Whether you love it or hate it, reality TV is a guilty pleasure many of us share. The absurdity, the superficial humor, the glimpse into someone else’s life—it’s hard not to be entertained. Yet, you can’t help but wonder why shows that are supposed to reflect real-life are so intriguing in the first place?
Well, many of them are not at all how they seem to be on our screens. “People who were on reality family shows as kids, how much of it was real and how much was fiction?” one user raised a question on Ask Reddit. Whether it’s manufacturing drama, taking quotes out of context, or manipulating the contestants and asking them to lie, hundreds of responses started flooding in.
We have selected some of the most eye-opening answers from the thread. So continue scrolling, upvote the ones that stood out the most and let us know what you think in the comments below.
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I worked with a junk removal company for an episode of hoarders and it was actually 99% REAL. The only thing that they would set up a couple times was if they opened a box and found something interesting off camera they would re-open it on camera and act like they just found it.
It's nice to have a real one in the mix. I can't imagine staging that show though. Way too tragic for that.
A little off topic but similar :
Jupiter Entertainment reenacts true stories for shows like For My Man, Vengeance, Fatal Attraction, Homicide Hunters, etc. Much of the acting is filmed with no sound because the voice-over will be explaining the story.
They have filmed many shows at my house. I usually hide in a corner of the kitchen & watch them film. I swear it's more entertaining the the shows!
One scene had 2 men arguing over a woman. They really got into it with sweat & spittle flying. Then the woman walks down my hallway & confronts them. It's a big scary screaming fight.Thing is, you don't know what they are really saying.
Let me tell you, we were all nearly crying with laughter. It sounded something like this...
"What do you think your doing with my woman?" "What do ya mean your woman! I came here to eat some pizza!" "Well I'll stuff this pizza up your __ ____and you'll like it!" " I hate pizza and you can't make me! Besides that woman is preggers with my baby & we're gonna name it pizza!" "You can't do that because MY name is pizza you stupid pretty boy!" "I know I'm pretty! Do you want to go for pizza when this is over?" Woman walks up... "What the hell is the matter with you guys? My poor pizza baby has its feelings hurt because you don't like it!" "That baby's father is taco bell & not me! You're gonna have a burrito, not a pizza!" "Waaaaaa! You are so mean! Can we have salad for dinner break? Oh wait, how about poke bowl? There's a great place just a couple minutes from here!" "I think that's a great idea because I hate pizza! "
....and so on.
Vicious on camera, hilarious in real life!
We reached out to the author of this post, S3xySouthernB, to have a little chat about the thread and the behind-the-scenes secrets of reality shows. “I honestly wrote the question because re-runs of Supernanny were on,” the user told Bored Panda. What especially caught their attention is that the show seemed fabricated and amped up. “I was just wondering what ever happened to all those kids.”
When so many replies started rolling in, the author discovered that actually a lot of people had different experiences with reality TV: “It’s a mixed bag. Most of it was set up and faked.” One story that really affected the user was an incident from True Life, a show where MTV follows several people in their everyday situations, documenting the problems they may face.
Yup, a close friend was on MTVs True Life about having crippling social anxiety disorder (the episode was about different fears people had).
We were a big circle of friends since elementary, we always knew he was sorta socially awkward and battled with the way he looked (he was super insecure and self conscious about his looks) and he admittedly got teased the most by the more "alphas" of the group (the most insecure) but we loved and embraced him and made sure he knew that and that he was equals with us.
Anyway, they filmed us all for a couple weeks in high school hanging out (this was back in 2001 btw), going out, etc. He was crushing on a girl we knew, in fact she was part of the larger social circle anyway, and so they convinced him to ask for her number - I guess this was gonna be the storyline they needed. He already had it since we were all one big friend group but they "needed something for the story".
That was like "the big goal" for his arc. So he asks one night while we were at the movie theater. She gave it to him, all's good.
They went on one date but didn't amount to anything, but they remained friends just as they were before.
Fast forward to airing, and I don't know if you remember at the end of each episode they have just text on a black screen with like, the final update....
The text for his final update read "Despite finally building the courage to ask for her number... She gave him a fake number". He spiraled after that and it f**ked him up way more than he was before, he turned to drugs to cope (since he was basically humiliated on mtv with hundreds of millions of viewers).
