Why Did Lauren, Orion Divorce From MAFS 2024? Married at First Sight Couple Now – StyleCaster
If you read they announced their split just 13 days after saying “I do”, you might be wondering why Lauren and Orion divorced on Married at First Sight. The Lifetime TV show was created in July 2014 on FYI. The premise derives from the Danish TV show Gift Ved Første Blik. The first season took place in New York City and New Jersey and showed off three couples, who like the show describes, are married when they first meet each other.
The couples then spend time together on their honeymoon and spend eight weeks together living a family lifestyle. After eight weeks, they get to decide whether they want to divorce or stay together on Decision Day. There are several experts on the show that examine the couples’ compatibility with each other. For season 17, experts Pastor Cal and Dr. Pepper and are reunited in the host city of Denver, Colorado, along with Dr. Pia, who joins the show as a full-time expert.
Talking to E! News, Dr. Pepper Schwartz revealed the tedious process of making the couples. Hundreds of people apply to the show and the experts go to churches, bars, dating apps or anywhere that people meet to “make the prospective pool as big as people.” There’s more steps to the vetting process including a meet-and-greet, several interview sessions and psychological and background checks. The final step is a home visit from Dr. Pepper.
“My hope was that we would be able to support these people and help them grow into better versions of themselves by bringing out skills to the process, by matching them through science and maybe this really could work and it could work even beyond helping these people grow and get more information about themselves, but to give them skills. And to augment what we hoped was already thought was a good match according to our scientific tools. And the more we went on, the more I believed in it because I could see people listen and learn and it was fascinating and wonderful. She continued, “It worked out beyond my wildest fantasies.”
Pastor Cal told the site about his views on marriage on the show. “I’ve learned and tell couples now that marriage doesn’t work—people work. And quite often, we want the marriage to work,” he said. “Sometimes we want to blame the marriage and say the marriage is not working, but it’s you. You’re not working. You’re not doing the things that are necessary. You’re not communicating and not being vulnerable. You got to be kind. You got to be honest. And you’re gonna have to put in the time and don’t give up too quickly.”
Since its premiere, the show’s overall success rate of marriages after the show is 20 percent and these two can count themselves among the fastest divorces in the show’s history. Here’s why Lauren and Orion divorced.
Why did Lauren & Orion divorce from Married At First Sight?
Why did Lauren & Orion divorce from Married At First Sight? There are a few reasons but it fundamentally seems like they weren’t a good match. In a flashback featured in the episode that aired on January 24, 2024, Orion explained that they had different opinions relating to what they each think is funny. “Jokes about each other’s background and cultures, I wouldn’t deem that okay. I wouldn’t do that to you,” Orion said to Lauren. That conversation seemed to be their deciding one. “I want to follow through with wanting a divorce,” Orion told her.
It seems like they broke up on relatively good terms, however. “I don’t have any lingering animosity towards you or towards anything that happened,” Lauren told Orion. “Being able to step back and take emotions out of everything and step back and look at it from a birds-eye view has been refreshing.”
Their split marks the second-fastest in Married At First Sight history lasting just 13 days. The shortest marriage was 10 days in season four.
In the episode that aired on December 6, 2023, Orion confessed that he’d “lost all romantic interest” in Lauren after learning she had sex with someone else two months before they walked down the aisle (i.e. before they met). Dr. Pia asked him: “Orion, how does control show up in your life for you?” He replied: “Well, I’m not trying to control what’s happening by calling for a divorce.”
Dr. Pia continued: “You are. You feel uncomfortable. So your part of control is to remove yourself from it. I do feel confident that a repair is possible but you are protecting yourself. That’s a certain level of vulnerability that you have closed off right now. … Whether y’all are married to each other or anybody else, there’s going to be many uncomfortable moments. And I really don’t want to see you all give up on one another.”
During a one-on-one conversation, Orion and Lauren discussed his shifting feelings. “I feel so horrible that I’ve put you in the predicament to lose romantic attraction to me because through this, I have maintained my romantic attraction to you,” Lauren told Orion. “But if you don’t feel like you have it in you to do it, I don’t want to twist your arm. I don’t want to force you to stay with me.”
Orion said he had no desire to repair their relationship, despite their chemistry. “There is no doubt that there is chemistry between us and when we are, you know, avoiding the big topics or trying to navigate around them,” he explained. “Yes, I mean, everything is great. But there is no romance within me anymore.” He added: “After the honeymoon, taking time and just this conversation and where I’m feeling and where I’m at, I want to continue to follow through with wanting a divorce.”
Orion revealed the news to the rest of the MAFS cast: “I guess we really didn’t talk to everybody since the honeymoon, but Lauren, and I,”—then he emphasizes “I”—”have decided to get a divorce.” Lauren herself, repeats “I”, suggesting she didn’t have much of a say in their breakup.
“I was called a failure in the marriage,” Lauren told him. “You’ve never apologized for the way you made me feel. You did not even apologize for calling me a failure. And that I felt in this marriage of her, not having your bag. So don’t sit here and say you’ve apologized for those words.” Orion said in response: “Well, I don’t think you have failed,” to which Lauren called him a “gaslighter”.
In one clip, Lauren candidly shared her thoughts on her sexuality, saying, “I’m not really big on labels, but I would say if I had to identify as anything it would be queen. I love men. I enjoy women, but I really just want to be married to a man.”
Meanwhile, Orion said during his confessional. “If my potential spouse identified as queer, it wouldn’t bother me. In Navajo tribes, we have a coming of two souls, masculine and feminine,” he says. “I have explored that feminine side when it came to going on a date with a man, but that was also like the door where it was like, ‘I’m not gay.’ You know, things like that. I feel like if you don’t explore those, or you don’t explore your own curiosity, it’s just too binding.”
The show’s host Kevin Frazier asked a panel in a special episode titled Kicking Off Denver how Orion and Lauren might fare. “With this particular couple, I think they might be able to explore those interests together, because maybe in other circumstances she was paired with another guy there’d be no way. But if they’re communicating and they’re honest, and they both understand, who’s to say what they might go off and do and play with and explore.” Another panelist added, “I think this couple is going to make it. There’s no doubt he’s going to appreciate all she brings with her fluidity.”
However, a teaser suggested that maybe there’s trouble ahead. “I think it is really amazing how well we got matched together by the experts,” Orion observed, but then the tone totally shifted. “I don’t feel comfortable with the fact that… you know… you did sleep with somebody else,” he says in a different scene with Lauren, who admits, “I did.”
While nobody uses the word “cheat”, it does suggest there could be some trust issues between them. “I did feel myself falling for him and now I’m just like, well… what the f—?” In another scene, Orion is shown saying: “I am just really feeling quite broken.”
Watch Married at First Sight on Wednesdays at 8 pm ET on Lifetime. Here’s how to watch it for free.
Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission from the sale.
