I don't know if any of you watched or remember the short lived reality show "My life is Liz" but I was on it as an extra for a couple episodes.

The first season followed her as an awkward teenager who despises preps and going to high school in Texas. The second season followed her when she moved to Brooklyn, New York to pursue art history in college. This is where I come in.


My private art school (Pratt Institute) surprisingly relished in the fact that MTV was going to be filming on campus and even allowed them to recruit extras from the student body. I think all they were thinking about was exposure... What I didn't know is that these extras were cast as her filler friends and the crew was only allowed permission to film OUTSIDE of academic buildings. The friends I had that got chosen let it completely consume them. I also knew Liz personally and every time she saw me she never remembered my name because I never had a speaking role.


Needless to say, I was really disappointed in how fake the show actually was. The majority of it was scripted and it was supposed to show what going to art school was really like. Their portrayal of it was completely unrealistic and the scenes of her in "class" were shot in a completely different location. It frustrated me to think teenagers were going to watch this and think "I want to move to New York and live a life like this"... No you don't because it is NOTHING like it is on TV.


Most extras didn't get compensated for their time either.

I'm glad I finally got to get this off my chest.

origamiviolets , MTV Report

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Beans

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I was watching Tiny House Nation once and they showed the finished tiny house and they showed the recipient having a party with all his 'friends'. I swear one of the extras at the party was Paul Blackthorne -- the actor from Arrow. This would have been way before Arrow. Anyway we rewound a bunch, I even called my brother to come look, and he swore it was him too. Thats when I realized the 'friends' in these shows were often actor extras, and I don't feel bad for not having like 30 friend parties like on these shows.

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I used to work I'm reality tv: (edit: I used to work IN reality tv, ooooops)

- Almost everything is planned ahead of time, tv is expensive to make and no one has the time or money to make an entire show of real moments

- Some shows are more "real" than others. Cop follow shows are usually pretty authentic. Anything with celebrities is probably all fake.

- Most dramatic phone conversations are fake (I did voice over once as a nurse calling with bad news)

- If you want a free wedding sign up for a wedding show with a host. They have a reputation to uphold so they are invested in giving you a good event and you could get a lot of free stuff out of it.

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I don't know if this counts as 'reality tv' but I was on Dr. Oz once. It was an episode about teen pregnancy and one of the producers advertised on a message board I used to go on, I thought it would be fun so I agreed to be on the show.

Basically they wanted me to talk about my experience with teenage pregnancy, and what I thought the impact of '16 and Pregnant' and 'Teen Mom' had on me.

At that time there was a ton of media coverage about the girls from 'Teen Mom' and 'Teen Mom 2', and a lot people were beginning to say that this was the cause of so many young girls getting pregnant, because they wanted to be famous. My point in going on the show was that I thought it irresponsible to blame a TV show for something as serious as teenage pregnancy, and that it gave parents an easy way to get out of dealing with the situation at hand 'My daughter must have gotten pregnant because of this TV show! It has nothing to do with anything else in her life at all!' (Obviously there are a ton of contributing factors and going into denial about it really isn't helpful)

So the producer and a camera man came to my house and interviewed me for like 4 hours for the b-reel (the stuff they show before your segment), a lot of the time re-wording and asking me the same question over and over again until I guess they got the response they wanted without out right telling me what to say. In the end it was about 2 minutes of footage in which I look like I'm completely bashing the TV shows and blame them for my getting pregnant.

They actually edited out anything intelligent I said, and then PUT IT INTO DR. OZ'S LINES!!! I literally saw my opinions being used against me, it was very bizarre.

So they had me on stage with Maci, Kailyn, and Leah from Teen Mom and for the first part of the segment I was totally dumbfounded and completely nervous, I didn't really defend my position well at all in my opinion until after the 'commercial break'. The second half of the segment was what I was really proud of and I got it together enough to clearly articulate what I was going to say, then when the show aired they completely edited out the second half.

Another sh**ty thing was that they tried to give me lines, and the producer kept coming in the room I was getting ready in, repeating the lines over and over to me. When I was so nervous in the first half of the show I ended up spitting out something stupid about prom that they kept telling me, I then found out that all the 'Teen Moms' had a copy of the lines that I was supposed to say, and Maci absolutely owned me on stage over the prom comment, it was really embarrassing. Idk if thats normal but I thought it was kinda f****d up that they knew 'exactly' what I was going to say and I was totally in the dark about what they were going to say.