He unfortunately passed away from a drug overdose a few years later. Miss you goomba!
Edit: "coincidentally" mtv has done everything they can to wipe that episode off the internet and pretend it never existed. We've never been able to find it and a few of us are very google-fu inclined and resourceful with internet-archival retrieval, but it's nowhere to be found... Every other ep is available though. They know they f**ked up...
There was a family in our neighborhood who was on a show. One day, when accompanied by the camera crew, one of the daughters suddenly threw a screaming fit in public, which was totally unusual for her. When the mom was asked later what the f**k had happened, she said for a tantrum, you get 200 bucks extra.
The user is talking about roastedbagel’s comment about their close friend who appeared on that show. The episode was about people having different fears, and their friend talked about their crippling social anxiety disorder. Producers faked the ending of this show, so roastedbagel’s friend was “basically humiliated on MTV with hundreds of millions of viewers.” Unfortunately, the person spiraled after that and passed away from an overdose a few years later.
The author of the thread said it was heartbreaking to read the story. “The Reddit data hoarders tried their best to hunt down the missing episode for the user” but it seems they were not able to find it. However, a few other people commented that their experiences were in fact just as real, the user told us.
A class mate of mine was on my country's Next Top Model. Before getting into the show she was asked what kind of hair she would never want to get, so that the producers know about it and not make her have it during the makeover episode. My classmate had long blonde hair which she really loved, so she said she doesn't want them to cut her hair off and that she also hated strange unnatural colors like blue, pink etc.
Fast forward to the makeover episode. The hairstyling team comes in and finds her hair unfitting for a model, so she needs to get a makeover and guess what? Her makeover obviously consists of a pixie cut and green hair to make her look like a "punk fairy".
My class mate cried throughout the entire process, so I guess the producers got the drama they wanted out of this.
If you go on one of those shows seems obvious to me you try to lie through the interview/pre show. What hair don't you like? Something you don't love but whatever. Biggest fear? Common fear that doesn't overly bother you.
My family was on Dr. Phil maybe 15 or so years ago. They definitely dug up as much drama as possible and didn't bring any of it up until we were onstage. It was actually very traumatic for all of us. They picked us all up in separate SUVs the evening before filming and took us to a very nice, expensive hotel for the night. We weren't allowed to leave the hotel and were picked up by the SUVs in the morning — I'm assuming so we couldn't really speak to each other or chicken out. In the end, everything just felt so much worse. Fifteen years later and everything is a million times better, but definitely no thanks to the show.
S3xySouthernB mentioned another comment that they enjoyed. It was about My Super Sweet 16 where one person said their friend wasn’t as horrible or monstrous as the kids on that show usually are. Her friends and family were asked to “hype up” the birthday girl to get more reactions, but she wasn’t acting like a jerk at all, and the crew “couldn’t even make it look like she was.”
The user appreciated that many people found this post engaging and relevant. “Most stories lead to great threads about how things happened or linked experiences, which always makes me happy to see conversations get started with so many unique viewpoints.”
I knew someone on Wife Swap. Her husband cheated with the 'swapped' wife, leading to a very real divorce. The show ruined her life for a long time.
Our Wife Swap is complete mess. I think these people are hired actors, it's not possible to be so crazy in real life.
I knew a guy pretty well who was on Millionaire Matchmaker. Spoiler: He was not a millionaire. He drove a nice car and owned his own business but lived in an apartment with a roommate. They filmed him in his apartment parking garage pretending all the nice cars were his. He was always about the smoke and mirrors for self-promotion, and it worked. Never seen anyone so unashamed to lie and cheat
So he faked being a millionaire in a fake show hooking gold diggers up with fake millionaires.
They hope that reality TV shifts from all the drama and fighting for the ratings. “It’s pretty clear most of it’s staged or faked,” they added. Still, there were “a few little bits where real things happened or something good came from it. I would love to see more of that and it seems like a lot of responders really would too.”
My family and I were on House Hunters. In reality, the entire thing was staged — like, literally every detail. We had already owned the home for six months when our Realtor was contacted by HGTV. Neither of the other two homes was even for sale. Every scene was shot several times. The 'three-month' follow-up just showed us in different clothes in our actual home and was shot the same weekend. Bizarre experience. I haven’t been able to look at reality TV the same way since!
