23 Ways Reality TV Shows Lie To Us

1.

My brother was on Xfactor UK. There are several rounds before the televised rounds, so all those rubbish acts you see on TV have been picked by producers to go through.

I've also been in the audience of The Voice and Xfactor and they make you do loads of fake cheering, dancing, and clapping before the show starts so they can cut it into the actual show. 90% of the cheering you see/hear on the televised shows has been added in post-production.

2.

I was on set for the filming of Ghost Hunters in Buffalo. On the show, they are "investigating" an upper level of the Buffalo Central Terminal when they hear a "disembodied" voice say "Get out!"

It was the property manager on a lower level yelling at some homeless people to clear out. Everyone knew it was him, but it somehow made it in the show as an "unexplained" event.

3.

A friend of mine was on the bachelor. This was years ago and she ended up being one of the last 4 girls. She said they were constantly fed alcohol, were put on a strict sleep schedule where they were literally put to bed and woken up.

Also, there were no clocks anywhere, so all the girls were in a constant state of alcohol-fueled disorientation. There were no "chance" encounters where the guy is sitting on the couch and the girl goes up to talk to him, all of that is staged. Even their conversations were re-shot over and over if the reactions weren't right or their wording was off.

The entire thing was completely controlled and she said no one really knew the guy because none of their interactions were real.

4.

My boss was on [a certain reality TV show] as a guest judge. In the episode, one of the contestants sprained got injured. My boss was nice and all concerned, but they edited in a shot of her laughing, which was actually laughing at someone's joke from earlier. The filming session for that scene was 10 hours long. They edited it down to about 5 minutes. With that much footage, you can edit it into just about anything you want.

5.

I was on a European version of "Survivor" where we went to an island and had to survive for 2 weeks. Whatever was seen on camera was what actually happening.

The only fake thing is that we got some food to maintain a somewhat healthy diet.

6.

In Holland, there was a Dutch version of pimp my ride, a player of a football team we played against had his car ''pimped'' the car didn't even make it home, he had to call the car repair service on his way back from the studio...

7.

I was on "this morning" when I was about 7 and they did a big makeover for me and my siblings. The premise they created was that we were a nightmare and my poor mum just wanted us to look smart for an upcoming christening. The main part I remember was them telling us to jump in the mud and shout no when our mum asked us to stop.

Normally we wouldn't have dared so I remember that being fun! Oh and my sister ruined her hair three times before going on stage so they made us hold her hands so she couldn't touch it.

8.

Not me, but my best friend was on 16 & Pregnant. Now I don't know if this is always the case, but none of the drama on her episode was fabricated. However, at one point, they did ask her to reenact a conversation that she had had with her mother off camera. The funny part is, they had her reenact it about a week after giving birth so she was no longer pregnant.

To hide that, she wore a big sweatshirt and held a teddy bear in front of her tummy so you couldn't tell the difference.

9.

When my wife and I were looking to buy a home in Michigan, our agent told us we had the opportunity to be on House Hunters if we wanted to. We talked to some person from the show, and they told us the basic process: we'd buy whatever home we wanted, then they would film us there before we moved in, as though we were just looking at the place as well as looking at two other "prospective" places that they had selected. Then we'd ultimately "choose" the house we'd already bought and live happily ever after.

We watched a few episode (or I did, my wife already liked the show) and I convinced my wife of how stupid they would likely make us look, so we passed.

10.

I had a friend who auditioned for The Voice on the second season I think? He has a beautiful voice but was told his "look" wasn't right for the show. Always thought that was pretty stupid.

11.

I worked on a cruise ship when they filmed 'Undercover Boss'. The CEO pretended to be doing a documentary and had various crew members train him for a few hours. While no one was expressly told what the gig was, the show had already been going on for a year, so we all sort of knew what was up. When they were doing the shooting, he claimed to stay in a crew cabin to get a 'real' feel for how it was to be a crew member.

Not only did they use a passenger cabin in the shot, he didn't even stay there. He stayed in the grand penthouse!! When they did the 'reveal' that he was actually the CEO, they did like five shots of the crews' 'surprise'. His big gesture at the end was $150,000 towards crew welfare (pays for parties, day trips, etc). It came to like $8 per crew member when you consider how many crew members there are.

