By now, I'm sure we're all aware that reality shows are frequently staged, scripted, or manipulated in the editing bay. However, the lengths that producers, editors, and other crew members sometimes go in order to create a story can be pretty surprising. Sometimes, they take things so far that it becomes harmful to the contestants or stars.
Here are 14 times reality stars revealed how fake things actually are behind the scenes:
1. On Love Is Blind Season 6, Matthew Duliba was shown walking out on fellow contestant Sarah Ann in the middle of their conversation. He was criticized and labeled a "villain" by viewers. Even the LIB Instagram account shared a compilation of his "awkward moments." In the comments, he called the show out, writing, "Key element of my story that was never disclosed is that I live an alcohol-free lifestyle and did the experiment sober. It was a key factor in why I had so much difficulty connecting with women in the beginning."
He continued, "There was also many misrepresentations and falsehoods created in my opinion to smear my character. I look forward to telling my side of the story with the full truth at the appropriate time...Misrepresentation of the truth, never walked out when a women was talking."
Additionally, on her Instagram story, Sarah Ann responded to a follower who asked if Matthew actually walked out on her. She answered, "Nope, he did not. I’ll let Matt speak on that but we are good."
2. Mari Pepin, who appeared on The Bachelor Season 25 and Bachelor in Paradise Season 7, reportedly told the Mirror that the shows use "frankenbiting" to manufacture drama. She explained, "Frakenbiting is when they take little snippets of audio and they kind of like weave it together to form a sentence and now to me it’s really obvious,” she explained. “But sometimes they’re really good at hiding it. So they’ll take part of this sentence and part of that sentence and make the person sound like they just put it together.”
"If you don’t actually see their mouths moving while they say it there’s a good chance that it’s actually ‘frankenbitten’ and edited in a certain way," she said.
3. Similarly, Spencer Pratt accused The Hills producers of Frankenbiting. He claimed that the infamous scene where he appeared to admit to starting a rumor about fellow costar Lauren Conrad having a sex tape was spliced and stitched together. He told Vanity Fair, "I never apologized to Lauren about the sex tape. I was talking to a producer and they stitched the audio of our calls — separate calls — together. Is that Frankenbiting?"
As another example, he brought up when he told his best friend Brody Jenner, "Let’s hit that back door" of the nightclub Les Deux.
Spencer said, "They take it and they edit it, and it looks like I’m saying I’m gonna hit Heidi [Pratt, his now-wife] from the back door. They cut the Les Deux part out completely and made it look like I was talking about Heidi. It’s like, I don’t talk like that."
He also alleged that they edited parts of a phone call he had with Heidi to make it look like he was talking to costar Audrina Patridge to create a false love triangle narrative.
4. On the High Low with EmRata podcast, Dance Moms alum Maddie Zielger said, "When I was doing the show, in the first season I was 7, and there were male producers saying, 'This is what you have to say.' My mom wasn't in the room, so I was like, 'OK, I just have to do whatever I'm being told.' They would say, 'Say you're the best, say you're better than everyone else, say blah blah blah.'"
She said that, as a result, she "was perceived as a little brat in the first season" by viewers.
5. After the Below Deck Mediterranean episode where she was fired, Lexi Wilson reportedly posted an Instagram video where she alleged that Bravo took snippets of a conversation she and her mom had about an ex-friend who seemingly used her for money and made it look like she was talking about her recent argument with Chef Matthew.
In the caption, she added, "And the nerve of [executive producer Nadine Rajabi] to message me talking about how you treated me fairly #nadinerajabi when you allowed this to happen!"
6. On her Instagram story, Selling Sunset star Chrishell Stause said, "The way reality TV producers manipulate things to create a narrative [snake and trash can emojis]. Sucks to not be able to be proud of what you’re working on."
Then, alongside a GIF of a guy collecting papers in a wind machine, she wrote, "Me collecting receipts for when the time comes @done_and_done_productions or scrap this fake narrative bc don’t forget we have voices too. Viewers do NOT want manufactured drama."
7. On Twitter, Yvie Oddly, who won RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 11 and RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7, said, "The producers are often the greediest, most-calculating, capitalist culture thieves. They fuck with real people’s lives, career opportunities, and health. They drive themselves home in their luxury cars when their contestants are sleep-deprived, depressed, and DRASTICALLY underpaid for their contributions to the cultural phenomenon."
"Then they tell themselves they’re good people for showcasing queer content and creating opportunities for us while ignoring the irreparable damage they cause, and creating a chokehold monopoly on how drag artists can succeed" she said.
