The TV Producer

Reality tv ‘stars’

Nearly every reality tv ‘star’ I have had the misfortune of working with or met has been the vainest, most self-obsessed pain in the arse imaginable. I’m not talking about the reality talent shows where many participants actually do have talent for example the likes of Leona Lewis, Will Young or that opera singer who grew his teeth in Coca Cola. No, I mean those fame obsessed no-marks who’ll do almost anything to get on the box or in the papers. In pursuit of this nirvana, they live in houses or on farms, carry out laughable tasks, pretend to be ‘motivated’ to reach some pointless goal, humiliate and degrade themselves in any attempt to steal the limelight from their fellow saddos.

Of course, as programme makers, the joy is that there is no end to the queue of people wanting this. No matter what the format, we will always find ways to exploit some fat special needs girl with a penchant for flashing her tits in order to get good ratings. If you ever hear a channel apologising for bullying or a physical confrontation that happened on a reality programme, don’t believe a word of it. In some programmes I made, we actively courted those reactions all to get more viewers. When one got out of hand, the channel publicly slapped our wrists but privately couldn’t have been happier. It doesn’t really what people are saying as long as they are saying it about the programme and thus watching it.

They are all unconscionable idiots before they get their taste of fame but a brief flirtation with celeb status turns them into complete and utter shits. They get agents, drop names, use coke heavily, make demands to make Mariah Carey wince and complain about press intrusion even though that’s the thing they crave above all else. Because they have no discernable talent however, they soon disappear off the radar, stop getting papped and end back in their local town trying to live off their notoriety.

There was one exception to the rule, a big brother contestant who was booted out quite early for being a nasty beeatch and public enemy number one. We were going to use her in a pilot for a new gameshow and she actually turned out to be rather nice, quite charming and very easy to get on with. In fact we got on well enough to have a drink-fuelled porn film sex session. Although we didn’t use her in the end, she was a pretty good presenter and was successful for a while and lasted a little longer than most.