Obviously, I knew the show was staged but I always wondering just to what degree and how it was practically achieved. Thanks for that info!
My parents were 'dinner guests' in an episode of Nanny 911, and they said literally everything was staged. I don’t remember all of the details, but they said the directors had a 'code word' they would say to the kids when they were supposed to start acting all crazy. And then once the scene was done, the kids would be perfectly normal.
Guess I'm not really surprised, but that's a bit of a shame, and I hope the kids had fun and it didn't mess them up or anything...
I was on a dog training show when I was 8-ish. The whole thing was basically bogus. The 'trainer' came to our house for maybe 30 minutes tops and gave us extremely basic advice. The producers then told us we had to get changed and pretend that he was visiting us three months after he gave us the advice, and how it had made our life better, yada yada yada. It's so dumb because our puppy was clearly the same age in the 'before' and 'three months after' shots, and my family aren't actors, so our reactions were really fake.
It's dumb because these kind of shows is not exactly aimed at the brightest... (although I understand that you can watch it as entertainment while being perfectly aware of the fact that it's fake.)
I was on Wife Swap when I was 10 years old. My family had to switch with a farming family and we were supposed to be the ‘city family’ even though my family and I lived in the suburbs. There were plenty of quotes taken out of context as you’d expect. They also incited plenty of drama. I was framed as addicted to video games so they took my xbox and gameboy color for the week. A few days in one of the crew members came in with my gameboy and said “look I found this” and handed it to me. It shouldn’t be surprising that they sent the woman staying in our house into my room to ‘catch me in the act’.
To be honest not much has really changed in my life except getting snapchats of my 10 year old face when my friends catch the reruns. I’m open to any questions if anyone is curious.
thats horrible they purposefully gave u the gameboy for u to get caught in the act
I worked with 2 people who were on Teen Mom (grandmother and granddaughter, obv the granddaughter was the Teen Mom)... they told me that the directors would intentionally set up stuff that would cause drama and then start filming. For example, the directors had them go out to lunch and told the grandmother something she didn't know yet and filmed their argument for drama, knowing she would get upset that the granddaughter hadn't told her before (even though she was planning to). Really dumb, unnecessary drama for TV, but apparently the baby got tons of scholarships and support from the show which is why they did it in the first place, so they said it was worth it.
I guess this is not really related. But an interesting story
My friend went to Hollywood on American Idol a few years ago. She told me they kept trying to get her to mess up her lines and ask for a redo “for the camera”. She refused and sang it the right way, but was sent home that day. To this day she is convinced that she was sent home because she refused to add drama to her scene
She then said after she was let go, all the interview questions were like “how does it feel to know you let down your family and friends who supported you so much in your dream”. Just really trying to get people to cry She said the whole thing was the worst experience ever
Ah yeah, the classic "you let your family down" argument. Was that ever useful instead of cruel?
My aunt’s family was on Nanny 911. They have 10 kids, so it was a great family for the show to manipulate. When we all finally saw the show, it gave me a lot of insight into how heavily manipulated it actually is. They made a situation where my cousin went on a bike ride seem like she was missing and was purposely not coming back to the house, which wasn’t true. They made my uncle seem like an awful dad. He actually ended up getting emails and such with awful threats after the show aired because of how badly they portrayed him.
My friend was on a nanny show. They apparently took his birds out of the house to film and had them in a trailer, and they froze to death. When they brought them back, they all realized they were not the same birds.
I knew a girl who was on a tiny-home show with her mom. They had already bought the tiny home, and the show set things up as if they were looking at a bunch of others and picked that one.
A good friend of mine was on one of the 'wife swapping' shows, and it was 100% fake. The producers decided that since his family was part Asian, they should do martial arts together and had them learn some basic Tai Chi stuff for a scene, even though none of them were martial artists at all.
A girl I went to school with was on My Super Sweet 16. She was always quiet but well liked, and the kids on that show were usually monsters, so we were curious how the episode would paint her. There was one scene where she was checking in on a vendor, and they said something might not be finished in time for the party. She didn't have a meltdown or anything, but she said something dramatic, like, 'Oh no! That's going to ruin my whole birthday party!' After the episode aired, her friends who were with her said they did a couple of takes because her first reaction was like, 'Oh, that sucks. Thanks for letting me know.'