Dr. Oz was also a super douche and threw a tantrum at his producers because the 'Teen Moms' babies weren't behaving on set when the cameras were rolling.

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Mikey Kliss

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Dr. Oz is a crook. Sorry to hear you went thru all this

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I used to film a Cosmetic Surgery Makeover Program, so i cant speak from a production point of view. Yes we did motivate people to cheer on during reveals, and yes there was some direction, but a lot of the emotions that we got on camera were real. As someone mentioned once before, TV is expensive to make so there has to be some direction other than a "let's see what we can get" attitude. The first contact (ohh I've been chosen) part was mostly real, and the participants would really most of the time be surprised if they were nominated and they were not in on it in any way. The operations shot were real (can't forget the smell of burning human fat, but strangely enough the smelliest was laser eye surgery).

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RajunCajun

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how did they sterilize the camera to film surgery?

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A girl in my town was on My Super Sweet 16. Not only did the party apparently SUCK, but all my friends that went said that everyone had to be breathalyzed upon entering the venue. Also they had to redo her entrance multiple times.

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Raena Celis

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I couldn't stand this show during my teen years. Thank God I was raised not to behave like an entitled brat!

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I was on Trading Spouses as a kid. The woman that was "our new mommy" was at least 3x as crazy as portrayed in the show. She laid on the sidewalk because "This house is like a prison!"

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Connie Jakobsen

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It's cruel to subject children to such an ordeal! I hope you weren't scarred for life!

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Haven't been on a show, but worked in TV. LIGHTING. Lighting takes forever. There are literally hours between takes. If there aren't then the lighting was setup beforehand. That means that the "stars" have to stand in a very specific location during those "impromptu" scenes. They aren't impromptu at all. I saw one episode of the Bachelor where the couple decided to make out/f**k in the shower. It was one of those tub showers with the curtain. Well the curtain was a translucent white with a purple tinted light behind so that the silhouettes could be seen in the act. This was the worst example of a staged scene I have ever seen in a reality show.

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I was a semifinalist on the voice. I don't know if this counts, but the amount of emotional weight that comes with being on a reality show is huge.

It's been two years since it aired and still every conversation I have has the weird air of "what are you doing NOW?!"
I had a woman ask me why I was working a job, had someone yell at me at a party for not saying I was on a TV show and making her "look dumb" (she was a bit strange).
I've basically had to apologise and make excuses for why I'm not as successful as that show made it out that I SHOULD be.

The biggest lie is I am not "successful" in the way the show makes the audience feel the artist are or "Should be". It was an enormous amount of pressure and I became pretty depressed.

edit: my name is Lindsey Pavao, S2

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Tyler Rivera Stein Film Composer

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That sucks. Sorry to hear. People don’t realize these shows are just smoke and mirrors and being a successful artist takes time. Hope you still have the spirit and keep going. You’ve gone a lot farther than most, and they only wish they could. 😎

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It sucks because paperwork has been signed so most things could be considered damaging to the show and they could sue me for millions, so here is some minor secrets.

Hole in the wall - That water is cold as f**k, felt like I had a mini heart attack every time my fatass hit the water. Also, we didn't find out our team name until 30 seconds before running out on stage.

Solitary 2.0 - The truest show ive ever been on. 24 hour surveillance, very little food and sleep, nonstop horrible times. Easily one of the best and worst experiences of my life.

Rock Band 2 - The Stars - The ending the showed went differently, while filming I was given a different reason for being eliminated, but was not a big deal, still eliminated either way. Also, it was nerve wracking, as we didn't know what song we were gonna do, it was using new instruments, in front of a large crew, hense my lower than normal scores.

MTV - True life "I'm a Backyard Wrestler" - What they filmed was pretty much how it went down, however I think people reacted a little crazier than they would have since the cameras were on them.

American Ninja Warrior - That course is f*****g difficult, I had no chance in hell of beating the first round.

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Melissa Hill

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OMG I LOVED SOLITARY!!!! I cut it fine getting to work every morning to catch the episodes.

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Sorta "reality TV" -- but I was interviewed for a segment on phone sex operators on Good Morning America, because my girlfriend is one. We agreed to do it if we were filmed in shadow and voices changed, and they interviewed us for 4 hours for the ten seconds we were on screen. We were quite positive and upbeat about it -- but then they used the only sentence I said which was remotely negative, and the voice-changing they did on me made me only sound sadder about her doing this as a second job; the thing I said would apply to any person who had to have a second job to make ends meet, but they edited it to sound like "we're so poor been reduced to *this*". Reality TV and fluff news aren't too far apart in how they do things.

