Married at First Sight cheaters Jono and Ellie go public with their controversial romance at reunion – leaving Lauren Dunn enraged

Controversial Married At First Sight couple Ellie Dix and Jono McCullough have finally made their romance public.

The couple announced their relationship on Sunday night during the show’s reunion episode.

After denying that they had feelings for each other, they stood as a couple against the other brides and grooms.

They first traveled to the party together, holding hands in the car along the way and disparaging their former partners.

“I wish I could do this with you for the entire experiment, but it doesn’t matter,” Jono told Ellie.

‘You had to kiss a toad. I had to slay a dragon’ replied a giggling Ellie.

When the couple arrived at the dinner party four weeks after filming, the couple walked in hand in hand.

The other contestants were stunned, none more so than Jono’s former bride Lauren Dunn.

‘She shut me up. Well, girl, I didn’t do anything to you. Like… You got my sloppy seconds,” Lauren said.

‘For example, you can say hello to me. Like, I don’t have a problem with the girl, but now I do, now it’s a problem. It’s just rude. So rude.’

Sara Mesa interjected, “I think Jono is a snake. The fact that he’s actually messaging another woman was nothing and then holding hands with Ellie is bullshit.”

Jono insisted the couple were ‘so happy’, while Ellie said she felt like she had won ‘Married At First Sight’.

“She has no right to be mad, and if she is, I don’t really give a (bleep),” Jono said of Lauren, before praising Ellie.

“It was worth crawling through hell on broken glass to get to this beautiful woman,” he said.

The pair were invited to discuss their romance as soon as they sat down with the group.

‘Everyone says I’m glowing and I say, “Yes!” It’s not just the color. It’s Jono,” Ellie boasted.

‘I’ve been so happy. Yes, it was amazing. We are barely a day apart. I wouldn’t change anything. Can I have a kiss?’ Jono said before the couple hugged.

Jono explained that he and Ellie had bonded for six hours after the experiment ended.

Other participants noted how hurt Lauren seemed, and how “slimy” and “smug” Jono was acting.

‘Of course I’m hurt. And I’ve been made to feel like I’m just some evil b***h putting up these walls and giving this nice man a chance,” Lauren said through tears.

‘All the time I’m treated like a cold person because I’m reactive and use curse words. Does that make me bad?

“I have a loud voice and I swear I’m a bad person, and he just put on a nice guy act the whole time. It’s so unfair,” she sobbed.

Jono and Lauren then had an argument, with an irate Lauren calling her former groom a ‘dog’.

“You’re the nastiest person I’ve ever met in my life, Lauren,” Jono snapped back.

Fans online were quick to condemn the pair, with many sharing their thoughts on social media site X.

“Oh Ellie, don’t think you’re the cat that got the cream princess. “If Jono did it too, Lauren, he’ll eventually do it to you too,” one person said.

‘Jono and Ellie are so classless! Pathetic,” someone else wrote.

‘I can’t believe Jono and Ellie are coming to the reunion together and the nasty comments they made in the car??? Weird behavior,” said another.

“Honestly, Ellie and Jono are welcome together. They could bore each other to death. They don’t even have half a personality,” said another.

Not everyone was against the couple, with one person saying, “Lauren, you treated Jono like a cashier from the wedding on. Of course he ended up with someone who really respected him.’

‘Jono and Ellie have the right to be together. It poses no moral or ethical problems. The cries of deceit or betrayal have turned to outrage,” said another.

“BUT… do they have to be so smug and blatant about it?” they added.

The pair appeared to be in good spirits as they were spotted on a romantic getaway on the Gold Coast after the show wrapped filming.

Jono, 40, and Ellie, 32, looked as loved up as ever in December as they stepped out hand-in-hand to catch up with their co-stars Eden Harper, Tim Calwell and Mike Felix.

Ellie and Jono are still feeling under the weather on Married At First Sight thanks to their cheating scandal.

Last month, tensions came to a head on the show when Lauren Dunn, 32, finally confronted husband Jono about texting fellow bride Ellie after leaving the show.

Lauren’s heart broke when she found out her groom was secretly texting Ellie.

In a dramatic episode, Lauren demanded to see Jono’s iPhone, only to discover that he had texted Ellie hundreds of times after she left the experiment.

“You contacted her. These don’t just relay information that happened the night before, this is more than that. My stomach dropped,” Lauren told Jono.

Jono eventually admitted to secretly texting Ellie, but tried to downplay their relationship as platonic.