Melissa says Wife Swap makers only ‘showed what they wanted’

THE first Irish housewife to feature in TV show, Wife Swap, hit out at the programme’s makers last night for being selective and not showing the full story.

Former model Melissa Maverley, 28, spoke out ahead of what has been billed as one of the series’ most explosive episodes to be screened on Channel 4 tonight.

Melissa and her husband, Peter, 45, live in a €1 million mansion in Kinsale, Co Cork. House-proud Melissa spent two weeks living with chain-smoking Paul, a dole-drawing gambler, and his five children, in a tiny house on a council estate in Northumberland, near Newcastle.

Paul’s wife, Debbie, lived with Peter and his son David, 13. Each woman spent one week living under the original rules. But in the second week, she got to run things her way.

Personality clashes, serious blow-ups and vicious personal attacks are expected to feature in tonight’s show.

Melissa said: “They showed what they wanted. They painted us and Ireland in a bad light.”

In Newcastle, Melissa found the family living on £188 (€273) in benefits every week.

“My house was like a hotel, theirs was like Fawlty Towers. They spent £100 (€145) on fags, £20 (€29) on booze, they put a £1 (€1.45) in the TV every four hours, and paid for their electricity and gas by the week. They were feeding their kids on £5 (€7.26) a week. The house stank of dogs, it wasn’t clean. And Paul dressed like a tramp in football jerseys. So for the second week I changed the way he dressed.

“I got him a job washing cars. He earned £60 (€87.15) a day. I brought in fresh food and banned TV until 7pm every evening. And I took the kids to the library.”

While Debbie was in Kinsale, she went sea fishing, scuba diving, and visited Inchydoney.

Peter said: “None of this was shown. It’s been cut, and edited. They spent 250 hours filming ... and cut it down to 46 minutes. It’s not next to near the story.”

He added: “And things got tense at times, but a lot of the shouting and roaring was brought on by the filming crew.”

Melissa also claimed she was physically attacked by Debbie during filming in London last week of Wife Swap: The Aftermath, which screens directly after tonight’s show.

* Wife Swap will be screened tonight on Channel 4 at 9pm.