30 Former Contestants, Crew And Audience Members Spill The Beans On How Fake Reality TV Really Is
We’re going to let you in on a little secret, dear Pandas—just promise not to tell anyone. We absolutely love reality TV shows. The tension. The drama. The larger-than-life characters. We know it's mostly all fake and dramatized. But it’s all a lot of fun if you’re willing to suspend your disbelief for a little while.
We’ve collected some of the most interesting insights about reality TV shows from former contestants and audience members who spilled the tea in these two r/AskReddit threads here and here. They revealed what’s actually scripted and what, surprisingly, is genuine. Scroll down to check out their stories.
Bored Panda reached out to entertainment, pop culture, and lifestyle expert Mike Sington who was kind enough to walk us through why we enjoy reality TV so much and why it is so scripted. Read on for our full interview with him.
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When I was a kid, I was on Are you Smarter Than a Fifth Grader. All the answers the kids give are 100% genuine. One of the girls on the show with me is the smartest person I have ever met.
My dad was on Hoarders. To be more clear, he wasn't actually the Hoarder. It was the season finale for season 5 (I think) and the lady's home was so bad, the producers of the show couldn't let her stay. However, the show obviously didnt have the budget to buy her a new home. They came to my dad, hoping they could buy one cheap from him and my dad ended up donating one of his reposessed homes to the lady. I teared up watching.
Surprisingly it's all very real. I mean, of course editors work their magic but all in all, those people really do have hoarding problems.
Edit: By "couldn't let her stay" I mean that the house had actual holes in it once they removed all the stuff. It wasn't a safe environment to call home.
They should’ve paid him. They can afford it! But nonetheless your dad is a very good man.
My mom has worked with some chefs that have been on Iron Chef. They are notified of the category of the secret ingredient before hand, like protein, veggie, fruit so they can plan out some general ideas.
However the reveal IS the first time they see the actual ingredient. Also the time limit is only for a set amount of dishes and they get extra time to make enough for all the judges after. The judging is completely real and unscripted.
Entertainment expert Mike, Hollywood's Ultimate Insider, explained to Bored Panda that reality TV shows are popular for two main reasons.
"The first is we like to imagine what it’s like to live a wealthy and luxurious lifestyle. It’s fascinating for us to peek behind the scenes and see how rich people live, and imagine ourselves living such a life," he said.
"The second main reason is watching the constant drama and turmoil between the characters on reality TV actually makes us feel good about our own lives. We realize a quiet, and what some may call boring, life is really not so bad after all. Watching the drama of reality TV creates positive feelings about ourselves," Mike pointed out that these shows give us perspective.
I was a production assistant on an episode of America's Supernanny. I can confidently say that *nothing* was scripted. Deborah genuinely cared about helping the families. There was no coaching by the producer and the entire crew went to great lengths to be as non-intrusive as possible while shooting.
Really late, but I was on Judge Judy back in 2010.
I was the defendant. While it isn't necessarily scripted, the producers are really good at getting you to say what they want.
Oh, and the audience is all paid actors. They bring multiple changes of clothes and sit there all day. They're paid to laugh or boo on cue.
I would take the money for laughing or booing. Professional booer here.
I had a friend on Beauty and the Geek recently, and this is just one of the many examples he gave. He arrives, and the producers look through his suit case, and told him "you can't wear any of this"
All the contestants are actually dressed down at the beginning of the series, to make them appear more geeky. When he got his "makeover", all he did was wear his normal clothes again.
The entertainment expert stressed the fact that reality TV isn't actually very real at all.
"Every show has a team of producers, writers, editors, and casting directors behind it. The casting directors are looking for people that will create drama, the producers and writers are crafting storylines to create conflict and drama, and the editors cut out all the boring parts, and only present the viewers with what’s compelling," Mike shared how everything works.
"The scripting and editing are necessary for good TV, or viewers would be completely bored, and would tune out quickly. No one wants to watch boring lives on TV, we’re craving drama and excitement. Good reality provides that."
