Married at First Sight expert Pastor Calvin Roberson says it's absolutely asinine for anyone to think the experts matched Chris Williams and Paige Banks on Season 12 for drama.
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Married at First Sight viewers have been lashing out at Chris and scolding show experts Pastor Cal, Dr. Pepper Schwartz and Dr. Viviana Coles for casting him ever since MAFS's twelfth season, which was filmed late last summer in Atlanta, premiered in January on Lifetime.
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Recent Season 12 episodes have shown Chris complaining about Paige's face and looks as well as Pepper flat out calling him "a narcissist."
During the April 14 episode of Married at First Sight: Unfiltered, Pastor Cal angrily shut down speculation the experts would match a couples for ratings or the sake of entertainment.
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"Anybody who would think that we would play with people's lives and match two people for drama, that's absolutely asinine for people to even think that," Pastor Cal insisted.
Pastor Cal said the experts ask Married at First Sight candidates so many questions and do their best to get to know potential spouses on a deep and meaningful level.
"I asked him point blank about physical attraction. We ask all those questions!" Pastor Cal recalled.
Pastor Cal said he actually thought the experts had done a great job in matching Paige with Chris and they didn't share Chris' perspective on Paige's appearance being just average or subpar.
"We even get pictures of your exes, and Paige came up as being right in line with what [Chris] wanted! So whatever he's got to say, I'm [done with it]. I'm sorry," Pastor Cal lamented on Unfiltered.
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He then joked with anger and frustration, "Don't make me go street!"
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During a February appearance on Atlanta's 96.3 WHUR radio show called The Frank Ski Show with Nina Brown, Pastor Cal said of Chris, "No way that the person you see is the person that we saw... The cameras came on and Chris became this different person."
"We were just as surprised and pretty pissed as you guys are," Pastor Cal added.
And Viviana told The Associated Press in an interview around the same time, "There have been couples who we thought were 100% -- as much as we can say that, on paper, side-by-side [and] meeting them single -- head over heels in love with each other, and they were explosive, nasty, really degrading."
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Viviana continued, "[They'd] be having conversations that made us think, 'Who are these people?'"
Pastor Cal had already insisted earlier this year that the experts don't intentionally match potential trainwreck couples to ensure a Married at First Sight season will be dramatic.
"Ratings are never more important than our couples," Pastor Cal wrote in a comment on Instagram to an angry fan.
And Pastor Cal told another follower, "We do our absolute best to match couples with integrity, but we can't predict how they will act when the cameras roll. We're surprised also... But there's always a chance for redemption."
Viviana echoed a similar sentiment and said "it could be beyond dangerous -- not just emotionally, but even physically" -- to try to match and create explosive trainwreck couples.
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"And so we try to avoid that as much as possible because getting married to a stranger is explosive and dynamic and dramatic enough," Viviana said.
Chris and Paige attempted to bond through activities and create chemistry several weeks into the Married at First Sight experiment, but Chris ultimately determined Paige wasn't a good communicator and he was forcing a connection that simply wasn't there.
"It's time for me to regain my own sense of purpose and to really find what loving myself looks like. I was a woman that came in there whole and he tried to leave me broken, but that didn't happen. My cup may be a little empty, but I'll be fine," Paige said after the split.
On a recent Married at First Sight episode, Pepper apologized to Paige for how her journey on the show had ended.
"I thought that you guys were going to be a great couple. We all did. We thought we had somebody who was going to be the right partner, that everything on paper looked good, that what he told us looked good," Pepper explained.
"And we had no idea what a mess of a life he had behind the curtain... I want you to know that you're a superior human being. If he wasn't such an extraordinary narcissist -- I'm not going to mince words on my opinion -- he would recognize that. And I don't want you to take that garbage!"
Pepper said Paige deserved "so much better" and Chris didn't think about anybody but himself.
However, a preview of Decision Day aired on Married at First Sight: The Journey So Far and showed Chris telling the experts he and Paige were still "undecided" about whether to stay married or get a divorce.
The conversation clearly indicates Paige and Chris opted to give their relationship another shot at some point after Chris asked for a divorce for the second time.
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