Those that were featured (and even one who got cut from the show) on my ship did get an all-expense paid European cruise, so that was nice for them at least, provided they wanted to go on a cruise on their vacation from working on a cruise ship.

12.

Obligatory not me but my cousin: She was on Hell's Kitchen and said that they would film for over 10 hours on a day, then would go to sleep around 11 pm only to get woken up at 2 am to film again to make them more irritable. The producers would purposely bring up topics to create drama within the chefs.

They re-tapped when they answered the door, in the beginning, a couple of times to make them seem "more surprised." They portrayed my cousin as the "classic hot blonde". It was certainly more of a reality TV show than a cooking show...

13.

When I was in university about 7 years ago we got an email inviting us to take part in a 60-minute makeover (UK). It's a show where a person's family calls in a team of experts to totally re-furnish their house while they're away from home for the day. The audience at home is led to believe that all of the work is done within 60 minutes, and they make a point to start their countdown on camera and rush everyone in to meet their deadline.

About 10 of us joined the makeover team at around 8am on the day and were given flat-pack furniture to make outside the house before they started the makeover. The crew had a skip outside where they threw all of this poor unsuspecting guy's furniture, only to be replaced with this cheap stuff that was only available to him via sponsorship of the programme. (They list all of the new furniture's manufacturers in the credits at the end of the show.)

They also masked off all of the skirting boards and light switches ready for painting before we were let loose inside.

We were let into the house as a member of the ITV crew declared the start of our 60 minutes. After 30 minutes of frantic, patchy wall painting, carrying lamps, uncomfortable seating and chip board coffee tables into the house we were told to vacate.

We then had lunch in the street while the experts went in to clean up our mess and then did it all again for another strict 30 minutes.

After we were finished and the official 60 minutes were over, there was another period of professionals tidying and filling in our shoddy decorating before we all gathered outside and waited for a man to come home from work. He would find that all of his furniture had been smashed into a skip outside his house and replaced with stuff that may look good on camera for a couple of seconds during a quick sequence, but would be very disappointing to live with.

This man would be happy about his makeover and we would leave the scene as more experienced, well rounded students with an insight into TV Production.

14.

I was on a reality ambulance tv show when I was an EMT. The patients were real and their medical conditions were real. Everything else about the show was fake. When we filmed it was for a bariatric ambulance tv show. In the morning when the camera crew got there they filmed us driving lights and sirens around the parking lot.

Then we did personal interviews where they let us talk about moving bariatric patients and how we felt about our jobs. Then they made us say a bunch of stuff that we normally would never say like "without us, these patients would die" etc.. they used these clips of the stuff they made us say and spliced it into the real stuff we said. Our actual ambulance transport seen in the tv show was 100% planned and scripted. The patient wanted to go to the ER and have some decubitus ulcers looked at.

However, this patient being diabetic had a high blood sugar of 400 having just eaten and taken insulin. We took that and were forced to treat it like a life or death situation and then they used our earlier footage of saying things were life and death and our driving around the parking lot lights and sirens to make it seem like we were fighting for her life. In reality, in about 30 min her sugar was going to go back down to normal and life would be good.

The whole experience actually really turned me off to reality TV and made me realize how fake everything is. If people are interested I'm sure I can find the youtube clip. I just have to double-check and make sure I didn't sign a non-disclosure agreement.

15.

I was on an Australian reality called Surprise Chef. The premise of the show was that the celebrity chef would meet someone at the supermarket and then cook dinner for them. On my episode, I volunteered at an Aquarium. The story in this episode was the chef met my boss at the supermarket, then cooked all the aquarium volunteers a nice surprise dinner.

Of course this was all pre arranged. There was no meeting by chance. We all knew what was happening so for the scene we all got surprised in the shark tank, we knew what was happening and did 7 takes of fake surprise.

The celebrity chef cooked nothing. He went in for a few takes and an actual chef cooked all the food while the CC stood outside chain smoking. The food was average, basicaly local RSL quality, chicken parmy and profiteroles.