My tennis coach had a friend who was a sound guy for The Bachelor. He said that they have a huge table with all sorts of alcoholic beverages and the producers 'encourage' all the women to drink to their hearts content right before filming. This is why they are edgy/emotional all the time. Not because they are emotional wrecks (although according to him some of them really are, as the producers purposefully throw in a couple of them to start the drama and s**t) but mostly it's just because they are drunk. Because there are a few psychos, it just takes a while lot of alcohol to get the drama going. Of course then the editors can go in and make it seem like their is no alcohol at all.
The women that inevitably quits because it's not true love or whatever her reasons, are actually the ones that usually refuse the alcohol. Therefore they can see through all this s**t that makes that show fake.
My mom was a producer on judge Judy and no one loses on that show. The show finds your case, flies you out to la and gets you a hotel all on the shows dime. But get this the show pays the judgements. So if she says you owe the other person 5k, the show pays them, not you.
Not a contestant, but I worked on the set of "America's Got Talent".
It was my first reality TV project, I worked with a camera crew. My first days of shooting were the audition process, people with random talents coming in to show off and get recognized.
I learned listening to the radios, that there's essentially two classes of contestants. Green cards, the talent they think could win, and Red cards people who aren't good at all and are generally just there because someone thought they were weird.
The odd thing is, if Red cards didn't show up, they would take Green cards and re-edit their interviews or steer the interviews in a direction that made them look crazy.
I did the season 7 episode set in St. Louis and I remembered there was a contestant who was an older woman who played the drums, she was energetic and friendly and they recut her stuff to make her look insane. She gets to play for the judges who then just demean and mock her, it broke my heart.
Some of it's not scripted, some of it is just made up in the editing room.
Even if we like to consider ourselves the protagonists of our own stories, the fact of the matter is that real life is rarely as dramatic as what we see on TV. There definitely are Important Events and Heroic Fights Against Evil, yes. But they’re rare. Usually, it’s all about Washing the Mountain of Dishes that You Ignored for a Week and Surviving Until the Weekend (Part 128).
If we were in charge of creating a reel of our own daily lives, the odds are that we’d edit out huge portions of what we feel might bore our audience. Instead, we’d probably focus on the spiciest gossip and conversations, throw in some epic arguments, and show off how cool we are by doing a montage of us mountain climbing, painting, and dancing in the rain. We instinctively know that our audience wants to be entertained, so we’d do our best to make them happy.
Keeping in mind how we’re likely to edit our own lives if they were ever turned into a movie or show, it’s no wonder that reality TV shows aren’t 100% real. The crew needs to focus on the most important events (often, drama), so they might edit out all the calm, casual, and friendly chats between the contestants.
I saw my friend on "Cops" being chased down and arrested, I asked him about it, he said it was all scripted.
My sister and her boyfriend were on Cheaters. That show is entirely made up. They gave them fake names, fake jobs, the girl he was "cheating" with was an actress that they use all the time (they can do that because her face is blurred out as if she didn't sign a release). There isn't one part of that show that has anything to do with reality.
MTV "16 & Pregnant" season 1 favorites Tyler and Caitlyn (that adopted out their baby) are from my area. They went to the local "alternative ed" high school, and on the show were "Prom King and Queen." The only thing is, our district wouldn't let them film at school, and the alt-ed site does NOT have prom. The entire thing was staged!
I knew a guy who was one of the camera operators on that show. He ended up quitting because it got too stressful. The crew were not allowed to interact with the teens at all, and he said watching them make horrendous decisions with no one being allowed to say a word just got to be too much.
Meanwhile, drama often doesn’t just appear out of thin air. Scripting certain events can help the show crew create structure because they control at least some aspects of what happens. It might not mean that the entire show is ‘fake,’ but it would be naive to think that it’s all free-form.
Besides, not everyone might act naturally in front of the camera either way. They might feel pressured to act more interestingly. So they might construct a character for themselves. Both to help them stay cool under pressure and to be more memorable in the eyes of the audience and the jury.
In other words, some contestants might script their own characters… or the producers will most likely give them a nudge or two to behave a certain way. It really all depends on each project.
I always found it interesting on Miami Ink that people who just came in from the streets had their microphone packs already wired up and a convenient sob story cued up.
I also found it pretty amazing that the outside of the shop wasn't packed full of fans of the show.
Right? They would come in without an appointment and the tattoo artists would be totally surprised and of course have time for the client!
Storage wars probably wins the "scripted" prize.
