I was on set for a filming go Ghost Hunters in Buffalo. On the show, they are “investigating” an upper level of the Buffalo Central Terminal when they hear a “disembodied” voice say “Get out!” It was the property manager on a lower level yelling at some homeless people to clear out. Everyone knew it was him, but it somehow made it in the show as an “unexplained” event.

There was a tornado a few towns over several years ago. My buddy’s dad was telling us about how his neighbor got a brand new house built by one pf those home makeover shows. He said they would film for a few hours during the day, and then 30 Mexicans would bust out all the real work overnight.

I was on Jerry Springer. The episode never aired but the entire thing was fake. They even asked me to find friends to complete the storyline of a double love triangle. Coolest part of it all was when they literally asked me if I wanted a fake doctors note or a fake death certificate made out in a fake family members name in order to get me out of work. They literally had a guy on staff whos only job was to get people out of work so they could attend filming.

This blog‘s by a British girl who was on the UK X Factor and a Survivor spinoff, and made it to the live finals of both. She goes into detail on a lot of the fake elements and behind the scenes manipulation. These shows where you ‘vote for your favorite’ have all kinds of tricks to make sure the ones you vote for are the ones production staff actually want to end up winning.

My mate was on “tattoo fixers” if you don’t know what it is, basically they get people in with tattoos they regret and make a design they don’t tell them about, tattoo it on and cover the old one up and “surprise” them at the end. He filmed the “big surprise reveal” like 5 times because he wasn’t surprised enough.

Not me, but my best friend was on 16 & Pregnant. Now I don’t know if this is always the case, but none of the drama on her episode was fabricated. However at one point, they did ask her to reenact a conversation that she had had with her mother off camera. The funny part is, they had her reenact it about a week after giving birth so she was no longer pregnant. To hide that, she wore a big sweatshirt and held a teddy bear in front of her tummy so you couldn’t tell the difference.

In Holland there was a Dutch version of pimp my ride, a player of a football team we played against had his car ”pimped” the car didnt even make it home, he had to call the car repair service on his way back from the studio…

My brother was on Xfactor UK. There are several rounds before the televised rounds, so all those rubbish acts you see on TV have been picked by producers to go through. I’ve also been in the audience of The Voice and Xfactor and they make you do loads of fake cheering, dancing and clapping before the show starts so they can cut it in to the actual show. 90% of the cheering you see/hear on the televised shows have been added in post production.

I was on a European version of “Survivor” where we went to an island and had to survive for 2 weeks. Whatever was seen on camera was what actually happening. The only fake thing is that we got some food to maintain a somewhat healthy diet.

My boss was on [a certain reality TV show] as a guest judge. In the episode, one of the contestants sprained got injured. My boss was nice and all concerned, but they edited in a shot of her laughing, that was actually laughing at someone’s joke from earlier. The filming session for that scene was 10 hours long. They edited it down to about 5 minutes. With that much footage, you can edit it into just about anything you want.

My sister’s friend’s family was on House Hunters several years ago, and everything about it was staged. They had already decided on the house before the show even started filming, and other other two “options” that the couple was “considering” were found afterwards. They filmed a bunch of fake conversations between the family members to make it seem like they were still making up their minds. The thing is, this was a Latino family, and every member struggled heavily with English. The conversation scenes were obviously forced, as these people were just stumbling their way through scripted English sentences and it was obvious that they would have been having the conversation in Spanish if they were on their own. The issue was so bad that I’m surprised they even aired the episode.

While at a bar in NYC, someone approached my dad and his buddy asking if they wanted to be on a gourmet cooking show. Naturally, they agreed and asked if I (14 y/o at the time) could join. The promoter said of course, gave them the location, and told them to tell me not to eat a big lunch as this would be a large multi-course meal at an upscale restaurant. I skipped lunch that day after a rough lunchtime soccer match, and left school early to meet my father and his friend. We arrived in a strange part of Manhattan — near the Hudson, in a rather dead part of the city. We got a call from the producer saying “sorry man! Wrong location! We’re sending a car to pick you up immediately”. We hopped into a taxi and… BOOM, “you’re on cash cab!” the bald headed host declared as lights flashed above our heads. So: we lost, got kicked out in Chelsea, and ended up spending our own money on food and a taxi home.