Yvie also alleged that they had yet to be paid the $100,000 they won on Season 11.
In a statement to BuzzFeed, Voss Events, Yvie's management team, said, "Management asked that Yvie’s prize money be held as they were in the process of establishing her LLC to receive payment. The money was wired shortly after her business account was opened and payment requested."
8. On their rewatch podcast Back to the Beach, Laguna Beach costars and former couple Kristin Cavallari and Stephen Colletti alleged that the show was edited to make it look like he was cheating her, which was never the case. He said, "I had a huge problem with this...Obviously, stuff happened at certain times, but at no point ever, whenever we were together, would I step out on [Kristin] in that way."
Kristin added, "They decided 'OK, this is how we're gonna make Stephen look, and I don't care what's really going on in his life. We are gonna continue to hammer that home and keep going back to that same storyline.'"
9. Meanwhile, Kristin Cavallari alleged that The Hills producer Adam DiVello "bribed the [other] girls to call [her] out on camera for doing drugs, with a purse."
On Call Her Daddy, she said, "That was difficult and Adam and I got in a huge fight about it...I would be on camera filming like I know it was Adam, just running my mouth."
She alleged that he'd tell her to stop, but she'd continue calling him out on it while filming.
She also claimed that "he would create these storylines on the show that were bullshit but then he would go and feed to the tabloids."
10. The Bachelorette Season 1 lead Trista Sutter told Vulture, "I also remember filming The Bachelorette and having a producer during one of my interviews argue with me, like, 'I just need you to cry right now.' She wanted to get some emotion out of me other than me shutting down and being silent. If you’re the lead, you do have to be able to emote."
"If contestants don’t share what they’re going through, viewers aren’t going to connect with them. So she was like, “Dude, come on, I need the tears, then you can be done,'" she said.
11. The Bachelorette Season 13 lead Rachel Lindsay told Ziwe, "There was a point where I broke down on camera, and they used my tears for something else, but I was getting upset at the selection of men of color. I also learned as I was going through my season that several of the Black men on my season didn’t date Black women."
She said that, when she tried to bring it up to producers, they told her it was "interesting" that several of the Black men they'd cast to date her had never dated a Black woman before.
She continued, "I said, ‘You think that’s interesting? That’s my life. I live that. That’s why I’ve been speaking out [about the Bachelor franchise] that you don’t need to just diversify your cast and your leads, you need to diversify the people behind the camera."
12. On the Reality Steve Podcast, The Bachelor Season 23 lead Colton Brown-Underwood called out The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons — Ever for its purported treatment of his ex, Cassie Randolph. He said, "What bugged me was the fact that that show took advantage of her. I feel very defensive over people I love. I know Cassie’s a big girl and can fight her own battles but I know her heart, she doesn’t want to rock the boat, and she loves people even if they abuse her or even if they take advantage of her, which is what they did."
He continued, "Those people sold her on come and let’s let the audience get to know you, the real Cassie and then you have Chris Harrison, pointing questions, saying, ‘I sense you don’t want to make Colton mad,’ or ‘You’re afraid you’re going to upset Colton. It’s like, ‘No, Chris. I literally talked to her the morning of that interview. We’re good. Stop worrying about me or painting me to be this controlling or angry person.’ I’m not angry. If there’s anybody I’m upset about or upset with it’s you guys."
13. On an episode of Bachelor in Paradise Season 8, it appeared that newcomer Jessenia Cruz pulled Tyler Norris, seemingly making Brittany Galvin suspect she was trying to make a move on him. However, after it aired, Jessenia tweeted, "Just having a friendly conversation with someone I literally never met. I was happy to see Brittany in Paradise, and I heard nothing but good things about Tyler. We were all connected at some point too. #friendvibesonly #BachelorInParadise."
Responding to a fan who said that "producers did [her] dirty with this edit," she also said, "Nothing but friendly vibes here. That’s just #BachelorInParadise for you."
Additionally, she tweeted, "Not them leaving out the majority of the conversation so you guys know what me & Tyler talked about. I guess we’ll have to wait till next week, but who knows at this point."
14. And finally, Gemma Rose Barnes alleged that Married at First Sight UK producers coerced her into staying when she wanted to leave the show, plied contestants with drinks, and even once snuck extra alcohol to contestants before the cameras rolled.
Channel 4 says that contestants are free to exit the show at any point.
In a statement to the Guardian, they also denied her claims about producers plying contestants with and sneaking them extra drinks. They said that contestants drink at their own discretion, but their consumption is "monitored and limited by the production team."