Although Morena and Tony found a spark on their wedding day, MAFS Australia fans weren't happy with the groom's cousin's words about the bride.
Married At First Sight Australia groom Tony Mojanovski has defended his cousin Steve, after viewers called out his comments about the groom's new wife Morena Farina.
Despite the newlyweds getting off to a great start on their wedding day, things became sour when Tony's family member made some striking statements about the bride.
During the awkward scene, Steve pulled Tony aside to say, "The thing is, you're ageing gracefully", with the groom adding, "Yeah, well, she is older than me, you know that?"
Steve then replied, "Holy moly, that's old! I felt like you should have been awarded somebody a bit younger. How are you going to be able to deal with her for the next four weeks, honestly? I think she should have been 40."
These words went down like a lead balloon with viewers, as many fans took to X, formally known as Twitter, to discuss Steve's comments.
One user wrote: "'Awarded someone younger,' listen comb-over cousin, the 1940s called and they want their views back."
Another added: "Awarded? Sorry what now?"
With a third stating: "Steve is a walking red flag and has outed himself on national TV, good luck every getting a date again, what a mediocre sad man"
However Tony has come out to defend his cousin, telling Daily Mail Australia: "Steve is very protective of me and his heart was in the right place.
"He's a big personality. He's a beautiful person, he's, he just says things the way he sees it do I agree with him? Not all the time."
He continued: "It was a man-to-man conversation. He didn't mean any harm by it or to hurt anybody or disrespect anybody. It was just Steven.
"That's just, me and him have had so many conversations and beautiful conversations like that."
Steve also spoke to the publication about his comments, stating: "It was taken out of context. The context was, she's too old for Tony because Tony wants to have children."
He went on to add: "The producers actually asked me to bring up the age issue with Tony and create drama", before going on to confess, "I asked for a fee of $20,000 a day because I understood that this drama would increase ratings and the commercial success of the show."