"Oh no that's going to ruin my birthday party" isn't really that bad it's still semi polite.
A wedding that I was a bridesmaid in was aired on Say Yes to the Dress. They filmed our initial reaction to the bride walking out several times. They wanted us to scream and cry. I'll be honest, the whole thing was incredibly fake and rubbed me the wrong way. Pretty on par for the type of person the bride is, though. I don't talk to her anymore.
Not half as bad as some of these, having to overreact to some probably over the top dresses.... having been in shops choosing bridal wear with family I've seen people do that anyway!
I was a competing Realtor on Million Dollar Listing for an episode. I am not, nor have I ever been, a Realtor.
It's amazing there are viewers for these shows. I worked with a couple women who watched ALLLLL of them, no matter how horrible and staged...and they loved them. Whenever there was a preview for a new even more ridiculous "reality" show, I would think "who would watch that drivel?" and the next day at work they'd be talking about it. I thought it was especially bad because they got their kids into watching too. I hope the kids grew up to see it for the crap it was.
Not me, but I bumped into someone who was on Property Brothers. According to them, the two brothers were only ever on site for the filming. They threw out/hauled away all their furniture, and what it was replaced with was very pretty but hard and uncomfortable, bad quality (like had to be replaced within a year), and impractical for the family. Plus, the family could not get anything back from before the makeover that they wanted.
Canadian Idol—-Producers tell you which songs to sing. First they make you sing in line, if you’re really bad or really good you’re put through to the producers.
My friend made it through (honestly an incredible singer.) she had been singing one song the whole time and made it to the judges. She sang her song that got her that far, which was My Hero by Foo Fighters. Then, before she goes the judges the producers say she’s going to sing “Creep” by Radiohead as Foo Fighters aren’t on the list of approved songs.
So she sings Creep, doesn’t impress the judges and doesn’t make it through. We then watch the show when it’s aired, these motherf**kers edited her into the opening and said: “the good, the bad and the just plain creepy!!” And showed her singing Creep—-she was this gothic girl who didn’t fit in with the usual pop star image, she was so humiliated she never sang again.
Also, Ben Mulroney is one of the worst human beings I’ve ever met.
My friend was on the show “Cheaters”... where you supposedly write into the show if you suspect your partner is cheating, and they “investigate” and then show you the evidence all dramatically.
Well, my friend was supposed to be the guy that the wife was cheating with. He told me he could get paid $200 to pretend to have sex with the curtains open (to be “caught”) or to REALLY have sex with her for $600.
Anyway, he’s 600 bucks richer now.
A woman I know ran a rescue center for small animals and TV company approached her about doing an episode of their show.
She would take animals from people who bought pets but decided they didn't want to take care of them, like rabbits after Easter, pet hamsters, rats and Guinea pig's.
They pitched it as some animal charity documentary but really it was one of those shows about hoarders and they wanted to make her look nuts for having lots of animals.
Having lots of animals is not hoarding...it's being awesome! (once they are taking good care of them I mean).
My dad was asked to be on an episode of TLC's My Strange Addiction. He runs kind of a niche (small) business. And they were like, 'Hey, you're addicted to this, right?' And he was like, 'Um, no.' It was a honeybee business. They were hoping he was addicted to bee stings.
My ex's brother was on MTV's Room Raiders. It's a show where a boy or girl gets to snoop around in three potential partners' rooms to see if they like them based on their possessions. Terrible concept. The young lady looking around the room had zero personality, and all the 'interesting' or 'embarrassing' things that were found were planted. I mean, come on...who the f**k has a tiny comb for their pubes as a teenager?
I was friends with a guy whose brother was on the show 16 & pregnant. He & his at the time girlfriend were featured. They made him out to be a bad guy but he wasn't anything like the way he was made out on tv. I had hung out with them years before and during filming.
He had his stupid moments but is an overall good guy. She had talked about being on the show before they did the deed (red flag 1) and when the kids were born she took them and run away on a few occasions. Once claiming he could see the babies and when he flew to see them, she never showed up to pick him up. He was left stranded in a different state.
