THERE were so many controversial characters on this year’s series of Married At First Sight - and one of them was Laura Vaughan.
The 34-year-old finance manager, from Hampshire, was in search of her perfect “Chelsea boy” when she took part in the E4 show - but was bitterly disappointed when she was paired with Polish Arthur Poremba instead.
Viewers began to back Laura, as she grew to seemingly fall in love with Arthur, despite the other MAFS husbands labeling her a "gold digger".
But then, when her friends, Cam and Lucia, began to complain loveable Arthur wasn’t good enough for Laura, fans of the show turned on them instead.
“I feel a little bit relieved now the show's finished,” Laura tells us, admitting that "life can not go back to normal" in the wake of her newfound fame, which has seen her partying with celebs including Tommy Fury.
Laura watched every episode of MAFS along with the viewers - except the dinner party at the couple’s retreat, in which all the husbands, egged on by Georges Berthonneau and Luke Worley, confessed they didn’t like how she “patronised” Arthur, or “tried to change him”.
“That was the hardest day,” she says. “I didn't know what the boys had said about me at the couple's retreat day because I was with the girls.
“But I’d met up with Arthur at the end of the day.
"It was like half 11 at night, and the last thing you want to be doing is talking about all the nasty things that have been said about you, and I think that was probably one of the episodes where I was at the point of the experiment where I was just really drained and I think you can see it on my face.
“I was feeling very deflated, and I just did feel like I'd lost myself in trying to show people who I was and it was just being thrown back.”
She continues: “I actually didn't watch that episode live, and I turned my phone off that day, because I just didn't want to deal with whatever was going to be said about me.
“But when I turned it back on in the morning, I was overwhelmed with the amount of support I had from women saying it just seems like it was such an attack out of the blue.
“So It's been hard because I was obviously central to some of the fallouts of the show but I never came for anyone's character.
“I always tried to articulate myself in a fair and considered way. It's just one of those things.”
By the time the homestay episodes came around, Laura and Arthur were one of the fan favourite couples.
But when they met up in Chelsea with Laura’s pals Cam and Lucia, things took a turn for the worse.
Cam and Lucia first met Arthur on his and Laura’s wedding day, and were already less than impressed when they found out he had taken his vows off of the internet.
While Laura had quickly gotten over that, especially as Arthur had rewritten his vows on the honeymoon, Cam and Lucia were extremely hostile when they met again.
He told them: "I'm not here to impress you, I'm here to impress Laura," before adding: "I don't think you've given me a chance to impress you."
And MAFS viewers criticised them, branding them “judgemental” and “mean girls,” which Laura found really hard to watch.
“Just as I'd won the majority of the public over, then the episode with my friends came out and it just felt like I was constantly in fight or flight mode,” Laura says.
“I said at the time, this isn't fair, these girls came on to do this for me as a favour. They didn't want to be part of production. They've not had TV careers themselves or anything like that. They've come on to be a good friend and help me out and they're getting absolutely crucified for it.
“That was difficult for me to sit and watch and I felt such a huge amount of responsibility for them, and the only thing I could say to them at the time was it will be old news in a couple of days.”
Laura had been married before, prior to taking part in the experiment, and found one of the most difficult parts of her friends getting trolled, was when she was being told to dump them.
She said: “It’s hard when strangers on the internet are telling you to remove yourself from your friendship circle that you've had for years.”
“And obviously the viewers haven't seen that they got me through my last divorce. They really really did.
“They were there to pick up the pieces of a very broken girl and I will always always be so grateful for them.”
Despite having plenty of rows across the dinner table on MAFS, Laura insists she’s now friends with most of the cast - even Georges and Luke.
“I had what I called opinions fatigue,” she says. “I just had enough of them and I was carrying them on my shoulders so heavily and then once I realised just to let it go, it's been a lot easier.
“A lot of it has all come out in the wash now. I've got some great relationships with some of the boys that had the most polarising opinions of me during the show.
“Now I can call the likes of Georges and Luke, and they'd pick up and we have a great, great relationship now.
“But when you're in that pressure cooker environment and you're being asked for opinions, I guess it's just one of those things that someone's going to get hurt.”
Even Laura and Arthur are now on good terms, despite Laura brutally dumping him at the vow renewals.
She says: “We've actually formed a really good friendship.
“It's safe to say that our relationship was strained and a struggle whilst we were filming, but now that the romantic pressure has gone, we just are very good friends.
“I'm always in London, where he lives, so we'll meet for a coffee, we'll chat on the phone and he'll send me random voice notes throughout the week, just about a funny anecdote that he's thought of while we were filming.
“He's such a lovely person and we have such a good relationship now. Unfortunately, it just wasn't meant romantically.”
While she and Arthur aren’t together anymore, Laura has recently been seen looking cosy with a few other well-known men, including her MAFS co-star JJ Slater and Made In Chelsea’s David Templer AKA Temps.
Earlier this month, she was even seen out partying with Tommy Fury, whose relationship with Molly-Mae Hague is rumoured to be on the rocks.
But Laura insists she’s just playing the field at the moment.
“I'm dating,” she admits. “I'm happy and I'm really open to finding love again, but I'm taking things very, very slowly, just one day at a time.
“I think there's always going to be rumours and speculation, particularly when you're pictured out with someone that's in the limelight or someone that's recognised, but until I say that that's my person or I'm dating them and it's a serious situation, then it’s obviously just going to be speculation.
“Trust that I shared my love life and my most recent marriage with the nation, so if and when I'm in a committed relationship with anyone, I will also share that.”
Laura was a finance manager before she took part in MAFS, but won’t be going back to her day job, like some of her co-stars are, including Arthur.
Instead, she wants to use her profile to continue advising other women on “how to self-advocate”.
She finishes: “You do have to put your life on hold while MAFS is airing, because you can't do anything that will give away the story, and the show has certainly been part of my life for over a year now because I was in the process for so long.
“So I just feel a bit relieved that life can not go back to normal, because you can never go back to what it was before, but you can be a bit more authentic and just do things that you want to do and you would normally be doing.”
