Married At First Sight: Why Fans Are Confused About Olajuwon’s Neck Tattoo

On Married at First Sight, Olajuwon Dickerson showcased a new neck tattoo, and fans noticed inconsistencies with the show’s editing. It’s not uncommon for editors to swap footage from time to time to create a more succinct storyline, but the change was glaring. Fans noticed the new tattoo during a self-filmed video of Katina Goode and Olajuwon making amends after their fight. However, the inconsistency of the footage is raising eyebrows. This isn’t the first time that MAFS fans suspected things were staged.

Katina and Olajuwon have a lot of chemistry. However, Olajuwon can be stubborn in terms of his perspectives and expectations. Frustrations reached critical mass when Olajuwon found a dating app on Katina’s phone. He felt betrayed, hurt, and worried that Katina saw the marriage as something that was just for television. She said that she’d totally forgotten about the app and many other apps on her phone. Katina was equally hurt that unintentionally doing one thing wrong would be a deal-breaker for Olajuwon. Her efforts to explain herself were shut down and she wasn’t sure what direction to take to make things better. She told Jasmina Outar and Michael Morency on the show, “I’m a real person with real feelings.” Meanwhile, Olajuwon told Michael that he had a hard time believing it was really an accident.

Later the couple filmed a video discussing how they got back on the same page after the altercation. It was nice to see them getting along, but viewers smelled something fishy. Olajuwon has loads of tattoos, but they noticed brand new ink on his neck that was absent in previous scenes. All of the above made them think that producers potentially asked Olajuwon and Katina to film the conversation at a later date to make Olajuwon look a little better. Tctuggers wrote on Reddit, “As we saw last night, the show cut between shots of Olajuwon with and without a giant neck tattoo, but insinuated that the shots were filmed in the same time period.” When Olajuwon was mad about Katina’s dating app, supposedly the night before, there was no neck tattoo.

The user then went on to explain their theories behind the inconsistencies. They hypothesized that Olajuwon and Katina could be the only couple to say yes on Decision Day. After many MAFS failures in recent years, production wanted to do what they could to make Olajuwon and Katina look more solid and paint Olajuwon in a better light. They also noted that the “Couples Cam” was retired, so the low-quality footage at an upward angle with Olajuwon in a turtle-necked hoodie looked like a cheap way to mask the tattoo from audiences. 

It’s possible that MAFS‘ Olajuwon’s behavior hasn’t been called out more harshly during the season because MAFS producers want the relationship to work. Tctuggers continued, “Olajuwon has been such an a**hole throughout filming that no amount of editing could redeem him. Production asked them to film their fake ‘make up’ video (and who knows what else) months after the actual fight to do some damage control and start improving Olajuwon’s image because we’re going to be seeing a lot more of him on the months to come.”

Of course, this is all just a theory. The only sure thing is that Olajuwon’s new tattoo really is new. It hasn’t been a part of the rest of season 14. It also makes sense that producers would only be interested in improving Olajuwon’s image if he and Katina were going to become the faces of the Married at First Sight franchise.

Source: Tctuggers/Reddit

Married at First Sight airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. EST on Lifetime.

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Olivia Landon
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Olivia Landon is a digital creative working in entertainment media and television production. A graduate of Occidental College’s Critical Theory and Social Justice and Media Arts & Culture programs, Olivia believes in entertainment as a springboard for curating intersectional cultures of care. Visit her website https://www.livlandon.media/

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