So when you watch those shows it may not always be as it seems. It can be entertaining but don't take what you see as fact. They start a lot of drama just for the audience at the cost of the individuals.
MTV's Made went to my high school the year after I graduated and made two episodes. One was about a guy I knew really well. His whole storyline was about how he’d never even been on a date before, when he’d actually dated my sister for two years before filming, and she was pretty crushed by it. All the end goals that they made seem like a huge momentous deal were actually super casual school events that anyone could sign up for, and all the special industry guests the celebrity mentor brought in were just townies that happened to own some small business in the area that was semi-related to the goal.
They really made that big of a deal about someone never going on a date? That doesn’t even matter!
I was in an episode of MTV's True Life. The whole thing was fabricated, and they painted my (now ex-) girlfriend's family to seem like they didn't like me at all, when they absolutely loved me. When we weren't giving them enough drama, they told us we had to amp it up or they'd cut our segment.
I guess if you and the family don't care what anybody thinks, you can ham it up and get a good laugh afterward. Think of it as scamming MTV.
Note: this post originally had 77 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Fun Fact: Not only were all 14 seasons of Donald Trump's 'The Apprentice' entirely fake, so was his Presidency.
To be fair if reality shows were actually "real" 95% of the show would be people sitting on the couch watching TV
I don't even have to read past the second story; I loathe "reality TV" and am so glad I only stream now. Netflix and Disney+ have some exceptional content.
I made the mistake of reading more stories... You know what, I'm really gonna try to stick to uplifting posts from now on.
Load More Replies...
In my job I have worked with dozens of these kinds of shows. They are all contrived. They may not be exactly scripted, but so-called spontaneous events are rehearsed multiple times until the producers are happy. The director and staff will often either straight up ask for drama, or they will manipulate people into demonstrating drama. They edit things out of sequence and out of context to make things sound way worse or way better than they actually are. Basically, NOTHING you see on reality TV happens in real life the way they portray it.
Next on BP: Water is wet, fire is hot and not all politicians are honest people.
A girl I went to school with went to the German version of American Idol (we were 16/17). She didn't make it through the first casting (not on tv) - her singing was good but the producers told her to finish school instead. She did and got a career in musicals.
Wow actually a positive story. musicals require some incredible talent. Your friend must have really been amazing
Load More Replies...
There was supposed to be a quiz show in my country, where people would be ask knowledge questions and could win money. Well, one lady in the pilot episode won, but the people doing the show got the facts wrong. After all, Shakespeare couldn´t have written Romeo and Juliet in 1648 (the quizmaster used this question on a pub quiz later, so smugly proud of his "show". The show never aired.
A friend of a friend (I'm being purposely vague) was on a reality TV show. Ended up with complex PSTD. And she was the nice girl... you can imagine when the producers set you up to be a villain!
Many reality shows on mtv show really dumb and annoying people, I always hope that's fake
There was a show for a blink about choirs, taking really bad ones and improving them. They actually contacted the president of my chorale. She told them off but good, rattling off the artistic qualifications of the art director, pianist, and 3/4 of the singers! It would be easy to manipulate something like that, any choir sounds like crap the first time they try a new piece, but after 10-12 rehearsals it's perfect. Eye roll
The people that make the shows and the people that are in them - cut from the same cloth. I don't feel one iota of sympathy for any of these attention whores who get hurt or "traumatized." If they are stupid enough to not realize they are there to be manipulated...well.....
Some people really are dumb but that doesn't mean they deserve to be crushed. I get what you're saying any sane person should know what they're signing up for. not everyone is sane LOL
Load More Replies... Everyone needs to read the book “Chart Throb” by a Ben Elton. It’s fictional, but gives suuuuuuuch good explanations and examples about just how much producing and manipulating “reality” shows get.
My parents used to have a paranormal investigation team that I was a part of. When I finished film school one of my instructors was a small time producer (he had helped create a couple tv shows) and he wanted us to make a new paranormal tv show. I tried to talk him out of it but he didn’t understand 90% of the time is just waiting and the other shows were mainly fake.
