A made-up affair. Forced plastic surgery.
Psychological exploitation. Drama makes for good TV,
but it's not always pretty behind the scenes. Keep watching for the biggest reality TV offenders.
"American Idol" has always been a little cruel. The first couple weeks of each series
hinge on watching people sing, who are so delusionally untalented
it should arguably be illegal to put them on TV.
"No one in a million years is ever gonna pay to hear you sing."
Then again, contestants are signing up to be judged — which does include the
ridicule of the general public. Weirdly enough,
the cruelest part of "American Idol" might just come after contestants win.
In 2015, Season 11 winner Phillip Phillips sued
"American Idol" producers 19 Entertainment over his so-called "oppressive" contract.
The suit alleged that the company "manipulated" the singer into accepting jobs after his win,
and he was even forced to perform a free gig for JetBlue that had no benefit to his own career.
Instead, 19 Entertainment allegedly used the performance to land a JetBlue sponsorship
for the "2013 American Idol Live Appearance Tour," which had nothing to do with Phillips.
He also claimed the company lied to him about royalties, tried to finagle
a larger percentage for themselves, and kept him in the dark about his own music.
The star reportedly lacked so much creative control that he
wasn't even told the name of his album until it was announced to the general
public. Phillips' lawsuit became one of the biggest scandals in "American Idol" history.
According to HuffPost, the singer settled with the producers in 2017.
For primetime networks, reality game shows are a dime a dozen, so it's not surprising that the
short-lived Fox series "Million Dollar Money Drop" had a few kinks that were never really worked out.
In 2010, Gabe Okoye and Brittany Mayti appeared on the show. As the game goes,
they'd have $1 million to bet across various questions. They ended up placing $800,000
on the question, "Which of these was sold in stores first?"
The options were Macintosh computers, Sony Walkmans,
or Post-It notes. Okoye went with the Post-Its, but producers claimed it was the Sony Walkman.
According to USA Today, fans later noted that Post-Its were actually sold before Walkmans
but "under a different name and only in select parts of the country."
They lost on a technicality. It was seemingly rigged, and Okoye and Mayti
ended up going home without a dime. Though the series invited them back after the mistake,
they were never reimbursed for the life-changing money they rightfully won.
"We can never recreate or revisit that particular situation."
Danielle Staub may not exactly be the most reliable source on the set of the "The Real
Housewives of New Jersey," but her voice is definitely the loudest. She
certainly squawked all the way down the Jersey Turnpike when she was reportedly axed — or,
as she claims, quit — the series. Her main beef? A so-called "decade of pain"
by the hands of Bravo producer and beloved host Andy Cohen.
In a 2020 Instagram post, Staub likened the show to a "lion's den"
and claimed Cohen left her "in the dark" about the series, writing to him:
"Now that you are a parent, I'd hoped you would see some of the pain you caused my family.
Even when I left the show to protect my young children, you mocked me repeatedly,
defaming me and yet I still continued to give you over a decade to do right by me and mine!"
Staub took it one step further on her podcast, "Absolutely Danielle," and accused the network
of trying to sabotage the release of her memoir, "The Naked Truth." She claimed they purposely made
her compete with co-star Teresa Giudice. Teresa released a cookbook the day after hers, adding:
"How can I know she would get a book deal when she can't form a sentence?
There's just no way that I would ever think she'd be a published author."
"The Mole" wasn't just a hit show for ABC. The reality game show tore through the late
'90s with incarnations spanning across continents.
In fact, the series is still churning out new episodes depending on where you look.
It's unclear what made the spy series so popular,
but it definitely wasn't the way they treated their contestants.
Nick Baylart, who appeared on "The Mole's" sixth season in Australia, claimed producers
routinely withheld sleep and food to make sure contestants had "interesting performances."
Baylart also alleged that producers regularly shouted at contestants and purposely paired them
up with people they didn't like in order to stoke the flame. He told The Guardian:
"If they can twist a necessary element of production into something that will
make the contestants a little bit more ready to fight, they'll do it."
