Married at First Sight star Erik Lake has explained why he stood by silently while Chris Williams was yelling at his wife Virginia Coombs during their offroad buggy excursion in Las Vegas.
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During Erik and Virginia's honeymoon in Las Vegas, the couple found themselves entangled in drama when Virginia had expressed concern for her friend Paige Banks after Paige's husband Chris had discovered his ex-fiancee Mercedes was about six weeks pregnant with his baby.
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On the February 24 episode of Married at First Sight: Unfiltered, Erik watched back a Season 12 clip of Chris and Virginia arguing while at the buggy excursion.
"Nobody here can relate to my sh-t and nobody can relate to Paige's sh-t. I don't appreciate the fake concern from you or your husband," Chris tells Virginia in the clip.
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"You think our concern is fake?!" Virginia asks with MAFS co-star Clara Berghaus standing next to her.
"Particularly from you and Erik, and I will tell him that as well," Chris says.
"Well, I can promise you none of it's fake concern," Virginia insists.
"Stay the f-ck out of our business. It's as simple as that," Chris says.
When Virginia responded "okay" with a little sass and attitude, Chris noted he was "done" with the conversation because Virginia was acting "arrogant."
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"You are very arrogant, actually," Virginia counters.
"Okay cool, and you're a drunkard," Chris claims. "You're a drunkard."
"Okay cool," Virginia responds. "I'm not ever going to lie that I like to drink."
"Okay, you're a drunkard... You throw shots and I throw shots back," Chris says in the clip.
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At the time of the argument, Erik was standing next to his wife but didn't say anything to defend Virginia or stop Chris in his tracks.
On Unfiltered, host Jamie Otis -- who starred on Season 1 of Married at First Sight -- asked Erik what it was like hearing Chris talk to his wife like that.
"It wasn't good, at all," Erik responded.
"I don't think any man should talk to a woman like that. I felt like I needed to defend Virginia a little bit more, but I just didn't want things to go into, like, more of a physical capacity there."
Erik continued, "So I kind of didn't really know what to say or how to go about it. It was tough. It was just a tough position to be in."
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Clara's husband Ryan Oubre and fellow Married at First Sight star Haley also appeared on the Unfiltered broadcast and offered their thoughts on the fight between Chris and Virginia.
"I think the tough part from my perspective is I do think it was two people communicating and trying to resolve something but maybe collectively as a group we weren't communicating effectively enough to get our points across," Ryan shared.
"In an environment like this and a scenario like this, it's tough. Emotions are high. No one is really listening to 'hear,' everyone is listening to 'respond,' and so it's a tough scenario for sure.
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As for Haley's take on the situation, she explained, "I don't think the way [Chris] handled it was great, but I do think that the girls -- Clara and Virginia -- were coming from a really good spot."
"We met all these girls before we met our husbands," Haley acknowledged. "We had more time to bond with them. So they're just coming from a place of concern."
Erik then shared his hopes for Chris and Paige moving forward in their rocky marriage.
"I want the best for Paige. She is such a sweet girl," Erik said. "You know, as long as she's happy and she thinks she can work on this with him and get past it, then I wish them the best."
Virginia felt extremely disrespected by Chris that day, especially when Chris screamed and swore at her when riding in a van back to their hotel, and so Erik felt the need to confront Chris at dinner that night.
The group dinner seemingly became a disaster quickly because Virginia and Erik had shown up late -- right after Chris had issued an apology to everyone for how he had acted earlier in the day at the dune-buggy outing.
"You are borderline scaring people," Erik told Chris in front of the group.
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"I was fed up and tired of that bullsh-t," Chris complained.
"You are out of line," Erik said.
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Chris asked Erik to allow him to finish his explanation, but Erik and Virginia said they were just going to leave and grab dinner elsewhere -- resulting in Chris rising from his chair as the couple began standing up to leave and Married at First Sight co-star Vincent Morales appearing to have to hold Chris back to keep him from getting physical with Erik.
As Chris continued to argue with Erik from across the room, Virginia shouted, "We're leaving."
"Unf-cking believable," Erik lamented under his breath on his way out of the group gathering.
Ryan pointed out on Unfiltered that tension was already so high by the time of dinner, Erik's attempt to have a civil conversation with Chris was "doomed to fail before it even started."
And Erik wished he had heard Chris's apology and then spoken to him in a private manner.
After Chris and Erik's explosive altercation at dinner, Paige told her Married at First Sight co-star Briana Miles, "I understand why [Chris is] being defensive."
"Yeah, it's nobody's business!" Briana agreed in reference to the pregnancy shocker.
Chris revealed he had lost all respect for Erik, who had "crossed his boundary line," but Erik and Virginia were still furious at Chris and remained concerned about Paige's well-being.
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