Channel Seven has confirmed one contestant has been axed from the upcoming season of Farmer Wants a Wife after he was caught hooking up with other women during filming last year.
Professional bull rider Jack Rowlandson, 26, was not part of the cast when Seven officially announced the farmers starring on the show.
Last month Daily Mail Australia reveled there was turmoil on the set of the bucolic dating show when it emerged that the handsome reality star was seeing more than one of the contestants at the same time.
On Monday, Seven dropped the first trailer of the new season— and Rowlandson was nowhere to be seen.
Seven instead presented four final cast members looking for love – Jarrad, 21, and Corey, 24, Thomas, 35, and Tom, 31.
Hailing from Biloela, Corey farms beans, wheat and cotton, while Jarred, from Stanthorpe raises sheep.
This year’s cast also includes Thomas, 35, a wheat, barley, and lentil farmer from Kimba in South Australia, and sheep farmer Tom, 31, from Borambola in New South Wales.
The teaser for the new season, which will debut after Easter, prominently features each of the four farmers.
Originally eight farmers, including Rowlandson, were announced as taking part in filming for the 2025 season, while Seven sifted through thousands of applicants from women wanting to appear on the show as contestants.
Reports surfaced last July that two men would be cut from the final line-up with just six farmers taking to the screen.
However, it appears there was turmoil during filming when Rowlandson’s amorous adventures forced producers to edit him out completely.
As Mail+ reported last month, the former soldier became involved with an off-air interloper as well as seeing more than one contestant.
One contestant had experience as an OnlyFans model.
Producers at Farmer Wants a Wife have had to weather trouble over the last year.
It lost its host Sam Armytage after she defected to Nine to present seniors matchmaking show The Golden Bachelor, leaving Natalie Gruzlewski to front the series solo this time around.
Rowlandson’s misbehaving left cast and crew working overtime to fill gaps left by the ousted rural Romeo.
But his alleged indiscretion risked tarnishing the reputation of a show that Seven bigwigs love to tell advertisers is a wholesome and ‘brand-safe’ alternative to Nine’s Married At First Sight, where partner-swapping and ‘secret girlfriends’ are par for the course.
Eureka Productions, which makes FWAW, spent few weeks furiously scrubbing shots of Rowlandson from the upcoming season.
Reports surfaced from set indicating that producers diligently re-filmed scenes that previously featured Rowlandson in a bid to plaster over the gaps caused by the unanticipated drama.
It’s been quite the challenge – and expense – given Rowlandson, who hails from the tiny town of Oberon, about two-and-a-half hours’ drive west from Sydney on the far side of the Blue Mountains, was expected to be the breakout heart-throb this season.
Mail+ caught up with Rowlandson in December, but he appeared to discuss details of what went on behind the scenes during filming.
‘I’m probably not allowed to talk to you about all that,’ he said, when asked about his edit.
‘I haven’t heard from them [creators, Eureka Productions] at all, so… look, I’m going to have to go.’