually said three times during the experiment 'don't disrespect the girls', and one of the guys went off on a rant during the experiment, and I said, 'don’t disrespect them while they’re not here', and none of that was shown.
"Patrick was made out to be a hero, but during this hypothetical, he said he'd choose Davina but they didn't show any of that. Telv I think picked Carly or Davina. John picked Carly. Someone else picked Ash. But they only showed Dean and I and our responses."
For the record, Justin has confirmed he has been on three dates with Ashley, so far.
"Neither Ash or I have acknowledged that story. We've been on a few dates and it's going well so far. We will see where it goes..." he says, without giving a definitive answer.
For the record, Justin has confirmed he has been on three dates with Ashley, so far.
"Neither Ash or I have acknowledged that story. We've been on a few dates and it's going well so far. We will see where it goes..." he says, without giving a definitive answer.
What does Justin think about Dean and Davina?
“I think both Dean and Davina studied last season. I don’t think they were represented in the way they really are."
"As my marketing person says, ’It’s not why people remember you it’s the fact they remember you.’
“In two years people won't remember me, but they won’t forget Dean or Davina.'
Justin also has a business called Cafequip which fix hospitality equipment, as well as Ruggito Coffee.
"But, I am BrĂ¼llen. That's what I am concentrating on now."
That and his young daughters and... well, dating Ashley for now too. We wish you the very best Justin!
