For many Married at First Sight viewers, Rachel was the emotional anchor of the season — a woman caught in a whirlwind of reality TV chaos and, despite it all, kept her integrity and kindness intact.

Speaking with Mamamia, Rachel opened up about the intense transition back to reality post-MAFS and the gut-wrenching final commitment ceremony that still haunts her to this day.

While the cameras captured her tears, Rachel says there was a level of heartbreak that the audience never fully saw. She and Steven had moved far beyond surface-level dating. They were building blueprints for a shared future involving children, a forever home, and a specific coastal lifestyle.

Watch: Rachel and Steven’s final commitment ceremony on MAFS. Article continues after video.

Video via Instagram/mafs

“That was a woman truly grieving. Watching it back, I started to grieve again. You’re grieving the life you’ve built up in your mind, the possibility of what this was. The love I had in my heart for Steven, the life we had spoken about and planned,” she told Mamamia.

“We talked about how we aligned so well on wanting to live somewhere a little bit coastal, but we still wanted land. Having kids, animals, what would that look like?”

She describes the excruciating silence before Steven’s final decision that was cut from the show.

“The dead air that was shown in the episode was a lot shorter than the dead air in the room. When you can see me getting quite worked up, it felt like I was having a panic attack on that couch. It was a lot,” she explained.

“It’s because the air had been dead for such a long time. It was like I was sitting there waiting to be dealt the final blow.”

Image: Nine

While Rachel is generally happy with her portrayal on the show, she feels like she was somewhat pigeonholed into a storyline of insecurity. The show did her a disservice by focusing solely on her pining for Steven rather than her true personality.

As they have in the season’s past, producers characterised Rachel as a ‘sad girl’ who was pinging for someone who didn’t want her. But reality was different.

“I felt like I was shown to be this woman just begging for this man consistently,” she said. “The show has definitely given me a different level of confidence, but I always carried myself with confidence. I always knew who I was. I feel like the storyline was building up for me to have my heart broken. That’s the ‘poor Rachel’ edit.”

“Heartbreak is sad, but it doesn’t define who I am. I’m not the girl who’s just continuously walking around with heartbreak.”

This season, the women hating on women narrative captured the nation, with viewers across Australia dissecting the constant infighting, the performative girlhood, and the raw, often ugly, behaviour displayed on screen.

And while Rachel recognises that the tension was high during filming, she says the real shock was seeing that same vitriol migrate to the real world.

On social media, the very women who were calling out bad behaviour on the show were the same ones in her DMs and comments section, tearing her apart for her looks or claiming she had suddenly become arrogant now that the cameras were off.

“We have just watched a series of Married at First Sight, where women’s bad behaviour was on display, raw and honest, right? And then [on social media] we have other women coming in and tearing women down further, but they’re probably the first people to be sitting on that couch and being like, ‘that’s not okay. You can’t treat women like that,’” she said.

“Then don’t come to other women’s comment sections doing the exact same thing. Two wrongs do not make a right. Constructive feedback, sure… but to come and put someone down because of their looks? ‘Go on a diet, grieve yourself into a diet.’ I’m not here for it.”

Image: Nine

Rachel is equally firm when it comes to the behaviour of her castmates, specifically Danny. After seeing how he spoke behind the scenes and his subsequent efforts to deflect on social media, she is finished making excuses for him.

“I don’t think accountability ever entered the room,” she said bluntly. “He’s out there literally defending himself still. Again, trying to deflect from his behaviour. He will deflect his behaviour onto other people, so you don’t look at him too closely.”

She dismissed his defence of “British humour,” stating that she has never heard her British friends speak about their partners with such disrespect, and she no longer wishes to surround herself with someone who talks about women that way.

Now back in her 9-to-5 corporate role and detaching from the experience, Rachel is reclaiming her narrative and learning to use her voice — something she regrets not doing more of during those high-pressure dinner parties. She is focused on filling her own cup and refusing to let a reality TV storyline define her worth.

Her focus is no longer on making an effort for someone who wouldn’t fight for her.

“It’s okay to feel the pain,” she reflected. “But then there comes a time when you have to remind yourself: I have to choose me. Because they’re not choosing me, so I need to choose me now.”