The 17 Most Controversial Reality Shows In TV History

The Concept: Who needs a Weight Watchers diet before a wedding when you can have plastic surgery? Bridalplasty filled that very, very slim niche in 2010. The short-lived series set a group of women competing for free plastic surgery and a glam wedding. Mark Cronin dreamt up this particular chaos, which Shanna Moakler hosted. 

The Reality: As if the premise wasn't already problematic, the plastic surgeons were critical enough to cause full-on eating disorders in contestants. No matter how thin the women were, it was never enough. The plastic surgeons suggested dangerous weight loss surgeries, while also dropping scathing comments like, “You have perfect breasts… for doing a breast augmentation.”

Further distasteful aspects included puzzle challenges in which the brides had to hide a picture of their current selves by assembling a Photoshopped “ideal” version. The prize for solving that puzzle fast enough? Attending an “injection party,” with Botox or facial fillers on offer.

Due to criticism around the “unhealthy” nature of the very concept, Bridalplasty only lasted one season, with the episode total clocking in at ten.

The Concept: Back in 2004, there wasn't much representation of the LGBTQ+ community on TV, and what little there was often tended to be insensitive. That's how a show like There's Something About Miriam ever came into existence. The six-episode dating competition centered on Miriam Rivera, a model who was transgender. At first, it seemed to be a simple reality dating show, with several men competing for Rivera's affection. However, the show intentionally kept the fact that Rivera was transgender hidden from the men, framing it as a shocking twist to be revealed after she selected a winner.

The Reality: There's the obvious issue of the entire premise of this show being exploitative, but it goes deeper. The prevalence of violence against trans women of color in particular is staggering - especially from men who become aggressive after feeling “tricked” into being attracted to a trans woman. Putting a group of men on TV to have a reveal like this gravely put Rivera in danger physically and emotionally. That fear came to fruition when the contestants were enraged after the reveal. 

Even some members of the crew began regretting their part in the show when the dangers of the show's insidious premise dawned on them. When the show reached its twisted “gotcha” moment, one contestant took out his anger on the set and physically went after the director, in a chilling example of the kind of violence this setup invited.

Years later, in 2019, Rivera died by suicide. It would be hard to argue that the public ridicule from the show didn't contribute to Rivera's isolation and hopelessness. Her brother, Ariel Mendoza, said, “Miriam was a tough girl but [the show] broke her.”

The Concept: What could possibly go wrong when you force toddlers into beauty standards that are already impossible for girls 15 years older than them? A lot.That's the core of Toddlers & Tiaras, created by Doug Mirabello, which ran from 2009 to 2016 despite its questionable premise. The show followed a group of toddlers and their families as they compete in the child pageant circuit.

The Reality: Putting toddlers in beauty pageants is bad enough - verbally abusing them on TV while a camera documents heir objectification for entertainment value is nothing short of horrifying. Many of the mothers on the show seemed to be living vicariously through their daughters, ignoring their kids' objections to the pageants and encouraging them to act cruelly towards other contestants instead of preaching sportsmanship. From having a child advocate for smoking during a Grease number to a mom padding the chest of her toddler, the grim realities these young children were put through just didn't end.

There's no denying the harm that this series caused to young girls on and off the screen. Years after she became a meme due to her Toddlers & Tiaras appearances, former cast member Kailia Posey tragically died by suicide at just 16 years old.

That's not all - the spinoff series Here Comes Honey Boo Boo is just as problematic. The series, which centers on former Toddlers & Tiaras cast member Alana Thompson (AKA Honey Boo Boo), promptly ended in 2014 after the relationship between Thompson's mother, June, and a registered sex offender came to light. Her other daughter, Anna, came forward and accused the boyfriend of molesting her as a child. So, on top of the way this spinoff painted Thompson as a “redneck” and exploited her for entertainment purposes, there were some seriously grim things going on behind the scenes. 

The Concept: The 1998 Japanese reality show Susunu! Denpa Shōnen wasn't playing around. The series put participants in extremely long and traumatizing situations - like being forced to live naked in an apartment while cameras watched their every move, with only sweepstakes winnings to live off of.

The Reality: One of the show's most horrible acts was the focus of a 2023 documentary, The Contestant. Tomoaki Hamatsu, nicknamed “Nasubi,” knew he was on a reality show, but he believed it to be prerecorded footage that would be edited and broadcast later - he was not told he was being broadcast live on a weekly basis. He lived alone for 15 months, entering mail-in sweepstakes to win essential items and eventually earn enough money to win the challenge.

Nasubi already had to contend with a life of bullying, and the treatment he received on the show certainly didn't help, exacting a steep psychological toll. Isolating someone for extended lengths of time is incredibly harmful - there's a reason it's used as a punishment in some prisons. The series gives Hunger Games-esque, voyeuristic vibes of tormenting people for entertainment's sake.

The Concept: Who's Your Daddy? centered on a woman named T. J. Myers as she was tasked with picking her birth father out of a lineup of eight men. One man was, in fact, her biological father, while the rest were actors who tried to con her into believing that they were her real father. Finola Hughes hosted the show. Only one episode aired on Fox as a special, with the rest shuffled to the Fox Reality network.

The Reality: While the concept of gathering men to guess which one is someone's biological father might be a fun plot for Mamma Mia!, it's a little harder to swallow when it's a real person's emotions on the line - especially when seven men are being paid to knowingly lie to her.

In an interview, Fox reality TV head Mike Darnell said of Who's Your Daddy?, “It's the most emotional show we've ever put on the air. I guarantee you: if you have any heart, you'll be bawling at the end of the show." Many people might consider it more of an unnecessary, deceptive emotional rollercoaster to put Myers through as she dealt with a very personal and sensitive aspect of her life.

The Concept: Tom Campbell's show Boy Meets Boy is an early aughts riff on The Bachelor - except it featured gay bachelor James Getzlaff. He had the “opportunity” to choose between 15 men to find a partner. However, the premise had a twist that's much darker and more humiliating than it let on. It's no wonder it only had six episodes.

The Reality: You'd think that a dating show featuring a gay bachelor would be groundbreaking stuff in 2003, given that LGBTQ+ representation in reality dating shows is still sparse over two decades later. The big issue here, which was revealed to Getzlaff after several episodes, is that several of his prospective boyfriends were actually straight men pretending to be gay, and that he would only “win” the show if he selected a true gay man at the end of the competition (if he selected a straight man, then that man would take the $25,000 prize and Getzlaff would get nothing). Even by the low standards for LGBTQ+ representation on TV of that era, intentionally humiliating a gay man on live TV was low and tactless.

The show had far-reaching ramifications for some of the men on it, too: contestant Michael Jason Tiner was discharged from the US Navy after coming out as gay in his appearance on Boy Meets Boy.