Reality TV has been a popular genre for years, though some debate just how "real" shows actually
get.
While viewers pretty much accept that some manipulation goes on behind the scenes, there's
one harsh reality that no producer can fake: the death of a star.
Zookeeper Steve Irwin's childlike fascination with animals endeared him to millions.
He was taught how to "second-guess" crocodiles by his dad, and later put these skills to
use on The Crocodile Hunter, the Animal Planet docu-series that made him famous.
Many believed his unusually casual relationship with the dangerous reptiles would lead to
his death.
But in the end, it was a far more placid creature that killed him.
In 2006, Irwin was out in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef filming a nature documentary
called Ocean's Deadliest when he noticed a huge stingray.
Suddenly it propped on its front and started stabbing wildly.
Irwin's cameraman Justin Lyons described it as a jagged barb that went through Irwin's
chest "like a hot knife through butter."
"He had an extraordinary threshold for pain, so I knew that when he was in pain, that it
must have been painful."
Upon discovering a two-inch-wide injury over his heart, Lyons rushed Irwin back to the
boat, but sadly the 44-year-old's injuries were just too severe for him to be saved.
As part of the Jackass crew, Ryan Dunn was no stranger to danger, having willingly put
himself in harm's way for the MTV show and its spinoffs over the years.
Unfortunately, his reckless ways eventually caught up with him.
On June 20th, 2011, his Porsche left a Pennsylvania road at 130 miles per hour and crashed through
trees before exploding into flames.
The car was so mangled that it was impossible to determine whether it was the collision
or the subsequent fireball that ended the lives of Dunn and his passenger, Jackass assistant
Zachary Hartwell.
Police Chief Michael Carroll told Radar Online that this was "by far the worst" of all the
fatal accident scenes he had ever seen.
Dunn's Jackass co-star Bam Margera told local TV station WTXF that Dunn was "the happiest
person ever" who had "so many things going for him."
"It was the worst phone call I've ever got in my life, waking up to that."
At the time of his death, Dunn had just started filming a Mythbusters-style video game reality
show called Proving Ground.
Singer and reality TV star Jenni Rivera was one of the best-selling Mexican artists of
all time.
When she died at age 43, she was the single most successful woman on the Billboard Latin
charts and had just finalized a deal with ABC to star in her own sitcom.
But sadly, we never got to see it.
On December 9th, 2012, Rivera and six others perished when the plane they were on plummeted
28,000 feet into a mountainous region of northern Mexico.
Fans later got to see how the Rivera family coped with the tragic loss thanks to the docu-reality
series I Love Jenni.
The late star was in the middle of filming the third season of the show when her plane
went down.
The circumstances of her death were shocking, but not quite as shocking as the family secrets
that came out afterwards.
Her ex-husband Jose Marin was sentenced to 30 years without parole for the repeated molestation
of Rivera's sister and daughter.
Rivera had also suffered abuse, as she was assaulted just off a California highway soon
after filming her first music video.
"Man's man" Phil Harris starred in one of the few reality shows to bear any semblance
to reality, Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch.
The chain-smoking fisherman was known to have ongoing health issues, and he suffered a devastating
stroke while off-loading crab in Alaska during the show's sixth season.
Engineer Steve Ward found the captain and part owner of the Cornelia Marie on the floor
of his room, unable to move.
Harris was put into a medically induced coma and underwent extensive surgery.
He asked for his family and friends after he came around, and, for a few days, it looked
as though he was going to be okay.
But on February 9th, 2010, things went downhill fast.
Harris told his best friend Dan Mittman that he wasn't feeling as good as he was yesterday.
When doctors told Mittman to leave the room, he knew in his heart what was happening.
Harris died later that day.
There have been a number of deaths on the Real Housewives franchise over the years,
but none have been as explosive as Russell Armstrong's.
The husband of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Taylor Armstrong took his own life
in a Mulholland Drive house he'd been sharing with a friend after his wife filed for divorce.
