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19 Very, Very, Very Dark And Tragic Things That Actually Happened While Filming Reality Shows

Storage Wars star Darrell Sheets said he actually found a corpse wrapped in plastic inside a storage locker.

Warning: This post contains mentions of death, suicide, and animal cruelty.

1. Storage Wars star Darrell Sheets revealed during the series special, Unlocked, that he once found a corpse, wrapped in plastic, inside a locker that he bought back in 1988. According to Sheets, the police told him a man had murdered his wife and left her in the unit.

closeup of darrel

2. Paula Goodspeed, a contestant on American Idol who was reportedly "infatuated" with judge Paula Abdul, died by suicide "a few doors down" from Abdul's Los Angeles home in 2008. When she was on the show (during Season 5 in 2006), she had been "ridiculed and flatly rejected" by the judges during her audition.

According to ABC News, Abdul later told the hosts of The View "that Goodspeed had been stalking her for 17 years and later told co-host Barbara Walters on Walters' radio show that she pleaded with Cowell and the producers not to let Goodspeed audition."

closeup. of paula

The story continued, "They did, [Abdul] said, for the 'entertainment value. It's fun for them to cause me stress. This was something that would make good television.'"

the 3 judges on the show

3. Robert Buchel, who appeared in Season 6 of My 600-Lb Life, died while filming the show. According to Distractify, Buchel "was seeking Dr. Now's help when he came in at 840 pounds and managed to drop 340 pounds with the help of the celebrity bariatric surgeon."

closeup of him in bed

The article continued, "However, Robert also had a painkiller addiction, and he suffered a fatal heart attack while filming his episode of the TLC show. His story (Season 6, Episode 8) aired four months after he passed away."

his funeral service

4. Joey Kovar, a cast member on MTV's The Real World: Hollywood "battled drug and alcohol addiction until he was eventually asked to leave the series." Kovar later went on to appear on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew in 2009, but died a few years later in 2012 as a result of "opiate intoxication."

closeup of him

5. Gabriel Ben-Meir, a music coordinator for MTV's show Punk'd and other shows was shot and killed outside his home in Los Angeles in May 2011. According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Two suspects, Jabaar Vincent Thomas and Destiny Young, were later charged with second-degree murder. The motive, according to authorities: robbery."

6. In Season 3 of Deadliest Catch, a search and rescue mission for a four-man crew found only "one survivor, an empty survival suit, and two dead crewmen floating in the water."

A survival suit floating in the ocean with no one in it

7. Speaking of Deadliest Catch, during Season 6, fisherman and star Phil Harris died after suffering a stroke while off-loading crab in 2010.

Phil Harris

8. Gerald Babin, a contestant on Koh-Lanta (the French version of Survivor), died during filming. Babin suffered cardiac arrest after jumping off a boat and participating in a tug-of-war challenge. As a result, production was stopped, and the show was canceled for the 2013 season...

Koh Lanta show logo with palm trees silhouettes of temples in Cambodia

9. ...just one week later, a doctor, Thierry Costa, who had worked on Koh-Lanta and performed emergency care on Babin, died by suicide. In a suicide note, Costa said that his name had been "sullied by the media" concerning the death of Babin.

Costa checking the blood pressure on a contestant

10. During the filming of another French reality show, Dropped, in 2015, two helicopters crashed, killing 10 people. Pegged as an adventure reality show, it was to follow eight sports stars who would be blindfolded and dropped in the wild. The show was canceled after the tragic accident.

authorities at the site of the wreckage

11. Diem Brown, a cast member of The Challenge, collapsed on set in 2014 while shooting Battle of the Exes 2. She was rushed to a New York hospital for emergency surgery related to ovarian cancer that had metastasized to her colon and stomach. Footage of her flight from Panama to NY for the surgery was included in the show and marked her last words on the show, "I'm at a point in my life where I want to just live life," before she died on November 14, 2014.

Diem cutting her hair from her balding head

12. During the 2013 season of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, more than 100 ticks were removed from the celebrities and show's crew...

contestant with a tick in his neck

13. ...and one crew member apparently even suffered "severe anaphylactic shock" from a tick bite.

Medic getting a tick out of the contestant's neck

14. Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera — who starred in her own show, I Love Jenni — and several members of her inner circle, died in a plane crash in 2012 in the middle of filming Season 3. The final season explored the aftermath of her death.

jenni on stage

15. A show called Under Wild Skies on NBC Sports Network (and funded by the NRA) was canceled after the show's host, Tony Makris "shot an elephant in the face and then compared his critics to Adolf Hitler."

A man painting an elephant's head with decorative paint

16. While filming the show Teen Mom, a source who worked on the show alleged that police and CPS had to be called multiple times over the years because situations got so "scary."

Leah Shirley and  Amber Portwood celebrating a birthday with cake

17. Shain Gandee, star of the MTV series Buckwild, along with two others, was found dead in a truck as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. MTV suspended filming of Season 2 and ultimately canceled the show.

shain riding a quad bike near a swap

18. While filming an "Untitled Military Project" show for the Discovery Channel, a helicopter crashed, killing the three people on board. The victims were helicopter pilot David Gibbs, 59, along with Darren Rydstrom, 45, crew of the show, and Michael Donatelli, 45, a cast member.

A news reporter reporting on a "tragic crash"

19. Finally, Steve Irwin, star of Animal Planet's The Crocodile Hunter, died in September 2006 after a stingray pierced his chest with its tail spine. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Irwin had been "doing some shallow water shots for his daughter Bindi's TV show, Bindi the Jungle Girl," when the stingray attacked him. He was then pronounced dead at the scene.

him holding up a reptile with his fist in the air

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org. The Trevor Project, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386.