Married At First Sight's Shone Manderson has been in a "secret" relationship with co-star Matt Pilmoor "for months". Shona, 31 who hails from Nottingham, took part in the latest series of MAFS UK which saw her matched with Brad Skelly. They had a whirlwind romance during their time on the show before it all came to blows and they were asked to leave the process early as their relationship was deemed "too unhealthy".
They briefly dated outside of the experiment before calling it quits which prompted Shona to go on a "self-love journey" after claiming she was "completely blindsided". But then she met Matt, 29, who was originally matched with Adrienne Naylor, at the MAFS reunion in June and the pair have been keeping their new romance under wraps ever since.
Beaming with happiness, Shona and Matt spoke exclusively to OK! to reveal their new relationship. Shona told us: "We have a really healthy, happy, safe, fun, relationship - I really appreciate Matt so much, it’s what I deserve, we deserve each other.
"I’m proud to be his girlfriend and it just works." It's been almost five months since the new MAFS couple had their first date and they seem as loved-up as ever.
But it hasn't come without its challenges as they kept it a secret "for months" and had to be "so careful" while Matt was still on TV. Shona explained: "Matt would be driving and I would be in the back, we would be walking around Nottingham and I'd be all the way over there, we were like secret agents on a mission".
Audience engagement:
This story was an exclusive to OK! after it was brought to our attention that Shona and Matt from MAFS UK wanted to reveal they had been in a ‘secret’ relationship. I interviewed Shona and Matt via a video call to discuss their relationship, with questions I had already prepared. I made notes in shorthand of the key points and best quotes.
We had a tight deadline to meet as we were going to be the first publication to break news of their relationship, so shortly after the interview, I wrote up the article with fast and accurate copy. I referred to my notes to ensure I included the strongest lines from the interview to make an impactful and interesting story.
The story was published on November 16, 2023 and received 187,587 page views for OK! This saw it reach a total of 185,758 engaged minutes, with an average read time of 0.59. According to Chartbeat, 76% of traffic came from social, 11% internally, 10% from social and 4% from links. Interestingly, 94% of readers were on a mobile device and 53% of readers were new visitors to OK!
Chartbeat analytics
Chartbeat analytics
As we were the first publication to break the news, the article got picked up in various news outlets, contributing to further page views (although I do not have access to check this data). This includes, the Mirror, Cosmopolitan, Radio Times, Mail Online, Daily Record, Heart Radio, Digital Spy, The Tab and on regional news outlets.
social media
Shona and Matt worked with OK! to break their relationship news, meaning when it was posted on our Instagram account they were contributors. They documented the moment they saw the OK! article confirming news of their relationship, following the exclusive interview, and shared it on TikTok, creating an ever bigger buzz on social media. This had a great impact for OK! and helped us build a bigger audience, not just on our website to the article, but across our social media accounts, meaning the news was accessible on various platforms. It also meant that the video went viral on TikTok which prompted fans and other outlets to share their own video of the news.
Their TikTok video received 138.1K views, over 3K likes and 65 comments. News of their relationship, which I had revealed, was then shared across TikTok in various videos from fans, with one receiving 445K views. This video also included a screenshot of part of the OK! article I had written, which would prompt people to search the headline or OK! to help us gain even more readers. It can be viewed here.