"Probably"? They have been demonstrated to plant stuff in the storage units (they call it "salting") and to make up storylines by giving scripted soundbites to the cast. They have been proven to made up whole auctions with cast members as extras (something that is actually forbidden by union rules). The lots are cleaned, prearranged and completely set up by the cast, and the "appraisers" and "experts" are just actors that work off a script. All of this was documented in the former cast member Dave Hester's trial against the production.
I was on Cake Boss for their Spider-man's anniversary episode. Answered a casting call for Cosplayers since I Cosplay as Black Cat, but personally knew nothing about the guy who actually ordered the cake. Only a few people got a piece of the actual cake. Most of us got basic store cakes just to ensure it looked like everyone got a piece of the cake they showed.
Regardless that I didn't get a "real" piece, the Spider-man cake was amazing with working parts and all these crazy special effects on it and an impressive amount of sculpted marvel characters. They told us to make sure to act really excited/impressed when the cake came out, but I don't think many of us had to fake that.
I used to love the show when I was younger, but now that I'm older, I'm disappointed most of their "cakes" used to be rice krispies and fondant. Not much cake at all.
As we’ve recently covered here on Bored Panda, the audience is generally willing to suspend their disbelief for the sake of enjoying the story. However, things need to happen logically and there needs to be internal consistency within the framework of the show or film itself.
So, for instance, when we turn on a reality TV show, we subconsciously expect that some things might not be completely genuine. We might see some creative editing to create more tension than there actually was. Or the producers might stoke or create arguments to move the ‘plot’ forward. If it’s all done skillfully, we’ll simply enjoy the illusion of reality. However, if we can recognize that someone’s messing with reality, we might be upset because our immersion in the scenario has been broken. It’s all in the details!
My dads company sponsored an episode of extreme makeover home edition. He was telling me how they wanted to look around, but all they did was film. Those pan shots of the crowd? He said that they made them do it like 5 times to get it right. Ty and the crew may move 2 pieces of furniture each at the most and that's it. The families and such I heard were real tho, which is cool but the show itself is relatively staged.
A local radio presenter was on The Biggest Loser and according to him the first weigh in happens after a few weeks of working out while the second one happens after a a week. which is why every season the first weigh in has them all losing 5 - 10kg while they only lose 1 or 2 at the second.
The only thing that really disappoints me about the Biggest Loser is the length of time between the weigh-ins. Have you ever wondered how the contestants manage to lose a staggering 12 kilos in a single week? We don't. In my series a weekly weigh-in was NEVER filmed after just one week of working out. In fact the longest gap from one weigh-in to the next was three and a half weeks. That's 25 days between weigh-ins, not seven. That "week" I lost more than nine kilos. I had to stand on the scales and was asked to say the line, "wow, it's a great result, I've worked really hard this week". The producers made sure that we never gave this secret away, because if we did, it created a nightmare for them in the editing suite. The shortest gap from weigh-in to weigh-in during our series was 16 days. That's a fact. The thing is, overweight people get inspired by watching the Biggest Loser. They get off the couch and they hit the gym. But after a week in the real world, some people might only lose 1kg so they feel like they've failed and they give up.
Not nessessarily, Im overweight and i started working with a nutritionist, real One, PhD One that worked for the SNS ( national health care service ), One month after i started my diet i Lost 6.5kg ( around 12 lbs for our Metric challenged friends ), the 2nd month i Lost only 4kg ( i got weighed every month at her apointment ) só basically it gets to a point that burning the fat gets harder because you also have less fat to burn, in total in 6 months i Lost 20 kg or só.
A friend of mine applied to be on Catfish- the show where they track down people on facebook- because her online friend of several years would never meet up with her. Apparently They have to get permission from the person they are tracking down to be on the show, so the Catfish people know the whole time who it is they're looking for.
I think only the producers are the ones that know. From what I have read before, they don't let Nev know so his reactions are genuine. The producers obviously have to know so they can have the catfish sign waivers.
According to ‘Social,’ nearly 4 in 10 people watch some form of reality TV. However, not everyone’s comfortable sharing that fact with others. For instance, 34% of Australians who watch reality TV lie about the fact!