Baylart admitted the entire experience was filled with a "weird sense of isolation"
as producers encouraged castmates to scrutinize
each other's personal relationships. You never know which one is the mole.
It's no secret that Jenelle Evans is one of the most controversial cast members of
"Teen Mom" — or is she? According to the reality star, MTV has a serious
issue with showing the truth. Although Evans also has certainly been involved in
some sticky legal situation — as evidenced by the 15 mugshots she racked up by 2015.
Some of her more recent trouble involved an altercation in 2018
where she allegedly pulled out a gun during a road rage incident. Nonetheless,
the star has slammed MTV for her negative portrayal and claimed the network treats
the "Teen Mom" cast as if they were, quote, "a freak show and in cages."
"I do what I'm supposed to do! All you're trying to do is ruin my life! That's it!"
In a since-deleted 2017 Instagram post, Evans fired back at the network after they allegedly
misled viewers about an argument she had with her husband, David Eason. The newlyweds were
shown planning a photo shoot before Eason kicked the film crew out of their home.
Evans claimed David didn't want to talk about drama on-camera,
so the network resorted to making it look like he was hiding something or
"hurting [her] in some way" when nothing was actually wrong. She threatened to quit
the show until MTV started treating her with respect. Evans wrote in the post:
"It's getting too out of hand and it's not healthy for us anymore,
just harming us mentally. We aren't human beings to MTV what-so-ever."
"The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" franchises have always been surrounded by a little bit
of controversy — especially since the 2017 "Bachelor In Paradise" sexual assault scandal.
According to E!, Warner Bros. "cleared the show and its producers of any misconduct"
related to that incident. Despite the cleanup, cast members from other versions of the show
haven't spoken so kindly about their treatment. Jillian Harris is one example.
She hit the reality scene in 2009 with "The Bachelor" and returned as the star of "The
Bachelorette" — and well, she has a pretty complicated relationship with the series.
She describes the experience similar to being a victim of kidnapping.
Harris claimed that she was "easily manipulated" on the show and lost sight of her real life.
Which, when you think about it, isn't really a difficult thing to do,
especially considering the show throws mass amounts of alcohol at contestants and completely
cuts them off from the rest of the world. Harris recounted her experience to TODAY, saying:
"I forgot about my 'real' life so fast. I was like experiencing a really fabulous
version of Stockholm Syndrome, with fancy meals hotels and clothes!"
It sounds kind of scary when you put it that way.
The morally questionable antics on Lifetime's scripted drama "UnREAL" may take creative license,
but the show was actually based on what went on behind the scenes of "The Bachelor."
The show's creator, Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, was a producer on ABC's hit reality series,
and she drew from her experiences. Speaking with The New Yorker, Shapiro claimed that
"The Bachelor" wasn't the friendliest environment for contestants. As a producer,
Shapiro said it was her job to dole out "terrible advice and to deprive [contestants] of sleep."
To hand-craft intense crying scenes, Shapiro often lied to contestants,
even telling women who were going to be dumped during the rose ceremony that the
Bachelor secretly told producers he was going to propose to them. Diabolical, right? It gets worse.
Shapiro also claimed producers told each contestant to have a song that represented
their relationship with the Bachelor. When the rejected lover left the ceremony stunned because
producers pulled the old switcheroo, she'd be shuffled into a limousine playing that very song.
The car would then drive up and down the 405 highway in Los Angeles for as long as it took
to get them to cry. According to Shapiro, executives told producers not to return until
they got the waterworks or else they'd be fired. Shapiro's solution? She sometimes used a jalapeno
or lemon to help her cry on cue, which in turn, elicited tears from the contestant.
"Love Island" has taken the UK by storm. The reality series is so popular,
there's even a "Love Island" branded line at Primark. Though fans of the series
seem even more fervent than those of "The Bachelor," the show isn't without criticism.