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Not me, but a viral video goes around right now in germany. There is this TV show called supernanny. A woman goes to a family who needs help with the kids, helps them, and so on. This viral video shows the family AFTER the show. They say the supernanny came to there place in a few weeks only five times in a few weeks. All the other time the crew said the family should fight more. To make it more exciting. The family realised and wanted to stop the show. The crew said they signed up for the show and if they end it will cost them LOTS of money. So they said f**k it it just do what they say. Later, theire perfetly fine dog got ill. The supernanny came and said he died. After this messege they have never seen the dog again. Not even at its funeral.
**TL;DR: SUPERNANNY COMES TO FAMILY TO HELP, KILLS DOG INSTED**

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DC

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They've taken legal measures to stop every video claiming the Super Nanny production team had any to do with the dog's death. Which ... may or may not be true. There still is a version of the video explaining all this where the audio has a gap in that section, but you can understand what it says to have happened even by pictures alone. Also ... if that were true and it was my pet, none of the crew would have survived either - kill my cat and your days are over, is pretty much #1 rule when it comes to family members being considered unalivable for any means other than ending true suffering.

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Reality TV Experience #1

I was on a short-lived MTV program called "Your Friend, Andrew W.K." which was an "advice show" where you could write in a letter to Andrew W.K. and if he picked you then he would try to help you with your problem. My best friend and I were both picked and they put our stories together for one episode. Tom had Andrew come on his radio show as co-DJ and just rock out together. Andrew then came to my house and shot the s**t with me for a few hours of one-on-one motivational speaking about how not to be a shy guy.

Then the weird s**t... The producer (Nathan) kept throwing out these weird ideas and ultimately had this grand scheme (that never made the final cut, fortunately). He decided that Tom and I had to pretend to be almost-strangers; that I knew Tom because he was a radio star but that's about it. Nathan set up a scene after our one-on-one where Andrew was saying his goodbyes to me and that he was going back to hang out with Tom from the radio and I had to be like "Hey! I know Tom from the radio!" and Andrew followed up by inviting me to come with him to Tom's house where he would introduce us and make us friends and I would put on a rock concert for all of our friends who were now mysteriously there (we were allowed to invite some people to come meet Andrew). Needless to say, none of that happened.

Proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al-oIlsULlk

Reality TV Experience #2

This past summer I was fortunate enough to know a person who knew a person who had a sister that was in the art department for Gordon Ramsey's production company that had a shoot for a hotel renovation show taking place in my state. I got to work as a PA (production assistant; or peon that does nearly everything but is just happy to be involved).

This hotel was an outdated joke. They did not renovate the entire hotel; just the dining room, three pre-chosen guest rooms and an area on the grounds used to house and care for pets. They didn't touch the hallways, the carpets or any of the nasty s**t anywhere else in the building.

Nearly everything came off-the-shelf from Target or IKEA.

Craft Service is AWESOME. There is always food or drink everywhere to partake of 24/7. And eating a meal of bacon-wrapped meatloaf prepared by Gordon was quite the experience!

The knick-knacks and everything "removed" from the hotel were just stashed in a corner in the basement.

When Gordon was "on-set" anyone not on the primary production crew had to vanish. I never even got to lay eyes on him as I worked overnight and he was *actually staying at a hotel 5 miles away.

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I auditioned for "so you think you can dance". One thing that put me off was how much they encouraged us to yell and cuss at the judges and throw tantrums if they didn't like us. You know, for "good tv". We were way too tame, and Nigel got up at least 3 times between contestants to lecture us about being too nice and polite. Not sure why I was surprised though.

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The experts that the Pawn Stars guys call in actually own the things that are being discussed. The people who come in looking to pawn things are paid actors.

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Mikey Kliss

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O! I didnt know that juicy tidbit

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In the very first episode of Top Chef they ever filmed, Tom Colicchio flipped out because the dishes the contestants had cooked were getting cold while the film crew took 'food po*n' shots of them. From then on, all the contestants have to prepare two dishes: one for the judges to sample, and one for the cameras to pan over and show the audience

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Shane S

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Good. It’s not fair to the contestants. Side note: one of the worst meals I’ve had was at his Vegas restaurant. $300-$400 meal and it was all terrible and difficult to eat because everything was “deconstructed”.

