It’s over. Married at First Sight stars Amelia Fatsi and Bennett Kirschner called it quits after one year of marriage.
The couple filed for divorce in their home state of Virginia last month, Us Weekly can confirm. Though further details about the split are currently unknown, the pair are still following each other on Instagram.
The duo met during season 11 of MAFS, which premiered in July 2020. After Lifetime cameras followed the twosome for the first eight weeks of their marriage, they decided to stay married — and Kirschner even got a tattoo of his wife’s initials during the season finale.
Fatsi, a medical doctor, later said that she wasn’t super confident she’d find love on MAFS, choosing to do the show because she thought it would be fun. “I was just looking for something interesting to do in the time I had off before starting my job … kind of like a strange sabbatical in my medical career,” she told Showbiz Cheat Sheet in October 2020. “I didn’t particularly want to get married; I just thought it would be fun to be on a reality show! So, I certainly did it for the wrong reasons, but it was a very, very interesting adventure, and I had a total blast.”
Kirschner, for his part, tried out for the show after his friend suggested him to a casting director. He had low expectations for his romantic prospects too, but he was surprised to find a potential partner in his future wife.
“Amelia’s patient, unflappable ability to never cast judgment on other human beings continues to surprise and excite me,” he said in October 2020. “You could tell her anything about yourself, and, no matter how embarrassing or strange that detail might be, she will always empathize and appreciate your underlying humanity.”
During one episode of the show, Fatsi confessed to the playwright that she didn’t feel ready to be married when she joined the series. “I guess it wasn’t really the No. 1 driving force,” she explained ahead of Decision Day.
“I got married at first sight because I was looking for the love of my life,” Kirschner said in a confessional interview in the same episode. “And it is disappointing that Amelia signed up for different reasons.”
Dr. Pepper Schwartz, one of MAFS‘ relationship experts, thought the duo were a good match for each other because of their personalities. “I think they are both quirky, eccentric in ways that they will love in each other,” she explained during the series. “She’s just Amelia and he is just Bennett. I think that they will find each other attractive, whimsical, lovable [and] stay together forever.”