Meanwhile, ‘Statista’ points out that a whopping 61% of Americans believe that what actors in reality TV shows say is mostly scripted. 18% think that everything’s mostly unscripted.
If you’re in the mood to dig up some more juicy secrets about how ‘real’ reality TV is, take a peek at Bored Panda’s earlier feature right over here.
I was in The Voice this season. And i can tell you that there is a lot of scripting there. Before entering you have three auditions and a recording session with the producer. So they saw your face (blind audition?) and they heard your voice. On tv they use the version you sang at the blind audition, but they autotune it. The interview before the blind audition is also recorded weeks before. you have to pretend it's on the day itself.
Interviews are almost always set up. When we had rehearsels it was mostly three days apart from eachother and we had to wear the same clothes so it would look like the same day.
voting seems pretty real and not scripted.
I have posted this before, but it seems very fitting here;
There is a popular show in England called 'The Apprentice' one of the most popular shows in th UK at it's peak. Essentially, it is a bunch of idiots running around the city, carrying out various tasks while making dumb mistake along the way - it involves going from shop to shop, trying to sell your product that you made to random people and companies and one team tries to sell more then the other - I LOVE IT. Anyway, my dad owns a restaurant chain, and the people from The Apprentice called him up, GAVE HIM MONEY, and said 'x and y will enter your building, listen to what they have to say, try to bargain with them, then buy their product for this price, then we will give you £x amount of money' When my dad told me, I was shocked - turns out almost all purchases are fixed! I dont watch it anymore...
I have heard that Alan Sugar is a nice guy to the TV crew, an old school friend worked as a production assistant and was expecting him to be as tough as his TV persona, but he wasn't at all.
My dad's buddy was on Storage Wars: Texas. He was presented on the show as an expert on western wear. My dad's friend is a Cavender's (a western wear store) manager, he's not an expert on anything. The producers of the show had him read from a scrip and it took 4 hours of filming to create a 4 minute segment.
I'm intrigued to know who IS an expert on western wear, other than the designers?! Cut the manager some nice western slacks...
My dad was in a commercial and an acting class with one of the guys in Millionaire Matchmaker.
Most of those dudes, not actually millionaires!
All the Amish reality shows are FAKE!!! My cousin's fiancé works as a producer for Amish Mafia (which is the worst of all "reality" TV) and he's constantly trying to get people to 'rent' their houses out to production so that the show can set up their skits there. You see my grandmother's house on the show, my aunt's house and my cousin and her fiance's house. All they did at my grandmother's house was shave some guy's face in the backyard.
Also there's a new show that's coming out called Amish Haunting or something. All the skits are fake and I even pitched some of my own stories to the producers (I write paranormal fiction.) we'll see if they decide to use any of my stuff.
I work for a hit survival reality show on Discovery and it isn't scripted at all. From what I hear in the industry were one of the last to adhere to REALity. Most of the time we find it adds to the drama when everything is real, plus it makes the editors jobs less stressful since they don't have to manufacture scenes. But it also helps that the contestants are naked and stranded together for 21 days..
Na thats is indeed One show i don't believe is scripted, seems way to real for that ( Naked & Afraid ), and its an interesting show to watch if Im honest.
My best friend in high school was in a long term relationship with Gene Simmons' daughter, Sophie, right about the time they started filming **"Gene Simmons' Family Jewels."** Since he didn't really want to be a part of the show, they literally wrote him out after a few episodes. Some highlights:
-To make his exit seem less abrupt, they created a subplot about Gene not approving of the relationship. There was one shot in particular of my friend and Sophie making out on a trampoline outside, then cut to Gene looking out of a window and shaking his head. That window didn't even look out into the right yard, it was on the other side of the house!
-The family took a road trip to go skiing, which my friend was invited to. However, since he had been written out of the show, he had to sit in the way back and hide for nearly the whole duration of the drive up.
-Scenes weren't scripted, however each family member was given an "arc" for their character and placed strategically in rooms together to fight/scheme/laugh etc. according to what the writers needed. If the producers didn't like how a conversation went, the family would be asked to "do it over."
Literally every f*****g aspect of it. I was helping to run and organize a cosplay convention about four years ago and an American Reality TV producer showed up wanting to film the whole thing. We were excited at first, yay our convention is on TV. It very quickly turned into a f*****g nightmare.
