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.
#1
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.
254points
#2
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!
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248points
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.
#3
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...
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186points
#4
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.
170points
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.
#5
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.
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148points
#6
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.
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142points
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.”
#7
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.
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141points
#8
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
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140points
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.”
#9
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!
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136points
#10
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.
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132points
#11
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.
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120points
#12
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.
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114points
#13
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.
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114points
#14
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
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110points
#15
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.
104points
#16
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.
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104points
#17
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.
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99points
#18
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.
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98points
#19
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.'
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96points
#20
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.
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96points