I was on house hunters. Wanna know their secret? After you purchase your new house HGTV contacts you and asks id you want to be on their show. My parents agreed, and then we went along with it. The decoy houses are always empty. The second house on the show is the one you actually bought ( the applies to all episodes, just like how on dateline it’s always the husband). Then you go out to lunch with tho film crew. The bill is on them. Good times
In the UK, we had a programme called Sun, sex and suspicious parents. The concept was that a kid would go on holiday without their parents for the first time, just with friends, not realising the parents had flown out to the destination to spy on them and see what they were up to. All a set up. They had to have the parents permission in order to do the show. I know someone who was on it, her parents had 5 kids so it was the best way for them all to get a free holiday.
Fun Fact: Not only were all 14 seasons of Donald Trump's 'The Apprentice' entirely fake, so was his Presidency.
To be fair if reality shows were actually "real" 95% of the show would be people sitting on the couch watching TV
I don't even have to read past the second story; I loathe "reality TV" and am so glad I only stream now. Netflix and Disney+ have some exceptional content.
I made the mistake of reading more stories... You know what, I'm really gonna try to stick to uplifting posts from now on.
Load More Replies... In my job I have worked with dozens of these kinds of shows. They are all contrived. They may not be exactly scripted, but so-called spontaneous events are rehearsed multiple times until the producers are happy. The director and staff will often either straight up ask for drama, or they will manipulate people into demonstrating drama. They edit things out of sequence and out of context to make things sound way worse or way better than they actually are. Basically, NOTHING you see on reality TV happens in real life the way they portray it.
Next on BP: Water is wet, fire is hot and not all politicians are honest people.
A girl I went to school with went to the German version of American Idol (we were 16/17). She didn't make it through the first casting (not on tv) - her singing was good but the producers told her to finish school instead. She did and got a career in musicals.
Wow actually a positive story. musicals require some incredible talent. Your friend must have really been amazing
Load More Replies... There was supposed to be a quiz show in my country, where people would be ask knowledge questions and could win money. Well, one lady in the pilot episode won, but the people doing the show got the facts wrong. After all, Shakespeare couldn´t have written Romeo and Juliet in 1648 (the quizmaster used this question on a pub quiz later, so smugly proud of his "show". The show never aired.
A friend of a friend (I'm being purposely vague) was on a reality TV show. Ended up with complex PSTD. And she was the nice girl... you can imagine when the producers set you up to be a villain!
Many reality shows on mtv show really dumb and annoying people, I always hope that's fake
There was a show for a blink about choirs, taking really bad ones and improving them. They actually contacted the president of my chorale. She told them off but good, rattling off the artistic qualifications of the art director, pianist, and 3/4 of the singers! It would be easy to manipulate something like that, any choir sounds like crap the first time they try a new piece, but after 10-12 rehearsals it's perfect. Eye roll
The people that make the shows and the people that are in them - cut from the same cloth. I don't feel one iota of sympathy for any of these attention whores who get hurt or "traumatized." If they are stupid enough to not realize they are there to be manipulated...well.....
Some people really are dumb but that doesn't mean they deserve to be crushed. I get what you're saying any sane person should know what they're signing up for. not everyone is sane LOL
Load More Replies... Everyone needs to read the book “Chart Throb” by a Ben Elton. It’s fictional, but gives suuuuuuuch good explanations and examples about just how much producing and manipulating “reality” shows get.
My parents used to have a paranormal investigation team that I was a part of. When I finished film school one of my instructors was a small time producer (he had helped create a couple tv shows) and he wanted us to make a new paranormal tv show. I tried to talk him out of it but he didn’t understand 90% of the time is just waiting and the other shows were mainly fake.
I was on house hunters. Wanna know their secret? After you purchase your new house HGTV contacts you and asks id you want to be on their show. My parents agreed, and then we went along with it. The decoy houses are always empty. The second house on the show is the one you actually bought ( the applies to all episodes, just like how on dateline it’s always the husband). Then you go out to lunch with tho film crew. The bill is on them. Good times
In the UK, we had a programme called Sun, sex and suspicious parents. The concept was that a kid would go on holiday without their parents for the first time, just with friends, not realising the parents had flown out to the destination to spy on them and see what they were up to. All a set up. They had to have the parents permission in order to do the show. I know someone who was on it, her parents had 5 kids so it was the best way for them all to get a free holiday.
