Known to many of us as ‘guilty pleasure’ telly, reality TV is the kind of thing we all like to get our teeth into from time to time (or we ‘accidentally’ get hooked on while perched on the side of the sofa having just moaned about what ‘drivel’ it is... don't say you haven't been there).
While often scratching the itch for escapism and, well, nosiness, unscripted telly also has a dark and murky history as it continues to grapple with ethics and the public's apparent appetite for scandal - a past stained by a handful of shows which have been accused of simply taking it too far.
It's a difficult tightrope to walk; after all, would you really binge-watch a dating show where everyone got along all the time?
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Of course, there’s the tried and tested classics like Big Brother, Love Island, I’m A Celeb, and The Kardashians, which have remained firm favourites for a lot of us over years. But as reality TV reached its heyday in the late 90s and early 00s, so too did its penchant for pushing the limits of scandal, voyeurism, and the downright bizarre, creating a melting pot of shows that likely would never be allowed to air today.
From severe sleep deprivation to humiliation and even accusations of torture, here are some of the most controversial reality TV shows that have ever aired.
Shattered
Back in 2004, Channel 4 commissioned a brand-new reality show with a fresh-faced Dermot O'Leary on presenting duties.
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The premise was simple - 10 contestants just had to stay awake for a week straight to be in with the chance of bagging a whopping £100k cash prize.
But of course, there was a catch.
Contestants would have to keep each other awake to avoid deductions to the prize fund. In fact, if anyone closed their eyes for over ten seconds, £1,000 would be deducted from the prize pot.
The group would undergo brutal 'You Snooze You Lose' tasks, which were designed to put contestants to sleep by being forced to cuddle soft toys, sit in a warm room, and even watch paint dry in a recliner chair.
It's worth pointing out that to ensure the safety of the contestants, they were allowed to sleep for just one hour per day, but that didn't stop complaints coming in from viewers at the time, while health experts raised their eyebrows at the social experiment.
Although 34 complaints were made to Ofcom, they reportedly said none of its programme guidelines were breached. Meanwhile, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy branded the show as 'misconceived and dangerous', referring to the case of American DJ Peter Tripp who had a breakdown after he went an eye-wincing 201 hours without sleep in 1959.
Susunu! Denpa Shonen
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Reminiscent of Black Mirror's toe-curling episode 'White Bear,' Japanese gameshow Susunu! Denpa Shonen (translated as 'Do Not Proceed! Crazy Youth') starred comedian Tomoaki Hamatsu, also known as Nasubi, who was kidnapped, stripped naked, and confined to a small apartment with just a bathroom and a food-less kitchen.
Airing from 1998 to 2002 on the Nippon TV network, the idea of the show was to test how long he could last in such awful conditions, but it would later go down in history as one of the most 'evil' reality shows of all time, likened to a real-life version of The Truman Show.
Entertainment-wise, all Hamatsu had was a load of magazines with sweepstakes in them, which he was challenged to use to raise ¥1 million (approximately $6,500) to win food for himself to survive on.
But horrifyingly, the 'food' he won was sometimes actually dog food and dried rice.
In fact, conditions were so horrible that he once had to go 10 months before 'winning' toilet paper, all the while as many as 15 million viewers watched on as he struggled each week to raise enough funds to eat.
The door to the apartment wasn't locked during the show, but Hamatsu later explained on the This American Life podcast that he would have 'had to go outside naked and ask for help' if he wanted to leave.
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Hamatsu had no idea he was being live-streamed the entire time, with graphics and sound effects mocking the wannabe comedian throughout his staggering year-long stint on the show. A documentary called The Contestant was eventually released on Hulu in 2023 delving further into the horrors of what Hamatsu endured during his time on the show.
I Wanna Marry Harry
In 2014, 12 American women travelled to a secluded mansion in Berkshire in the hopes of winning the affections of 'Prince Harry' as part of a show which would later be branded as 'fodder for the braindead' and 'manicured catfishing'.
Obviously, it wasn't actually Prince Harry, but a bloke called Matthew Hicks who has a bit of a resemblance to the royal. In its opening episode, 'Harry' arrives at the property with all the bells and whistles reminiscent of the real-deal - a helicopter whisking him in, bodyguards, and even paparazzi dotted around the site.
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The women went on a series of dates with the 'prince' in order to try and woo him, and it was consistently implied by the production team that this really was the real Prince Harry.
