The moments we realised reality shows are FAKED!

From Digital Spy

No-one is silly enough to think that every thing we see on a reality show is as presented. Even those of us who are dazzled by the stars are clever enough to know that what we see usually involves a camera crew and producers lurking somewhere.

Of course many of these telly shows do flag up the fact that some scenes have been created for the viewers' entertainment, but there are some shows, that purport to show us exactly what happens. But don't be fooled.

There have been instances when some shows were caught not being entirely honest.

In last year's series of Love Island, for example, the press gleefully reported fans' observations about things that didn't add up on screen (more on that below), sparking more 'fake' rumours than you could shake a stick at. But everyone's favourite sunny show isn't the only reality series that has come under fire…

1. Love Island – the case of the moving glass

During a tense conversation in which 'New Jack' was telling Laura that he wasn't interested in her (how much rejection can the poor love take?), eagle-eyed viewers noticed that a wine glass kept moving positions.

At one point, it was seen behind a cushion, the next in the foreground on the table. Of course, as we know TV producers have to edit down material, but this didn't stop some viewers from feeling duped, believing that the couple had been asked to have the conversation several times.

2. Geordie Shore – Marnie celebrates her birthday months early...

In January 2018, a trail for an upcoming episode of Geordie Shore showed clips of Marnie celebrating her 26th birthday. But savvy fans realised that the scenes had been shot months in advance. One fan Tweeted: "I don't understand how it was @MarnieGShore birthday in the house a couple of months ago and it's also marnies birthday today ????".

Marnie, who at the time had just announced she wasn't returning to the show, said in a Tweet that was hastily deleted: "It's coz it's fake and scripted". (MTV declined to comment on her claims).

But this isn't the first time the show's authenticity has been called into question. In 2016, Geordie Shore fan Sarah Sarginson posted a picture of a 'script' page on Twitter that she found discarded in a restaurant. On the piece of paper, several scenes were discussed, including Chloe Ferry's shock departure from the show.

Former GS star Chantelle Connelly has hit out at the show after she was accused of cheating on her boyfriend Tommy Sayers with Gaz Beadle. Losing her rag on social media, she let slip more than she should have: "Think you need to get your facts right! My bf knew I had to have a storyline with Gary. Was totally honest with him and he was ok with it!!!"

And if that wasn't enough to get your head around, former Geordie Shore star Sarah Goodheart claimed she had been fed lines by somebody off camera during filming including a scene in which she was told to to describe ex Marty McKenna's privates. "It was disgusting," she said. "It got used and it's one of the lines that I'm known for."

3. Celebrity Big Brother – "Great take, guys!"

In the summer 2016 series of Celebrity Big Brother, viewers watching the live feed of the show on 5* were stunned when they witnessed what they felt was a staged set-up that had slipped through onto the telly. In the clip, Big Brother was heard wishing all housemates goodnight as the bedroom lights went out.

After the housemates all shouted goodnight in reply, they appeared to go to sleep. However, moments later, the lights suddenly came back on and everyone piled out of bed again, with ex-EastEnders star Ricky Norwood saying: "Great take, guys, great take."

The voice of Big Brother continued to explain to the housemates that the next day was going to be a busy one and offered them advice about making sure they had a good night's sleep. Viewers were furious that the footage suggested that producers set up certain scenarios to screen during the edited version of the show.

Responding to the outrage, Channel 5 said: "Footage shown on the live feed involved Big Brother alerting housemates of a long final day ahead. The show is entirely authentic and the housemates are not scripted."

4. Love Island – "I was brought in to split up Dani and Jack"

When Ellie Jones sashayed into Casa Amor, we were gripped to see what would happen when she came face to face with her ex boyfriend Jack. Was she going to woo him away from his villa girlfriend Dani?

Was she going to break viewers' hearts by ripping up Love Island's one true love story? As it turned out, no! Instead, the pair actually seemed to get on like a house on fire – well, they kept it civil at least. And even though Dani was devastated to see that Ellie was spending time with her darling amour, it wasn't long before they were pretty chummy too, which must have pissed off the show's producers who were obviously keen for conflict. Or so Ellie has since said.

She told The Sun that she was brought in to split up the young lovebirds and that producers had encouraged her to say things to irritate Dani. "I brought up his poster [of Danny Dyer] before going in and producers wanted to get it in during my chat with Dani. I'd told them about it as they were asking me if Jack already knew about Dani. Everyone thinks he's in there just because she's Danny Dyer's daughter. So I mentioned it."

She also let slip that what we see on screen was occasionally manipulated by the people behind the scenes. "Producers will tell you when to talk," she told The Sun. "They will say, 'Can you and so-and-so have a chat'. If they want you to add something or word it differently, they might ask you. I'm not very good with speaking, so would often ask to do it again. I had a conversation with Grace [Wardle] and we kept giggling and they told us to stop. But they do let you be as natural as you can."

In response to Ellie's claims, a Love Island spokesperson said: "The opinions they have, decisions they make and the relationships formed are completely within the control of the Islanders themselves.

