Reality TV is every modern person’s guilty pleasure. We slave away at work, come home to our comfortable couch with that glass of white wine that’s just the right temperature, and look at some ridiculous reality program to realize our life really isn’t that drama-filled or crazy. It helps us put things into perspective, and it’s just genuinely good fun.
Sadly, like most things in life, some of these shows later turned out to be fake. This can range from a simple nudge from the producers to outright scripting events, but it’s a bit disappointing either way. Let’s take a look at some reality shows that aren’t that real at all.
1. Pimp My Ride
As much as we want to believe that one day Xzibit will take our shabby old cars and refurbish them to ridiculous levels of street swag, some ex-contestants have had something to say about the makeover of the cars. Turns out that the cars are only renovated very superficially and the actual machinery and technical failures are left intact. Sometimes, the cars even go home with more technical failures than they were brought in with. Ouch!
2. Hell’s Kitchen
Let’s start off with the good news: Gordon Ramsay’s colorful expletives are 100% genuine. What isn’t genuine is the circumstances around the show itself. Participants were often held in complete isolation and forced to work long hours to artificially increase their stress levels. As they were monitored 24/7, this increased the chances of some juicy dramatic scenes. And now you know how the sausage is made.
3. Pawn Stars
We all know this shop from the countless memes it has spawned, and the biggest hook about the show is basically people thinking they’ve struck gold with random objects they found lying about, only to discover that it’s worth almost nothing. The sad part is that these deals are struck off-camera beforehand, and the people selling their objects already know the price they’ll get for it when they sign the contract. So while the disappointment seen on the show might be fake, our disappointment in the show is all the more real.
4. Catfish: The TV Show
Much like the internet relationships that the people in this show are having, the show in itself isn’t being entirely honest with us. While the show gives off the idea that they are contacted by people that get catfished and they try to find the catfish, it’s actually often the other way around. It’s been made public that the producers are not rarely first contacted by the person doing the (alleged) catfishing, only to then find and contact the victim.
5. MTV Cribs
This hurts us in so many ways, but yes, MTV’s Cribs was also staged. In fact, most of the houses shown in Cribs were rented out by MTV. Sometimes, the real owners didn’t even know their houses were going to be on the show! Some celebrities also took to renting a house from someone they knew for the show, since they didn’t even own a house or have a house in the neighbourhood at that time.
6. House Hunters
You’d probably think that it’s hard to fake anything about a real estate show where families have to decide between three houses, but in fact even that in itself is often a lie. Sometimes, one of the houses has already been acquired by the participants and they just slap the other two houses on there to give you the illusion of competition. Producers have admitted to doing this to speed up the process and actually actively casting participants that already have a house. Some of the houses they’re adding in, aren’t even for sale in the first place. It’s a straight up scam.
7. The Bachelor
Yes, dear readers, even love can be a lie. In line of what you’d probably expect from a reality TV show, an ex-participant has claimed that the bachelor’s selection of the potential love of his life is mostly based off the ratings the girl in question has with the audience. Think someone famous or extravagant, and not the actual relationship material wallflower. I guess when it all comes down to it, the thing we all love the most is good TV that gets high ratings, right?
