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These days, when people think of reality TV, shows like The Bachelor and Love is Blind typically come to mind. The genre is associated with heightened interpersonal drama - often centering around romance, competition, or lifestyles that are slightly out of the ordinary - yet there's been a slew of far more controversial reality shows in TV history. These dark stains on the genre are largely forgotten due to low ratings, early cancelations, and in some cases being so controversial that they never aired at all. While there are plenty of problematic reality shows in recent years, a good chunk of the most baffling and bizarre installments were dreamt up in the early aughts.
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These days, when people think of reality TV
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shows like The Bachelor and Love is Blind come to mind. The genre is associated with exaggerated interpersonal drama
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often centering around romance, competition, or lifestyles that are slightly out of the ordinary
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Also, cops. However, there's been a slew of far more controversial reality
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shows over the years. These dark stains on your TV screen were mostly met with low ratings, early cancellations
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and in some cases, were so controversial that they never aired at all
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So, today, we're tuning into some of the most controversial reality TV shows ever created
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Alright, we're not here to make friends. We're here to make history
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A few years before Prince Harry married Meghan Markle, a group of women fought for the royal's hand in marriage
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The only problem? This show's Harry is actually a similar-ish looking redhead named Matthew Hicks
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dangled as reality TV bait for a group of unsuspecting models and actresses
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The Ryan Seacrest and Danny Fenton-produced show got the axe after just four episodes
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The series attempts to gaslight the women into thinking their collective boyfriend was Prince Harry R. Wild
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including setting the competition in a castle-like set, having random people on the street fawn over him
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a fake butler, a fake therapist, and people flat out calling him his royal highness
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The heavy manipulation and isolation from the rest of the world helped the contestants to accept such a seemingly obvious lie
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The winner of the show, Kimberly Birch, described the unsettling experience, saying
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your own reality started breaking down, and you were totally lost as to what was really going on
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Unsurprisingly, when the show ended, Birch and fake Prince Matthew Hicks didn't marry and live happily ever after
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They did, however, keep in touch, which is more than we can say about the real royal family and the real Prince Harry
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19 kids and counting. Initially known as 17 and then 18 kids and counting
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boy, they weren't really counting, centers on the devout independent Baptist Duggar family headed by Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar and their many many kids After a miscarriage the couple decided to ditch contraception
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and let fate take its course, eventually leading to the high number of children promised by the show's title
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The series first aired in 2008 and lasted until 2015, when a scandal involving the family's eldest son came to light
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Despite the family touting Christian values, Josh Duggar was arrested after being accused of molestation
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and for possessing CSAM on his computer. He said, I have been the biggest hypocrite ever
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While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years
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been viewing pornography on the internet. And this became my secret addiction
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and I became unfaithful to my wife. After the demise of the original series
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the prime video documentary, Shiny Happy People, Duggar Family Secrets, was released, chronicling some of the family's
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many scandals and counting. The six-episode dating competition
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There's Something About Miriam, which premiered in 2004, centered on Miriam Rivera, a transgender model
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At first blush, the format seemed to follow that of a standard reality dating show
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with several bachelors competing for Rivera's affection. However, the show intentionally hid the fact
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that Rivera was transgender from the contestants, framing it as a shocking twist
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to be revealed in the show's finale. Even some members of the crew reportedly regretted their part in the production once the very real dangers of the show's premise
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dawned on them. When the show reached its gotcha moment, one contestant became violently angry
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partially destroying the set and physically attacking the director. In other words
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There's Something About Miriam was not the best idea. Rivera passed away in 2019
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and her brother Ariel was quoted as saying, the show broke her. who needs a crash diet before a wedding when you can have plastic surgery bridalplasty answered
