Married At First Sight‘s (MAFS) Awhina Rutene has opened up about the comments Jake Luik made about her, revealing that the controversial groom had apologised twice for the remarks.
On the final day of MAFS 2025’s Confessions Week, viewers were left gobsmacked after 30-year-old Jake Luik made a series of comments regarding his fellow castmates and their appearances during the photo ranking task.
Every year, the couples are tasked with ranking their castmates and every year, viewers drag the challenge for even being a thing. However, the task does shed some light on some of the participants and their physical compatibility with each other.
But the Western Australia-based teacher went in (and I mean, IN) on his wife Ashleigh Ackerman and her fellow brides.
One of the remarks that struck a chord with some viewers (especially myself) was said in regards to Awhina Rutene, an aged-care worker who was matched with Adrian Araouzou.
When picking up Awhina’s photo, Jack kicked off by stating: “I’m not racist or nothing. I like Caucasians mainly, mostly.”
“Awhina she’s not exactly like — she’s Māori I think — probably why she’s a bit higher, the physical features,” he added.
Married At First Sight‘s Awhina Rutene reveals what she thought about Jake’s comments
On Sunday night’s episode — which marked the first commitment ceremony of Season 12, Jake’s comments were brought up to the group after Ash admitted she felt guilty for telling Sierah Swepstone about what Jake said.
When asked to elaborate on what Jake said during the photo ranking, Ash revealed that he made that comment towards Awhina.
“That is so hurtful and disgusting,” Awhina can be heard saying in a dub that played over the castmate’s reactions to Jake’s comments.
Reflecting on the comments Jake made, Awhina said she “didn’t appreciate some of the comments Jake made”. However, she believed that Jake wasn’t a bad guy.
“I don’t feel like he was trying to be malicious, even though [it was] a really insensitive comment,” she told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
“You can do that challenge, like a lot of us women did, without kind of saying, ‘This person had crazy eyes,’ or ‘I’m going to place this person here because I’m not attracted to people who aren’t Caucasian.’
“Like there are so many other ways he could have approached that. I think he made a mistake.
“I’m not justifying him anyway. I don’t actually think Jake’s a bad guy. His self-awareness just wasn’t there at that moment. And I do feel for him because I feel like at times we all say inappropriate things.”
Married at First Sight‘s Jake Luik apologised to Awhina after the Commitment Ceremony
Speaking to PEDESTRIAN.TV, Awhina revealed that Jake apologised directly to her right after he and Ash got off the couch.
“Right off the couch at the commitment ceremony, he walked straight up to me,” Awhina dished.
“He came up to me and said out of everyone who wants to apologise to me because it was taken out of context, and said, ‘You were really pretty however, I don’t normally go for XYZ.'”
While the groom apologised right after the big bombshell, Awhina admitted that she couldn’t accept his apology due to how fresh the revelation was. However, this is something she feels guilty about.
“I feel really guilty. Usually, someone apologises, I take it but in the moment when he was trying to apologise to me, it was still very raw to me, and I was very unaccepting,” she dished.
“I kind of turned around and said, ‘I’m not the one you need to apologise to your wife [is] over there.’
“So I do feel guilty though, I didn’t give him that platform at the time to apologise.”
Awhina revealed that Jake has since reached out since last week’s episode and apologised a second time and that she is no longer holding onto the anger she built up during the experiment.
Jake himself hasn’t addressed the backlash he’s copped for the comments. However, I hope we get to see that apology in the reunion episode or he gets to redeem himself with Ash choosing to stay in the experiment.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Married At First Sight continues tonight on Channel Nine and 9Now.
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The post MAFS’ Awhina Rutene Addresses Jake Luik’s Controversial Photo Ranking Comments appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
