'MAFS' Ross hurled a kebab at the wall during filming and called me a f*****g sket,’ claims ex-wife Sacha

There is little doubt that bubbly, outspoken Walsall-born beautician Sacha Jones has been one of the standout stars on this year’s explosive Married At First Sight UK. She became renowned not only for her devotion to husband Ross McCarthy, who is deaf, but for her fiery interactions with other contestants, such as Holly Ditchfield’s husband Alex Henry – and her close relationship with her gym-loving parents.

They had their set-tos, but on the show Sacha and Ross appeared the perfect couple. However, here we can reveal that kickboxing fanatic Sacha, who admits she’s “no angel”, has had her heart well and truly broken. She and Ross are no more (just three weeks after they split, Ross posted snaps with a new “girlfriend” on Instagram). And in this no-holds-barred exclusive interview with OK!, the 29-year-old former pageant queen lifts the lid on what really went on behind the scenes – and what happened once cameras stopped rolling.

The cracks, Sacha admits sadly, started to show as soon as filming ended. “When I think of my time with Ross after the show, it’s just dark. Dark. I can’t think of one happy memory after the show. It was awful. The last happy memory I have is going to the first reunion together and putting on a strong front.”

READ MORE: MAFS Sacha claims Ross dumped her in brutal message - and says he had a new girl weeks later

READ MORE: MAFS UK's Polly says 'I can't believe I'm writing this' as she opens up about future with Adam

After a rollercoaster couple of months following the conclusion of filming MAFS UK, Sacha and Ross’s relationship disintegrated – ending with one brutal text from him back in June. As Sacha reflects on her turbulent time on the show, she finally feels ready to talk about some of the hard times she’s been through. Looking back, she says that, although she may not have fully wanted to admit it at the time, she claims what she was dealing with was “unacceptable behaviour”.

“It’s normal for couples to argue and I’m a sassy person, I’m no angel! But I’d never throw things at anyone – like when he threw a kebab at the wall during filming. That’s when I thought, ‘Wow, this is mad. Should I be tolerating this?’” Then, she says, there was the vicious name-calling. “I’ve done it myself, yes, and I wish I’d been calmer at points in the relationship – but in my marriage, I’d never call Ross names,” she tells us. “He’d jump straight to the names. Some couldn’t be aired, they were so bad. He once called me a ‘little f**king sket’ – that’s the text he showed Amy Kenyon on camera. After the experiment, he got even worse.”

After the show ended, Ross moved in with Sacha and her beloved cats in Walsall. He was previously living with his sister in Manchester, and would continue to see his daughter from a previous relationship once a week. Of those first days and weeks, Sacha, who is self-employed, claims Ross promised to be a real “provider” – but she claims any financial help failed to materialise. “I had to fund us for two months after MAFS. He didn’t pay a penny. We got into rows about money – he even argued about paying for a jar of coffee!”

Navigating rocky times at home together, Sacha claims that when Ross was in Manchester he would often cut contact with her. She says,“He’d always turn his phone off for 24 hours. He’d go AWOL.” But, although she says it now sounds “ridiculous”, Sacha’s love for Ross meant she always fell for what she now calls his “bizarre excuses”. “I really wanted this to work. I’d let him… fool me. He was on and off with me like a light switch – he’d want to split, get back together…”

Although she won’t say who, Sacha claims that at one point she got a message from one of the female cast members on MAFS, who she claims told her Ross had messaged her on Instagram, and shared a screenshot of the exchange with Sacha. “She said, ‘What I’ve just received has made me feel sick – but I’m going to tell you as it’s girl code…’ Ross had written, ‘Let’s meet up – but don’t tell Sacha.’”

Sacha continues, “I confronted him, and he blocked her, then he told me he just wanted to meet and catch up, and he didn’t know why he’d said not to tell me. Looking back, I think, ‘Sacha, you idiot.’”Meanwhile, his unacceptable behaviour, she claims, continued. Sacha recalls another occasion when, on a night out in Ross’s native Manchester, the pair had a falling out as she wanted to go home and he didn’t. Sacha claims that this led to an argument and Ross locking her out of the bedroom in his sister’s house, leaving her to sleep on the living room sofa. “It was so embarrassing.”