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that extremely specific question in 2010 the short-lived series had a group of women competing
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for free plastic surgery in a glamorous wedding mark cronin dreamt up this particular chaos
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which shanna mochler hosted as if the premise wasn outrageous enough the plastic surgeons were critical enough to cause full eating disorders in contestants No matter how thin the women were it was never enough The plastic surgeons suggested dangerous weight loss surgeries while also dropping scathing comments about the women
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appearance. That's an aggressive sales tactic. Further challenges included puzzle challenges, in which the brides had to hide a picture of their current selves by assembling a Photoshop
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ideal version. The prize for solving that puzzle fast enough? Attending an injection party with
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Botox or facial fillers on the menu. Oh boy. The show's cruel premise drew significant criticism, and bridalplasty only lasted one
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season, with a grand total of 10 episodes. Guess that series got some lipo
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Tom Campbell's show Boy Meets Boy was an early-ought riff on The Bachelor, except it featured
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15 male contestants competing for the affections of gay bachelor James Getzlaff
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Sounds like a relatively standard dating show, but Boy Meets Boy had a twist that was more mean-spirited than it led on, which might be why it only had six episodes
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The big secret, which was revealed to Getzlaff after several episodes, was that several of the contestants were actually straight men pretending to be gay
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Getzlaff had to correctly guess who was pretending, and then pick someone who was actually gay in the finale for a cash prize
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If he selected a straight man, that contestant would take home 25 grand, and Getslath would get nothing
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Even by the low standards of reality TV, it was pretty trashy
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The show had far-reaching ramifications for some of the men on it, too. Contestant Michael Jason Tyner was discharged from the U.S. Navy after coming out as gay in his appearance on Boy Meets Boy
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Who's Your Daddy? had contestant TJ Myers try to pick her birth father out of a lineup of eight men
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one of whom was, in fact, her biological father. So the show was aptly named
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The rest of the men were actors trying to convince Myers that they were her real father
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Fanola Hughes hosted the show. Only one episode aired on Fox as a special
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with the rest shuffled to the Fox reality network. While the concept of gathering men to guess which one is someone biological father might be a fun plot for an ABBA musical it a little harder to swallow when it a real person emotions on the line In an interview Fox reality TV head Mike Darnell said of Who Your Daddy
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It's the most emotional show we've ever put on the air. I guarantee you, if you have any heart, you will be bawling at the end of the show
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However, Darnell didn't specify why viewers would be crying. The show's over-the-top premise was too exploitive for viewers
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and it did not return for a second season. Let's get this out of the way up front
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There's something creepy about beauty pageants for young children. But that didn't stop creator Doug Mirabello from unleashing Toddlers and Tiaras
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which ran from 2009 to 2016 on the Learning Channel. For some reason, the show followed a group of toddlers and their families
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as they competed in the child pageant circuit, which is a world many viewers never knew existed
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The show drew significant controversy. Many of the parents on the show seem to be living vicariously through their daughters
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ignoring their kids' objections to participating in the pageants and encouraging them to act cruelly toward other contestants
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instead of practicing good sportsmanship and setting realistic expectations. One mom and her child smoke fake cigarettes during a performance
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while another added padding to the chest of her toddler's costume. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the show resulted in at least one custody hearing
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And one former cast member committed s*** at just 16 years old after suffering online abuse due to her Toddlers and Tierra's appearances
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Despite all this controversy, TLC launched the spinoff series Here Comes Honey Boo Boo
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which followed former Toddlers and Tierra's cast member Alana Thompson, a.k.a. Honey Boo Boo
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If you were watching TV in the early 2010s, you probably remember it
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That show became an equally controversial hit for portraying Thompson and her family as redneck stereotypes to be ridiculed
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But it abruptly ended in 2014 after it was revealed that Thompson's mother, June, was dating a registered sex offender who had allegedly abused Thompson's older sister, Anna
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Another Toddlers and Tiaras spinoff, Sheer Perfection, was similarly canceled in the wake of an abuse scandal in 2013
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TLC finally axed Toddlers and Tiaras in 2016 after seven seasons, and neither it nor any spinoffs have been back since