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Extreme Home Makeover came to our area and redid a fire station and, I think, a local high school that was f**ked up during Hurricane Rita. My brother is a firefighter and also well-versed in construction. He said the fire station was not functional at all. Half the sinks weren’t even hooked up, light switches and plugs were just attached to the wall and non-functioning. Then they couldn’t use the station at first because the fire alarm system didn’t work, and the building itself wasn’t up to fire code. The high school was just as bad

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Not me, a friend (like most other people in here lol). She was on one of those survival shows where they take contestants out to deserts and mountains and s**t. She said it was about 80% scripted. Lot of misleading editing as well. Like they tell them what to do and when to do it and if they don't do it good enough for what the producers wanted they would redo it multiple times. She said they never even dared coming close to any real danger due to the obvious reasons. I remember watching one scene and she told me it wasnt even the same day of shooting as the other parts but it was made to seem so.

Reality TV is pretty much all scripted honestly.

Edit: Also watch the movie Quiz Show if you are interested. Pertains to what is in this thread and is a true story.

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Melissa Hill

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I really enjoyed Quiz Show. There is also a podcast that talks about the scandal.

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Was in a club when Breaking Amish: LA was being filmed in Vegas. Real bottom of the barrel reality TV.

Anyway, the producers gave them (the alleged Amish) tons of booze, and brought girls over to their table. The alleged Amish danced like f*****g idiots and at one point danced with one of the gogo-dancer type club employees. It was at the now-defuncted ACT at the Palazzo so there were tons of people dressed in shocking and very sexual suggestive outfits.

I'd love to give you juicy details, but it was not all that exciting. Signed a release to be on TV and never even bothered watching the episode to see if I made it into the show.

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As many here have already stated, the "reality" part is pretty minimal. Very heavily scripted, the director would tell us to do things and if she didn't like what she got she'd have us do it again. Some notes of interest:

- They only had one camera, so for competitions they actually started each team at a different time so they could film us starting, then edited it together to look like it was all simultaneous. Same for finish times.

- The entire season was shot in 5 days, even tho episodes released weekly and they tried to make it look like a whole week had passed. One day they even had us bring a change of clothes so they could shoot 2 episodes.

- They were constantly trying to get us to badmouth the other teams, but everybody really liked eachother. Hours of B-Roll footage and they would only use the 5 seconds where you finally give up and say something kinda vaguely negative after they've been badgering you the whole interview.

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Probably too late.... But oh well.. I was in a live audience for the x-factor, and yes, even the audience is staged... They told us when to clap or "boo" the judges, and when we did something wrong this guy would come out and absolutely scream at us to shut up while the host was talking or what not... They also said Imagine Dragons would be playing live and I was fricken stoked! Of course they weren't... They were pre recorded and they just played the footage on the huge screen, and forced us too woo and scream and to "play along"... Huge let down.

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Sort of related. I went to a taping of the Price Is Right back in the Bob Barker era and I was amazed at how small the studio is. Obviously they build each game set when it is time to film that game and then break it down to make room for the next game but the size of the stage reminded me of my elementary school's multi-purpose room stage. Basically it is smaller than you would think.

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Mrs S

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Probably a little bit different now.

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I used to work at an ice cream store. One night the store got a phone call from an MTV producer asking if they could come by and film in about 15 minutes. They didn't say what they were filming or why, just asking if they could come film. We were curious so we said yes. About 15 minutes later two young women walked in with a camera, a head set and a clipboard. They were filming an episode of 16 and Pregnant. We had to turn off all the music and TVs in the store and then the camera women filmed all around the store before telling the girl they were filming and her friend to come in. When the two girls walked in they stopped them almost immediately and told them they didn't get the shot and to go back out. They went back outside, the camera women moved to a new spot and yelled for the girls to come back in. It was really awkward for us employees as we had to keep saying things over and over again. The girls got their food, sat down in and the producers were telling the girls what to say and what questions to ask each other. They stayed there for almost three hours. When the girls got up to leave, the producers told them they needed to film more at the girls boyfriends house that night and to head there.

After the girls left, we talked to the producers as we filled out forms for MTV. They said that MTV films around 90 girls a "season" and they pick the 12 most drama filled/most interesting girls. They even stop filming girls if they don't think it will be worth their time. The girl from my town was cut half way through filming. While filming, MTV pays for EVERYTHING.

It was really interesting.