According to the coroner's report, he used an extension cord to hang himself in his bedroom.
After her ex's death, Taylor revealed that she'd allegedly suffered abuse at his hands.
On one occasion, he grabbed her neck and shoved her against the wall, and another time, he
banged her head against a car.
“But when he was bad, he was the scariest human being I’ve ever met in my life.”
With this backstory now out in the open, it's no wonder that Armstrong was struggling with
demons.
Trashy reality shows have been one of MTV's specialties for decades, and Buckwild was
a prime example of that.
Running for a single season in 2013, the show followed a group of young adults from West
Virginia who did whatever they wanted.
That usually involved drinking copious amounts of alcohol and mudding, aka driving their
vehicles around in mud.
According to former Buckwild star Shain Gandee, mudding can be quite the romantic experience.
But it turns out it can also be a dangerous one.
Gandee was found dead in his vehicle in April 2013, after he went mudding on a remote road
and got stuck.
The 23-year-old's uncle and friend were also present.
According to local law enforcement, all three died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
MTV was halfway through producing a second season of Buckwild when Gandee passed away,
which convinced execs to pull the plug.
When Diem Brown first appeared on MTV's Fresh Meat: Real World/Road Rules Challenge in 2006,
she had just kicked cancer's butt.
She took part in several seasons of The Challenge over the next decade, coming out the victor
in a second battle with ovarian cancer during that time.
There would be no third comeback, however, as the disease returned once more to claim
her life.
Brown was sidelined during an episode of Battle of the Exes II in 2014 after she began experiencing
excruciating abdominal pain, and she was later medically evacuated.
The 34-year-old's flight from Panama to a New York City hospital was featured on the
show, and her final words for viewers were extremely difficult to watch.
Her prolonged troubles with cancer had forced her to have her ovaries removed, but she still
intended to have a child via surrogacy one day.
Sadly, that never happened.
“Funny to say that, but having a baby is normal, and I wanted something normal.
And yeah, being a mom is really important to me,and I want to be able to have my kid."
Brown passed away in November 2014, just weeks before Battle of the Exes II premiered.
One of the many reality shows to document the daily lives of obscure regions in America,
Swamp People follows gator hunters in Louisiana.
Mitchell Guist was featured on the show up until his sudden death midway through Season
3, which shook the Swamp People family to its core.
Executive producer Brian Catalina remembered Geist upon his death.
"His simplicity sometimes I think betrayed him, people may have thought he wasn't very
smart, but he was an incredibly smart man, a very clever man."
A man who hunts alligators is always going to be living on the edge, but Guist's death
wasn't caused by a gator.
The bearded Cajun was working on a new houseboat on the Intracoastal Waterway in Louisiana
when he suddenly collapsed.
It was ultimately determined that a heart attack was the cause of death.
Mitchell's brother and best friend Glenn vowed to complete the houseboat in his honor.
On paper, The Contender was simply a televised boxing tournament, with a defeated fighter
leaving the show each week.
In reality, it was much more than that.
Not only was there a cash prize of a million dollars at stake, there was also a personal
aspect to the show, with cameras given access to the contestants' families and everyday
lives.
For Najai Turpin, the two were very much linked: he wanted to win that money to give his loved
ones a better life.
According to host and executive producer Sylvester Stallone, Turpin was "a tough, punchy street
kid from Philadelphia fighting for a better life for his family," but it was a fight he
couldn't win.
After being eliminated from the competition, the 23-year-old took his own life outside
the Philly gym where he trained.
Sitting in a car next to his girlfriend, the troubled boxer shot himself in the head.
The rules of the show dictated that none of the contestants could fight until after it
aired, and Turpin's former trainer "Buster" Custus believes this may have been a factor
in his death.
He told the Philadelphia Daily News,
"Fighters want to fight.
He was frustrated, because he was, like, training for nothing."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.