"I don't really know what this is about."
According to the BBC, the UK-based charity Women's Aid slammed the show for allowing contestants to
emotionally abuse each other on set. Over 2,500 viewers filed complaints with Ofcom,
the UK's communications regulator, after a July 2018 episode.
They claimed the series was unfairly misrepresenting events to manipulate a contestant
into tears. In the episode, Dani Dyer was shown a clip of her boyfriend Jack Fincham, who was
separated from her and placed in a different villa with a range of new potential love interests.
He was captured repeatedly saying "oh my god" after realizing his ex was joining him in the
villa. Dyer cried after watching the clip, but the producers didn't show everything.
What they didn't show her was Fincham telling his fellow contestants that he
was sleeping alone during his stay so he didn't damage his relationship. Basically,
they made it look like Fincham wasn't planning to stay faithful
to purposely upset Dyer. One Twitter user wrote in a since-deleted post:
"I don't know if I can continue to watch a show that encourages the deterioration of
someone's mental health. 'Love Island' wants people to be mentally unwell."
Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag are one of the most infamous couples in reality TV history.
While the pair may have been painted as the antagonists of "The Hills,"
they claimed their poor portrayal was a product of MTV's constant threats.
Their time with the show allegedly ended in a full-on brawl
after the network fought to craft a storyline so twisted
that Spencer "snapped." Pratt claimed in the E! documentary "After Shock: Heidi & Spencer":
"We played up to the characters we were told to be, and because they'd
always threaten us with losing our place on 'The Hills,' we went along with it."
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Pratt said his breaking point was when producer Sara Mast
allegedly tried to make him the catalyst for sister Stephanie Pratt's struggle with
excessive drug and alcohol use. He claimed Mast tried to get him to punch Stephanie in the face
to invoke the so-called "Snooki effect," referring to the time "Jersey Shore" cast
member Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi was punched in the face at a bar. As a result, Spencer screamed:
"You want me to punch my sister in the face? Are you trying to get me to kill you?"
According to MTV, he scared producers enough that he got himself booted from
the series. Of course, that didn't stop Montag and Pratt from reprising
their reality TV roles in the 2019 reboot, "The Hills: New Beginnings."
"Here in the hills, pretty matters."
"Big Brother" may seem pretty brutal on-screen,
but the real grit comes before the cameras even start rolling.
"There is one twist, that very few of you know about."
According to Reality Blurred, casting finalists must endure several days of
screening and are pretty much sequestered in a hotel room with limited human contact.
They're allowed to use the Internet, phone, and TV, but they're not allowed to utter a word to
each other. In fact, they're not even allowed to look at each other. Contestants must endure
this isolating experience all while knowing they can be cut at a moment's notice,
especially if they don't look hot enough, apparently. Uproxx reported that contestants
are advised to be "looking and feeling [their] best for pool time if [they] make the show."
Between grueling medical and psychological evaluations and meetings with producers,
they're allowed just five 45-minute personal breaks a day. At night,
producers collect their hotel keys and essentially lock them in their rooms.
All in all, "Big Brother" finalists are allegedly given just $50 a day for their time,
which must cover all of their meals. The hotel restaurants and bars are sometimes so
expensive that finalists reportedly pick and choose whether or not they're going to eat.
Aside from a critically-panned reboot, "Wife Swap" hasn't aired new episodes in nearly a decade.
Nonetheless, former contestants are still dealing with trauma allegedly left behind from the series.
One of these contestants is Heidi Mae, an influencer who appeared with her family
more than 10 years ago during Season 6. In a bombshell TikTok video
shared in November 2021, the star called "Wife Swap" the quote,
"worst mistake of our lives" and claimed producers labeled them "the bad family" right off the bat.
