MAFS: Bryce Ruthven ‘didn’t split with secret girlfriend until his final vows’

Married At First Sight‘s Bryce Ruthven sparked controversy after reports claimed he was in contact with a ‘secret girlfriend’ named Courtney during filming last year.

And while the 32-year-old continues to deny the rumour on and off screen, a friend of Courtney’s has sensationally claimed the pair ‘loved each other’ and didn’t split until a day before his final vows with ‘wife’ Melissa Rawson.

‘They were full blown dating and loved each other,’ the anonymous friend told B105 Brisbane‘s Stav, Abby & Matt on Tuesday.

‘He had moved to Canberra in May/June and went to film the show in September, so he would have met her just weeks after moving there,’ they added.

According to the source, Bryce and Courtney stayed in regular contact until ‘the last few weeks’ of the experiment.

‘Bryce ended it with her pretty much the day before [the final vows] was filmed in December,’ they said.

‘He came back to Canberra [and] he was in a bit of a bad way because he’d had a lot of people going at him over her during filming. So he met up with Courtney and said, “I’m going to end this.”‘

Bryce, however, insists Courtney was just a Tinder date and that they only met up a few times before he left for Sydney to film Married At First Sight.

Previously denying the claims, he told TV Week: ‘It’s news to me. I was only in the ACT for 12 weeks so I must have been having a good time.

‘To be honest, I know there’s articles and podcasts and other rubbish floating around but I’m just not reading it.’ 

Meanwhile, Melissa told the publication that while she was worried about the rumour, she chose to believe her ‘husband’.

‘With Bryce’s cheating past, I had to think, “Could this be true?” But I got over that because I put my trust in Bryce,’ she said.

It comes after Bryce and Melissa pledged to stay together at their final vows, despite the ups and downs their relationship had experienced throughout the experiment.

Married At First Sight continues Sunday at 7pm on Channel Nine