10 Truths Behind These Famous Reality TV Shows
Admit it, you kind of already know these are staged.
Reality TV loves to sell itself as spontaneous, but the final cut is often anything but. Behind the confessions, competitions, and dramatic reveals, producers are shaping storylines, trimming context, and making sure the biggest moments land on cue.
That is what makes these shows so easy to binge and so fun to second-guess. From pawn shop deals to dating finales, the people on screen may be real, but the version viewers get is carefully packaged for maximum drama.
Here are 10 famous reality shows that have sparked plenty of questions about how real they actually are.
1. Pawn Stars: the deals and prices on the show are not spontaneous sells; clients and the Harrisons agree on the price beforehand.
Fans are hooked by the Harrison family, who owns a popular pawn shop in Las Vegas. Their clientele, looking to pawn precious collectibles, rare antiques, and historical artifacts, ranges from random regular people to famous celebrities.
© Pawn Stars / Leftfield PicturesThat first reveal already takes some of the shine off the bargain-hunting.
The fun part of the show is when Rick, Corey, or Chumley bring in an expert to weigh the value of the item and then try to haggle with the customer about the asking price. It's been revealed that customers are not really walk-in customers.
They have been vetted by production beforehand, and any negotiation happening is scripted. The Harrisons also don't work in their pawnshop daily; they only come in to film.
© Pawn Stars / Leftfield Pictures2. Survivor: producers nudge the storyline along by suggesting who to vote out of the island depending on how popular a contestant is.
Survivor is the most "real" show out of this bunch. Contestants are indeed on a remote island, overcoming physically and mentally testing challenges while trying to adapt to a new environment.
© Survivor / CBS
But it's not really a 100% survive-with-the-tools-around-you type of show. Sometimes, to start a fire, the production provides a lighter or matches to contestants, and kind crew members even give them candies.
© Survivor / CBS
3. Storage Wars: producers sometimes plant high-value items.
Storage Wars was a very successful show and was A&E's best reality series to date. An ex-producer revealed that they used to give buyers extra cash to make the bidding more competitive.
© Storage Wars / Original Productions
So much for finding treasure by pure luck.
4. Pimp My Ride: instead of improving already damaged cars, the crew sacrificed function for aesthetics.
© Pimp My Ride / MTV
People who have been on the show revealed that the makeovers sometimes take months instead of weeks, as promised. It's also been rumored that the high-value items installed in the car were removed after filming.
© Pimp My Ride / MTV
5. MTV Cribs: some of the celebrity houses shown are not even theirs.
© MTV Cribs / MTV
That one definitely changes the vibe of the tour.
It’s like the weekly dinner secret in a vegan family drama over sneaking meat.
Celebrities were not really revealing their eccentric Hollywood mansions. Producers of the show rented the McMansions without informing the owners that they would be used for the show; they only find out once the episode airs on TV.
© MTV Cribs / MTV
6. Hell’s Kitchen: they only air the most dramatic parts, but the contestants are filmed 24/7 for 5 weeks.
The contestants work long hours (sometimes from 7 AM to 2 AM). If they get hungry, they have to cook for themselves in a separate kitchen shared with four other people.
© Hell's Kitchen / ITV Studios
They are also completely isolated from the outside world since production takes their phones away to prevent them from contacting anyone. It's different from its British counterpart, which is recorded live with an audience; the American version is recorded in a studio.
© Hell's Kitchen / ITV Studios
7. Catfish: The TV Show: production handles most of the "investigation."
© Catfish: The TV Show / Relativity Media Rogue / Catfish Picture Company, LLC
That makes the whole mystery feel a little less organic.
Nev Schulman and Max Joseph, the hosts of the show, do not handle the majority of tracking down the catfish; that's the production's job. Most of the time, the crew is contacted by the catfish first, and then they track a victim, not the other way around; once they find a victim, they start filming.
© Catfish: The TV Show / Relativity Media Rogue / Catfish Picture Company, LLC
8. House Hunters: they choose participants who have already bought their house.
© House Hunter / Pie Town Production
They then recreate their house-hunting process for the cameras. Participants of the show also make $500 a week, and some of the homes they view are not for sale and are instead "borrowed" from friends and relatives.
© House Hunter / Pie Town Production
9. Man vs. Wild: Bear Grylls is a survival expert, but they sleep in local hotels once it gets dark.
© Man vs. Wild / Discovery Inc.
Even the wilderness has a check-in time.
To his credit, he does an amazing job teaching survival techniques, but Grylls is accompanied by a whole crew when he's out in the wilderness. They also don't camp out at night exposed to dangerous predators; they instead stay in local hotels when the sun is down.
© Man vs. Wild / Discovery Inc.
10. The Bachelor: the winner is chosen based on ratings.
© The Bachelor / ABC
TV is a popularity contest, and The Bachelor is no exception to this. The production crew expertly edits the footage to manipulate the narrative based on the audience's reception of a contestant.
© The Bachelor / ABC
It's all about ratings, isn't it? Deep down, you already know some of these shows are as fake as dragons, but it doesn't stop anyone from watching them.
There's no shame in that. Sometimes, mind-numbing entertainment is just what we all need after a long, difficult week, but don't believe everything in these shows because they're all as real as Truman's world.
And that is exactly why people keep coming back for more.
Want another ethics fight? Read JFK's grandson calling Ryan Murphy's 'Love Story' “distasteful.”