They interfered with every single function in the convention. They told us to kick out people dressed as Marvel characters because they didn't want to promote anything Marvel based. They told us to shut down the maid café because the producer said "It's too pedo for our viewers". They told us to turn fat people away at the door because they said there were too many fatties getting in the way of their cameras. They actually ordered the judges of the costume competition to pick winners that the show's main characters revolved around.
BTW the main characters were scripted to bejeezus. They had scripts, cues, practiced blocking for the camera, the works. There was all this petty b******t housewives-style infighting that was totally staged and was nothing at all like what we wanted.
Finally we wound up throwing them the f**k out. They threatened to sue but we never actually signed a contract so f**k'em . Of course people told us we were idiots, "You could have been on TV!"
You know what? ***F**K TV.***
(I know you're thinking of 'Heroes of Cosplay' but this was before them. This production company was independent and not affiliated with Space Channel or SciFi and last we heard no longer existed because we attempted to sue them. We are however forever jilted of reality TV and any production company will not find themselves very welcome.)
I've always wondered how in shows like Hell's Kitchen and Masterchef (all cooking competitions for that matter) they flash to interviews with contestants giving real time feelings when you know it was recorded afterwards.
I heard from a friend on a cooking show they actually pull people away throughout the evening to ask them questions. Pretty real time.
I live in the same town as Duck Dynasty. It's 90% fake. Willie is a prima donna a*****e and the mom expects everyone in town to kiss her a*s. They also get a lot of locals to play characters. And the big house they show in the opening? That isn't even in the same town. It might not even be in the same parish.
My dad is a chief for the Fire Department and was on one of the most recent episodes. The producers wanted the Robinsons to drive the fire truck and the Chief said, "F**k no!" Also, it was made to look like those guys hang out at the fire station all the time. They never gave a s**t about the department until the producers wanted them too.
This nonsense is still on the air? These yuppie hillbilly cosplayer phonies are so fake it hurts. Why does anyone believe such a schtick so willingly? It boggles the mind...
I have a friend who worked for the French version of Survivor (Koh-Lanta). Nothing is scripted, but there are some things and points that skew the "true" experience: for example, the cameramen usually point the area where the immunity idol is hidden with their camera, and the contestants just have to look where they point.
Also it's all in the editing: some quotes can be taken out of their context, some challenges look tense and close while a team actually won by a landslide, and even though voting out someone might be undecided before the tribal council, the vote turns out to be unanimous in the end.
TL;DR: In French Survivor, nothing is scripted, but some stuff can help contestants and editing adds more drama and suspense.
By the way, there was a 25-year old contestant who died last year, on the first day of filming. Heart failure (nothing was detected in health exams), season cancelled.
Most of it is scripted. 2 of my 3 roommates do production for reality TV. The projects are real. The "actors" will be told to do or say something, but their own words are real. The story is fake though. For example, one of the real housewives had a fake job as a realtor. On big brother, my friend was told to wake up one day and go trash the kitchen and be angry without being given any reason. Things like that are "scripted". The hosts follow scripts obviously.
Big Brother (US) isnt necessarily scripted but they do prime an coax the houseguests into keeping or voting out certain people. If they suspect someone will be voted out and they want to keep them, they will pull other houseguests into the diary room and make them talk about what they like about that person, how much they will miss them, etc. The producers won't outright tell people not to vote for someone, but they definitely work to plant seeds in their heads through leading questions. Rachel Reilly went on Big Brother season 13 for the second time after she lost season 12. On the live feeds, she admitted to another houseguest that the only reason she agreed to come back was because the producers said she was good TV and promised her that they would make sure she got to at least jury house. She ended up winning that season.
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I’m shook! And I don’t even watch degradatio… I mean reality tv!
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Come on bully beat down was great, don't even care if it is scripted, lol
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Seems like most the Food Network shows are pretty straight, which makes me happy those are really the only ones I watch
I’m shook! And I don’t even watch degradatio… I mean reality tv!
Load More Replies... Come on bully beat down was great, don't even care if it is scripted, lol
Load More Replies... Seems like most the Food Network shows are pretty straight, which makes me happy those are really the only ones I watch