In fact, in order to keep up the ruse, 'Harry' was referred to as 'sir' throughout, was photoshopped into an image with Prince William, and was even escorted away by dubious figures in sunglasses following a 'security incident'.
Reviews were brutal, and viewers took to relentlessly ridiculing some of the women for seemingly believing he was the real Prince Harry.
The show was canned after just four episodes aired in the US.
There’s something about Miriam
There's something about Miriam has gone down in television history as having one of the most unethical and cruel 'gotcha' moments.
Airing on Sky1 in 2004, the reality show followed six men fighting for the love of Brazilian model Miriam Rivera by competing in physical events, with the winner bagging a luxury yacht trip and a cash prize of £10,000.
But what producers didn't tell contestants was that Miriam was transgender, cruelly making her announce it to the group in the final episode of the series.
The heartbreaking scene saw Miriam bravely address the group of men after she had picked contestant Tom Rooke, who was then 23, as her winner.
She told the group: "I tried to be honest with all of you as much as I can. Yes, I'm from Mexico, I'm a model and I'm 21.
"But, Tom, I really love spending time with you. I love men and I love being a woman.
"But I'm not a woman, I was born as a man."
Horrifyingly, the men began to laugh as Miriam opened up to them about her gender identity. Meanwhile, Tom told the cameras that he was 'very shocked' that he had been 'deceived' by Miriam, before going on to use male pronouns when referring to her from thereon out, as he slammed her for 'lying to everybody'.
Pals of the model claimed her speech was 'scripted' by producers of the dating show, who they allege completely misjudged the situation and allowed Miriam to be mocked for the sake of viewing figures.
Another disturbing revelation about the show came from the psychiatrist who was hired to work on it, as he explained there was no thought given at all to the toll it might take on her mental health.
After the dating show wrapped up filming, Tom launched a legal battle with his fellow contestants, alleging conspiracy to commit sexual assault, defamation, breach of contract, and personal injury in the form of psychological and emotional damage, and ultimately settled for an undisclosed amount.
The series aired the following year and Miriam withdrew from the spotlight. In 2019, she was tragically found dead in her mother's apartment in an apparent suicide at just 38 years old.
Sperm race
Grappling with falling birth rates and fertility levels in Germany, TV producers decided a good approach to help solve this issue would be to create a reality show where a group of men compete against each other over the speed of their sperm.
Airing in 2005, producers Endemol invited women whose partners were struggling with fertility problems to sign up to receive sperm donations from the participating men.
The idea was that the donors would take themselves off to their respective cubicles and, erm, do the deed to produce a sample, which would then be frozen and transferred to a studio in Cologne.
Under the watchful eyes of medics, the sperm samples were then filmed as they travelled to an egg using chemical incentives, as the men were keeping their fingers crossed that theirs would be the fastest of them all in order to get their hands on the main prize - a Porsche.
At the time, the show was pummelled with criticism as it was labelled a new low point of German television, but Endemol executive Boris Brandt defended the idea, warning that fertility was a very real, serious issue in the country.
"About 1.8million German men are unable to have children because they suffer from poor sperm. And there are disappointed girlfriends and wives, as well as parents who wait in vain for grandchildren," he added at the time.
"The programme isn't immoral. We're only testing, we're not conceiving."
Insisting no human eggs would be used, he clarified: "The main prize in the competition is a Porsche, not a baby. It's actually a very scientific programme and the topic of fertility is massive in Germany at the moment."
Solitary
Airing from 2006 to 2010 on FOX, Solitary tested the limits of the mind as it placed contestants in a very small, windowless box and put them through their paces in a series of tough conditions such as sleep deprivation and, you guessed it, round-the-clock solitary confinement.
The goal was to remain the last man standing, with a cash prize of $50K up for grabs for the person who was able to stick it out.
Sat isolated in the small pod, contestants only had an artificial intelligence bot named Val to talk to, had no access to clocks or the outside world, and the environment was strictly controlled. This meant everything including temperature, light, access to toilets and even food, all while they were each referred to simply as their number instead of their name, stripping them of their outside world identity.
Plus, the room itself was a pretty strange, octagonal shape which disorientated those in there as they underwent physical endurance tasks and mental challenges handed to them by 'Val'.
These would often take several hours to complete at a time and included the likes of sleeping on a bed of rods and being subjected to a piercing barrage of loud noises designed to break down their sanity.
Topics: Entertainment, Mental Health, TV and Film
Chloe Rowland