Removed Married at First Sight couple criticise DR over allegations

Allan Beier and Katrine Asthing, who were removed from this year’s season of DR’s Married at First Sight, say the broadcaster failed to handle their situation properly. DR does not share the couple’s account of what happened.

“What the hell am I supposed to believe and think?” Katrine Asthing said.

The couple was edited out of the final programme after “new information” emerged, DR’s head of external television, Anne Garlichs, said earlier this week. She stressed that the matter did not involve criminal activity.

Asthing and Beier said they were married on 4 May and decided to remain married in June. They described their relationship during filming as “loving and beautiful”. They are no longer a couple, but said they remain close and are good friends.

Two weeks after filming ended, the production company and DR contacted them, they said. The production had received an anonymous email containing serious allegations against Beier, including claims that he had subjected women in his past to psychological and physical violence and abusive behaviour.

“It was something I could not recognise at all. I could honestly say that there was nothing in these accusations,” Beier said.

Beier said anonymous people had previously contacted his former workplaces with serious allegations against him. He described this as harassment and said he had informed DR about it during the casting process. He said he did not know who was behind the anonymous allegations.

For Asthing, the allegations came as a major shock.

“I was extremely upset because that is not the Allan I have met. I cannot recognise any of these things,” she said.

Couple says they were not allowed to respond

Beier gave DR and the production company permission to appoint a lawyer to investigate the allegations and speak to his former employers and professional contacts.

The investigation took two weeks, the couple said. Beier said he later spoke to former employers, who, according to him, had not told DR anything that should have led it to remove the couple from the programme.

“I simply think DR was worried about bad headlines. They wanted to cut it away before it became too big and therefore made a decision on an extremely weak basis,” he said.

After the two-week investigation, the couple was told they had been removed from the programme. Neither the production company nor DR contacted Beier during those two weeks, they said.

Neither participant said they had seen the anonymous email.

“Allan has not been allowed to defend himself in this at all. And they married me to this man,” Asthing said.

“You knew he had been subjected to harassment, and you chose to include him anyway. When this happened, you did not stand behind either him or me,” she said.

Asthing said DR should have handled the matter differently and, at a minimum, helped her if there was substance to the allegations.

“They married me to the man, but they will not tell me what they found. Think about where I have been left. I think that is completely unacceptable,” she said.

The couple said they decided to speak publicly because DR’s press release on Monday had deprived them of the opportunity to respond. Although the release did not name them, they said their identities became known within a few hours.

They now hope DR will “look inward” and apologise.

DR rejects the couple’s account

DR News said it wanted to interview Anne Garlichs, but this was not possible. Instead, she responded in writing.

Garlichs said DR understood the couple’s situation and had offered them psychological support. The offer remains available, she said.

However, Garlichs and DR reject the couple’s description of the process.

“After filming had ended, we conducted thorough considerations and received enough information to make the overall editorial assessment that this year’s edition of Married at First Sight should include only eight participants,” Garlichs wrote.

“If we had known about this information during the casting process or before filming began, we would not have proceeded with the participant,” she said.