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I've worked on a bunch of reality shows. Have you ever been watching a reality show and after a cut from one angle to another you think, 'Well, gosh...shouldn't a camera guy be standing right there? The previous angle one second before was from the exact direction I'm now looking directly in!' Well, that's because that's from another take after the crew has repositioned to run the scene again for coverage

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I met someone on a plane once who was on House Hunters. After she purchased her new house, the show came and taped her viewing that house. Then they took her to two other houses to make it seem like she was going to pick between the three. In reality, she had bought a house before they even taped the show

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I have been to Carlo's Bakery (the bakery from cake boss). While there we learned that the "wedding" they were filming in Italy was completely faked, and they never actually got married. Kind of ruined the whole experience for me.

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Hiker Chick

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My daughter and I used to watch Cake Boss. I realized it was fake when they carried this huge elaborate cake down the stairs of the shop and "accidentally" dropped it. They literally have an elevator and carts for getting the cakes downstairs. That was the day I lost my faith in reality TV.

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I was in a hotel where they were filming top model, and was I found odd was that they did multiple takes for most things that were to appear natural. But you can sort of see it when you watch these types of shows. They often appear to have multiple cameras, when in fact they have one.

My wife is presently on a reality show related to her job. Every time I visit her at work, I have a camera in my face. They follow them around for months and come up with 40 20-minute episodes.

One secret is that there is no dramatic background music playing in reality when something dramatic happens. Also, TV makes normal things look way cooler than they really are-- like just driving across town.

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SobyKay

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"One secret is that there is no dramatic background music playing in reality when something dramatic happens." Lol!!

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I'm a bit late to the party, but my mother and sister were on the MTV show "Date My Mom". They won. Obviously every house in that show is not their real house as we're about 5 hours from LA. My mom was a bit displeased that she didn't just get to have lunch but go run around on a track, my sister however, was very pleased as the show took her for a shopping trip around LA and to lunch while my mom was filming.

In the end, she won some money for "winning" the date which never happened, got paid extra for kissing the guy. In my sisters mind "$200 bucks to kiss that guy was worth it". Also, she got the camera guys phone number and went home few hundred dollars richer and with some extra s**t.

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In the Netherlands we had a tv-show called Move Like Michael Jackson. I wanted to do an audition but when I got there it turned out we had to do an improvisation in front of random judges. There were around 500 people that day and they'd call out 10 numbers to improvise in a room with those random judges. Only one of the 10 would go through and so I did :) Then I had to wait another 6 hours for my real audition and I went trough to the next round. I had to come back some weeks later and I had to dance against two others. I did the perfect MJ moves but a breakdancer, also the future winner, got through and I was out. I never understood why the show was called 'Move like Michael Jackson' and a breakdancer won.

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Buddy of mine was on MTV's Room Raiders. He said it was all B.S. The winner was known ahead of time. He kept trying to do funny stuff, which this guy is one of the funniest f***s I've ever known, but they wouldn't let him fly like the peacock he is.

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My friend was on judge Judy. He said they paid him to fly out. They settled the case before filming. In the settlement he had to pay $3000. But they paid it for him. They direct the entire court scene to make it dramatic.

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Aisling Raye

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I also have a friend that was on JJ so I can verify that this is true (or at least was true at the time since she was on the show years ago.) They paid for her flight, hotel, and meals. They sent a car to pick her up from the hotel for the shoot. She was paid by the show for what she won in the ruling. Her biggest complaint was that they didn't drive her back to the hotel or to the airport for her return flight. It's a bit like "okay we're done now so we don't feel obligated to make this easy for you."

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When I was a kid, I was on a home makeover show. The entire time I was on camera, I was being told what to do. I was definitely more of an alternative kid, but they put me in this preppy little skirt and braids and told me to be super overexcited about everything. I will say though, the reveal is very authentic. I LOVED what they did

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I was once profiled on show where they interviewed me on camera, and also shot a lot of 'B-roll' - shots of me doing stuff. First of all the interviewer lady couldn't have cared less about me until the word "Action!", then she was all concerned-looking and acting like she was my best friend. Camera off, back to business. Then for the b-roll, they made me do all kinds of things to look sad, even though I was not sad at all. They made me (well, not like forced me, but you know, wanted me to) wring my hands and look off into the distance. They actually said, "Now wring your hands and look off into the distance." It was clear I was a pawn in their production plans. Didn't care for the experience.

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Kristal

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Did BP just censor the word p**n?

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My friend's dad was on Extreme Makeover Home Edition. He said that Ty, as well as the other main cast members didn't help at all. They showed up for their shots and left. I guess that can be expected though.

