Featured Image Credit: E4
Topics: TV And Film, Married At First Sight
Rhiannon Ingle
In an exclusive first look ahead of tonight's (13 September) episode, Married at First Sight's Lara and Richie appear to having relationship difficulties, as Lara was nowhere to be seen at a dinner party.
The 49-year-old former dancer was a total no-show as her newly-wed husband, Richie, 51, attended the dinner party all alone. Watch the clip below:
Richie enters the room filled with other coupled-up newly-weds by himself as other cast members are left in a brief moment of shock and confusion.
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After greetings and hugs are out the way, the cast finally ask Richie the question everyone was clearly dying to know.
"Where's Lara," pops up Chanita, Pjay immediately follows up with his question: "Where's your other half, mate?"
Richie responded in a similarly confused tone: "I have no idea."
The cast then usher a chorus of concerning questions, asking him: "Are you alright?" and "What's going on?"
Taking a seat, Richie explains: "I've been on my own for 51 years, I'm doing great."
Experts Mel Schilling, Paul C Brunson, and Charlene Douglas then begin theorising over Richie's response to his wife's disappearance.
Douglas notes: "Oh, there's the defence mechanism."
Schilling agrees, adding: "And he's reverting back to that 'I've been on my own for 51 years, I'm the single guy, I can cope,' oh this is hurting for him."
Fellow cast mate Zoe broached the elephant in the room head-first: "Is she coming?"
"I haven't got a f***ing clue, to be honest," Richie replied, before revealing that Lara had moved out.
"I don't know if I said something, I mean, she does her fair share obviously," he added.
"She just tends to just go nuts," he revealed, "and I try to talk about stuff and she won't talk to me."
The experts then remind viewers that at the last Commitment Ceremony, Lara was talking about Richie as if he was a project, which of course hurt him.
"And they're coming at this relationship from two very different background," Schilling noted - referring to Lara's two previous marriages and children, compared to Richie's life of being a bachelor.
"I just wonder how much of that is coming into play here," she concluded.
Some would think that you would have to be fairly open-minded to sign up for a show like Married at First Sight - which is exactly what it says on the tin.
However, it's clear that some people aren't always going to be compatible with whoever they find at the end of the altar.
Tensions had already been brewing between the pair after Lara found out that her new husband still lived with his parents.
"My parents are just dying to get me out of the house," he joked.
While dubbing the confession 'a little bit of a red flag', Lara ultimately decided to 'choose just to let it live and see how it goes'.
Many have picked up on the seemingly odd-pairing and have voiced their concerns on Twitter.
One user posted: "I don’t know how Richie (?) will manage going from living with his parents and never having a relationship or falling in love to getting married and becoming a step dad to two kids?"
Another echoed the same thoughts: "I'm sorry but this is an awful match for Lara. Richie lives with his parents and is still clinging onto his days as a musician."
Who knows what the future holds for Richie and Lara but, like it or lump it, you can't deny that it's all great television.
Married At First Sight continues at 9:00pm on Sunday night on E4.