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Cape Town - Most viewers know that what they see on reality TV isn’t 100% true. It’s shaken, stirred, re-cut and rehashed to make the most excitement and drama out of regular lives.
Every now and again a scandal breaks in the world of reality TV, proving that we’re still able to be shocked by the genre.
Check out the six biggest reality show scandals ever.
1. Who Wants to Be A Millionaire
We thought Charles Ingram aka Coughing Major was a genius – seriously, we were convinced that this calm (albeit sweaty) dude was coasting to victory on the pure power of his enviable brain cells. Until he won £1m! They reviewed the tapes, and realised that a member of the audience was coughing in order to direct him to the right answers.
2. SA Big Brother
A contestant on this year's South Africa's Big Brother series was expelled from the show following allegations of sexual assault. According to the broadcaster, it was not exactly clear what transpired between the pair but they acted by removing both individuals from the house.
3. Project Runway
In series 3, contestant Keith Michael was caught with pattern-making books, despite the fact that they’re forbidden from a show that trades on the individuality and adaptability of its contestants. He later complained that he’d been hard done by, but nobody was having a bar of it.
4. Survivor
Jon Dalton, who ironically called himself "Jonny Fairplay", pulled a fast one on his fellow cast mates during season seven of the US's Survivor. To gain sympathy, he had a friend come to the island and tell him that his grandmother had died. Jonny broke down in tears as he was consoled by his competitors. It was later revealed that he had constructed the plan before filming began and that his grandmother was still very much alive.
5. Pretty Wild
Pretty Wild was a show slated to become the next Kardashians – until one of the three daughters in the show, Alexis Neiers, was found to have been a part of the Bling Ring, the group of teens who broke into celebrity homes and stole their pretty things. (Update: Neiers pleaded no contest to felony burglary charges and was sentenced to 180 days in jail, of which she served only 30. She also got three years' probation and had to pay a fine of $600 000 (to Orlando Bloom!)
6. South African Idols
After the fifth season finale in which Sasha-Lee Davids of Cape Town was announced the winner, the 3 000 strong-crowd of mostly Jason Hartman supporters began to boo as Davids belted out her winning single. But a few days later M-Net disclosed that Hartman was the rightful winner. Seems the votes had been miscounted, resulting in a miscalculation that excluded the 200 000 more votes Hartman received. It was decided to declare both as winners and the pair became the first ever double winners of the show in the world.
For more scandals and outrageous behaviour on set during the filming of the fictitious reality show Everlasting tune it to the drama UnREAL on Mondays at 20:45 on Lifetime (DStv channel 131).