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I've done 2 cake challenges on FN. They paused the clock to make sure we could all get done. The first time they said, "we never do this but we are going to pause the clock for a while" then they said the same thing next challenge.

We also were told to go look at people's kitchens, talk smack to them, see if we could borrow things we didn't need... In the end, both shows were edited far from reality.

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They filmed an episode of MTV's True Life in my school and I was friends with two of the kids that got picked to be on it. Talking to them they said they had a pretty authentic time shooting. The only thing they had problems with was how often they had to walk through door frames. The crew was never content how the kids on the show would walk through a door.

So one day I watch the one kid walk in through the front doors of the school 11 times.

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I did security for a few shows and other than the fact that a lot of it is completely staged and they do retake after retake. I remember doing Americas next top model and for 2 hours they had to wait for something to get set up and all the models were in the same room and not one spoke and this was a few weeks in so they des new each other there is no reality in reality tv that's the real secret.

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PADNA

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From ex model witnesses - they are not allowed to talk with each other contractually when cameras are off.

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I was on one in Australia which was basically a Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares rip-off. They asked us what we thought was about the place and what we would like to improve. Then the host walked around describing the place, and what he thought was wrong with it, in almost exactly the same words. The restaurant staff did much of the reno over a few days, but they brought in professionals at the end, who worked their magic about 100 times faster to complete it in time.

At the reopening, they took people away from their usual jobs, and made them do stuff they would never do. The manager was only allowed to greet guests, the best waiter had to stay behind the bar, and the new girl was basically running the floor on a menu no one had ever seen before. When orders were taken, waiters were not allowed to put them through for an hour, so they could film people getting angry that meals were taking so long. They selected half the guests, and some were wannabe actors, who openly admitted to complaining about food to get their head on TV.

The crew were quite open about reality TV being completely fake. They tried to get me to knock all the salads off the bench and onto the floor during the middle of service, but I looked at them and said firmly, "That would never happen."

On a side note: I once went to a red carpet opening for a film called A Long Kiss Goodnight. I was standing at the front or the ropes, waiting for Geena Davis to pass. I was also standing next to a Channel 7 camera man, who told me to release the ropes and surge forward when the stars pass. This was supposedly for my own benefit, as I would be pushed from behind and injured otherwise. He just wanted me to run at Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson for some good footage.

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Czernobg

Czernobg

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2 years ago

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Long kiss goodnight was a great movie.

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I had two friends that were on an episode of True Life. It was all extremely faked. I remember that one of the "themes" of their episode was that they were supposed to be poor so the crew made them hide their designer clothes and bags while they filmed. If one of them had a name brand purse it would usually be swapped out for a blank tote before filming began.

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I dated a nice girl once who had an ex boyfriend whose ex-con step-father was a guest on a ghost hunter show. It was an episode about a haunted / cursed car in southie MA. At the end of the episode they made it seem like they destroyed the car in a trash compactor, but in reality the car was never destroyed and remains in the guys yard to this day. So, for this reason, I imagine there is a lot of fake situations created on these shows. If I recall, they paid him $10,000 for his story and time.

The guy turned out to have various personality disorders and believed his car talked to him and prevented him from ever finding work, but honestly I think he just made it up as an excuse not to work, doubled down, and some how he ended up on this show

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I did a tour in the Portland Shanghai tunnels. Our host told us that one ghost show put dirt on the floor and squeezed against the brick walls of a completely open, finished basement to give the illusion of narrow, decrepit tunnels

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I was once a referee for WWE. All of the wrestling you see is staged. All of it.

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Robert T

Robert T

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2 years ago

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I scrolled all the way down here just to add.... "You don't say!"

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My ex-girlfriend starred on an episode of a popular reality TV show, and she had to sign a contract that stated that in order to get paid she had to complete certain "dramatic feats" within the show. So the producers gave her a checklist of tasks she needed to achieve by a certain deadline. When I was being filmed with her, they would tell us what to talk about and have us read some lines off camera. They would give us a topic and a beginning sentence and then they would just have us make up dialogue as we went. And then they would prompt us with another sentence, and then we had to follow that. The whole show was pretty damn scripted. They made us b******t a fight.

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I did a competitive eating reality show and all the eating was real but everything else was fake and staged

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I'm a production sound mixer based in LA and I frequently find myself on reality gigs. The pay is pretty good but the days are very long. Minimum work day will be 12 hours (the most I have done is 20 hours in a single day) with the only real break being a half hour to an hour lunch. This is pretty typical for most LA-based productions

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