I think I drew the short straw of things you get in a reality show, a shi**y meal. Others get like cars or renovation makeovers.

16.

I was on Jerry Springer. The episode never aired but the entire thing was fake. They even asked me to find friends to complete the storyline of a double love triangle. The coolest part of it all was when they literally asked me if I wanted a fake doctor's note or a fake death certificate made out in a fake family member's name in order to get me out of work.

They literally had a guy on staff whose only job was to get people out of work so they could attend the filming.

17.

I tried out for Canadian Idol. The contract they made us sign literally stated that the producers could override the fan votes if needed to make sure the person they wanted to win would win. I still tried out. I was not the next Canadian Idol.

18.

My uncle was on Pawn Stars attempting to sell something. The item wasn't even his. He knew a guy who worked on the show.

19.

My brother was just in another reality TV show. It's the third or fourth he's been in. Without giving too many details(so he wouldn't get in trouble and so the show won't get ruined too early), it's insanely fake. He was given a new name and backstory, and even his "wife" in the TV show is some random actress he's never met that is married to someone else. They set up 90% of the stuff in his house specifically for the show. The only real parts of the show are his dogs and his house(as in the house itself, a lot of details were changed).

It's not even just this show that is super fake. As I said before, he's been in several and all of them have done the same thing. The first one I remember him on was Room Raiders(pretty old now but it was on MTV back in like 04 or around then). They did use his room, but they staged almost everything. All the "significant" things that the girl would comment on or look at were all placed there by the crew, so it was all pre-planned and fake.

20.

Several years ago, my cousin went in for a tattoo at the shop from 'Inked'. The one in Vegas. It was an 'off' filming day, so NONE of the artists from the show were in. He got his tattoo started, and they asked him to come back in a few weeks when it was healed up to schedule an appointment to finish it. When he showed up, filming for the season was finished. The shop was closed, cleaned out, and the space was for sale.

21.

I worked on a couple of low-key reality shows a while ago. This is what I learned from the people who worked on other shows.

- Each show has a team of "Story Producers" who stand behind the cameramen with walkies telling them to get specific shots. As the reality is happening, the story producers are there to make sure they're getting the shots they need to make whatever story for the episode. It's really hard to make something that didn't happen, but it's not too hard to change an emotion, or a mood, within what happened. Like when a woman doesn't like seeing the guy kiss the other woman. Just use some out-of-context shots and boom.

- Mostly everything that people say on a show is what they said, but sentences can be taken out of context. Sometimes if the editor is good they can "frankenbite", which means they can take specific words to make a new sentence. This is rare because it's pretty hard to do, and you have to find a place to put it. Usually off-camera and subtitled.

- Producers will often talk sh*t in private interviews to get reactions. "Did you hear that so and so said this about you?" Booze also helps fuel drama. And they cast people who are going to be dramatic anyway.

- Producers will also select people to be on the show. Like Pawn Stars. The producers select which customers get to be on the show. With Hardcore Pawn, it's the same thing, but more for a dramatic event rather than someone who has something interesting.

- When it comes to makeover shows, it varies. You could either have a Pimp my Ride, which did cosmetic fixes to cars. Or an Overhaulin, where they did a full resto-mod on the car. It just depends on the show.

- However, if it's a game show or any show where you win money, the federal government sends a rep to make sure the game is fair. There are laws against rigged gameshows.

22.

I was on Stan Lee's Superhumans. Long shoot day at the high altitude chamber I worked at. They brought a guy who had climbed Mt. Everest a bunch of times without supplemental oxygen (29,000 ft) so we brought him to the same altitude in the chamber with some "westerners" to compare against. He asked for oxygen after 15 minutes, and after 30 they asked me to pretend to pass out. Looking back at what aired it's obvious to me I was faking. The way they edited the show, he does "win" the competition.

Season 2. "Spider Man" is the episode title.

23.

I had a friend who was on MTV's Catfish. The guy who was catfishing her was the one who applied for them to be on the show. They barely talked or knew each other prior to signing up and had to force some fake conversations so they could be used on the show.