In the video, Mae claimed contestants had to have an extensive psychiatric evaluation to
make sure they were "mentally sound enough" to appear on the show. Producers allegedly used the
evaluation "to find [her] pain" and "[exploit] it for television." As such, her childhood insecurity
of feeling alone was thrown immediately back in her face. Heidi opened up on TikTok,
saying that her first conversation with her new mother went something like this:
"You are alone. Nobody cares about you. You have no friends. I don't care about you."
Mae told the Daily Dot that the "other mother" was equally "as manipulated." They later discovered
producers were feeding her lies to purposely create beef between the families. All in all,
Mae claimed the show was "ten days of pure hell"
and that she's still dealing "with the after effects of it."
In a 2021 interview with The Celeb Talk Guy,
"90 Day Fiance" Season 8 contestant Stephanie Davison painted a rather grim picture. She went
to Belize to spend time with then-boyfriend Ryan Carr, and, well… a lot happened.
"Before Ryan, the youngest I'd ever dated was 20 years younger than me."
She illustrated a relentless production company who didn't care about her health and safety.
Fans already know that Davison's relationship became one of the biggest
"90 Day Fiancé" scandals. But what fans may not know is that the plot point surrounding
her affair with Carr's cousin, Harris Flowers, was completely fabricated.
She told The Celeb Talk Guy that she dumped Carr
and quit the show before leaving Michigan, but Sharp Entertainment apparently showed
up at her doorstep with "a crew of 12" and pushed her to change her mind. From there,
things went downhill. In a now-deleted Instagram post captured by Screen Rant, Davison claimed:
"I not only was raped while filming, but manipulated to keep filming after I begged
to get off set after being bitten hundreds of times by sandflies."
She was allegedly hospitalized for an allergic reaction,
but the production company was reportedly "unwilling to pay" her medical expenses.
Davison planned to take legal action, but so far, there's no word on what happened.
The early '00s was the golden age of reality TV. Seemingly nothing was too offensive or
too exploitative. At any other point in history, "The Swan" may have been deemed
too cruel to air. The show, which promoted extreme plastic surgery to its cast of "ugly
ducklings," was slammed by The New Yorker as "the most sadistic reality series of the decade."
"My personality shines, but on the inside I'm dying."
Ex-Swan Lorrie Arias, who originally appeared on the show hoping for a simple tummy tuck, said
she was left mentally scarred by the experience. After the series, she developed agoraphobia and
was unable to leave her home. Speaking with HuffPost, Arias said she was unable to see
herself until the big reveal. When the cameras turned off, she completely broke down, adding:
"I was screaming for the executive producer. I was screaming, 'I want
my face back!' That's how freaked out I was."
Arias also accused "The Swan" of not providing adequate follow-up therapy.
The claim was seemingly backed by Season 1 winner Rachel Love,
who told the New York Post that contestants received poor support when the season ended.
Vice additionally reported that the on-set psychologist,
Lynn Ianni, had received her clinical psychology degree online. Perhaps the biggest feat of "The
Swan" was that it wasn't drowned out of existence under a wave of lawsuits.
Most '90s kids still have anxiety dreams about "Legends of the Hidden Temple's"
silver monkey. While the task was undeniably the most difficult and set up a generation of young
reality TV contestants for failure, it's not at all the most traumatic thing that happened on set.
Former contestant Keeli spoke to SBNation about the final round of the game show,
dubbed the Temple Run, and said:
"This game was practically impossible for a kid between the ages of 12 and 14 to complete."
Not only did the Temple Run come after 12 hours of competition,
Keeli claimed that the obstacle course set had significant issues,
like doors that didn't open properly and essential props that were missing.
But it wasn't the inevitable failure that traumatized Keeli,
who appeared on the children's game show when she was 12 years old.
It was the terrifying temple guards who left lasting emotional scars, adding:
"When the second guard got me and ushered me through that little door to the back of the set,
I just burst into tears. I'm 31 and I can't go to haunted houses.
I'm deathly afraid of things popping out of closets and doors, etc., at me."
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