As their relationship continued on the outside, Sacha says friends and family told her it was time to cut the cord, and commented that she seemed like a different person. “When I finally opened up to the welfare team from MAFS, they really did give me amazing support. My parents were livid at his behaviour. I’d have been lost without them – Dad’s very protective but very good at doing the right thing, he’d never do anything I wouldn’t want. My friends, well, they were constantly telling me to leave Ross.

“They said I was constantly zoned out when I saw them. I wasn’t ‘present’. One friend said I looked like a ghost. It was a very dark time. A lot of people in these relationships blame themselves, but I was reassured that no, it’s not me.” Sacha believes 32-year-old Ross either falls in love quickly or is, as she puts it, “a love-bomber”.

“He told me he loved me on the honeymoon – that was way too soon. As humans we’re all multifaceted. I’ve got a fiery side as well as a loving side, and that might be the case for Ross. But he couldn’t have deeply loved me, then moved on so quickly after we broke up. It makes me think he never loved me to begin with.”

Sacha claims she ended up throwing Ross out of her home, telling him to get treatment for what she calls his “anger issues” – and she claims he left, telling her he would seek help, and stay with a friend back home. It all came crashing down for good in June, when Sacha claims she woke up to a single, cold text from Ross, saying, “We’re done, I’m ending it. Don’t text me again please, take care.”

“That was the end of the relationship,” she explains. “Then, weeks later, he was posting pictures with his new girlfriend, saying, ‘This is the real deal.’ That really got Dad’s back up – he felt it was a proper dig at me. As for me, my heart dropped when I saw the pictures. I felt physically sick. I thought, ‘This all makes sense now.’ I felt like such a fool.” Sacha admits she is still reeling from the break-up. “Seeing news articles about him and this woman was really, really hard. One of her Instagram Stories highlights was her in Dublin with Ross. But I didn’t cry, I think I’d come to terms with what he was, at that point.”

Sacha has not dated since Ross. Laughing, she says the only men in her life are Diego, her cat, her dad – and Jesus Christ.

“I found my new religion after the experiment,” she tells us. “I’m a Christian now. I was always abstinent but now, after what’s happened, I don’t think I’ll have sex until marriage.”

Without her faith, she doesn’t think she’d have had the strength to get through the last months.

“Even when I was getting hate online – ‘Ross we’re so happy you and that awful Sach aren’t together’ – where was Ross? He never stood up for me, never said, ‘Don’t attack Sacha.’ He left me to the wolves.”

Happily, though, Sacha still believes in love – and says one day, she’d like to give herself to the right person. “They’d need to be Christian – which I know limits me even further! But I’m hoping I’ll find someone who will treat me right.”

And there have been other positives to her time on MAFS – such as the lifelong female friendships she’s made. “I say now that I found love in that experiment because of the girls. We’ve got a group chat and I’m close to them all,” she says. “I’m closest to Holly –- I can trust her with my life and she knows my deepest, darkest secrets.

“Amy, too – she’s had a backlash she didn’t deserve, and Kristina [Goodsell]. I even made up with Alex recently! I actually reached out to Hannah [Norburn] on Instagram when her first episode aired, but she didn’t reply. That’s a shame.” The show has, of course, given Sacha a whole new platform, and as well as a desire to do some presenting in future, she has one aim when it comes to her newfound audience.

“My faith is the most important thing, and I want to spread the light on my socials. I would even consider another dating show – if the guy was Christian!”

Sacha doesn’t regret her reality TV journey. “Even after everything, I still feel fortunate to have been matched with someone I fell deeply in love with. I got my heart broken – but to go into that experiment and fall in love… what are the chances? I put my heart and soul into Ross. People might criticise how I handled myself at times, but no one can say I was not a good wife. I know I was.” As for the man who broke her heart, one day, she would love the opportunity to ask him one devastatingly simple question – “Did you ever love me?”

We reached out to Ross McCarthy and he declined to comment. A Channel 4 spokesperson said, “The welfare of our contributors is of paramount importance and, as such, we take allegations of unacceptable behaviour very seriously and take appropriate action where necessary.”