"It is always our intention to produce a show that is a fair and accurate representation of life in the villa."

5. TOWIE – Upside-down phones

We all know that scenes are set up for our entertainment, but that doesn't mean that we are meant to actually notice. There have been, from time to time, instances when our favourite characters have given the game away. For example, in one episode of TOWIE Megan McKenna was seen gabbing happily away on her phone but was actually holding her phone upside down.

But TOWIE really exposed itself, so to speak, when it aired a live episode in 2012 and revealed the cast at a lost as producers tried to cue them into scenes. In one moment, Sam Faiers and Kirk Norcross were seen sitting in a chair waiting to for their cue but instead merely sat there for ten seconds or so staring at each other until Kirk stumbled his way into an awkward conversation.

In another hilariously awful scene, a breathless Arg (he was carrying a few extra pounds at the time, bless him!) could be seen backstage at the talent show with Lydia, her mum Debbie and Nanny Pat, totally at a loss as to what he was supposed to be doing, even though people could be heard in the background calling for him to be elsewhere.

6. Made in Chelsea – general fakery

If you wonder how it just so happens that a camera crew are in the right time and place whenever some drama takes place on the clean streets of Made in Chelsea, it's because, of course, it's all planned beforehand.

You didn't really think it, like, just happened? A former MIC star has said that producers will tell the cast that they are needed for a shoot at a certain location and be told what to do and given a gauge of what to say. Another star of the show, Tina Stinnes, also revealed some show secrets, telling the Daily Star: "We film dinner scenes at 7am. It's all staged. They influence you into saying things, they'll be like, 'Why don't you say this, because this is what you think, isn't it?'"

The bean-spiller also added: "When you're having an argument with someone, you have to repeat it 10 times. You're standing there in the middle of a row and they're like, 'Can you say that line again'."

7. Love Island again – Georgia kisses Jack... TWICE!

When Georgia was accused of overly kissing 'New Jack' on a date, it was one of the biggest controversies of this series of Love Island. Wes had reported back that he had seen her try to give Jack more of a kiss than she should have, which caused a lot of tension between her and Laura, as she swore blind she hadn't. However, viewers could see themselves that she really did lean in for a much more intimate smooch, the minx.

But what viewers also noticed was that when viewing the kiss on screen from different angles it was clear that the scene had been shot twice (from one angle Wes couldn't have seen the kiss because he was turned away, while from the other he could). Viewers were furious, feeling duped by the whole affair.

Now out of the villa, Georgia has since revealed that the scene was indeed shot several times. When asked if it was shot more than once, she told The Sun: "Yeah. I do what I want to do and they get the angles."

8. The Hills – That's all, folks!

For many years, viewers doubted how much of what they saw on The Hills was actually real. So when it came to the final episode, the producers decided to tease viewers about whether the show was genuine or not.

In the closing scene, Kristin Cavallari and Brody Jenner bid farewell to each other with the Hollywood sign seen clearly behind hem. But as Brody watched Kristin drive away in her limo, the camera pulled out to reveal that the scene was actually taking place on a Hollywood back lot.

Show creator Adam DiVello said afterwards that he and his team had been thinking about a way of a way of hinting to viewers that not all was real – that the series's ending paid tribute to its Hollywood setting.

"We had joked early on about different ways to do kind of a wink to whether it was real or not," he told MTV News. "We had come up with a bunch of ideas, and then I had this idea to focus it on the Hollywood sign and really just kind of incorporate Hollywood into the ending of it. Our show's one that's based in Hollywood, and these kids live, work and play here and never, never really kind of acknowledged in the series that Hollywood is where shows are made."

Adam later revealed in a later interview with Variety that while the action was always real, they were forced occasionally to reshoot scenes. "We've been very open about the fact that we've reshot scenes that we missed," he admitted. "[If] stuff happens off camera, or stuff happens on the weekends, or when we weren't shooting, we would go back and get it on camera.

"So, if Audrina heard that Justin Bobby was off doing something that she ain't happy with, we'd have her sit down and tell Lauren about it, just so that we have it on camera. But it really happened. It wasn't like we wrote it."

Kristin later revealed that what viewers saw on screen reflected nothing of her real life: "I looked at it strictly as a job; we filmed three different scenes, three days a week. I had my life on-camera and a completely different life off-camera.

"I knew the character they wanted me to play, and this time I was game. Since I looked at it as a job, it was fun to play up the villain character."

Spencer Pratt revealed on TV show Bethenny that producers made them play certain storylines. "First they have Heidi fake like she thinks she's pregnant and needs to get a pregnancy test, that didn't happen so, then she tells me she thought she was pregnant and my [in air quotes] response in the scene is, 'Get out of my car'. What really happens is we did 15 takes, every different angle and then she gets in the car and we go to dinner."

And Brody Jenner said in an interview with Yahoo! Style that scenes with his 'girlfriend' Lauren Conrad were not quite what they seemed: "We would literally film a scene of us kissing or being in this lovey-dovey scene and right after it would be like 'Cut!' And right after it'd be like, 'Hey, it's good to see you,' and then we'd go our separate ways."

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