Reality TV: The Great Experiment | BONUS

Summary

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Curse of: America’s Next Top Model

Bonus Episode Summary: "Reality TV: The Great Experiment"

Host: Bridget Armstrong
Release Date: November 26, 2025
Podcast: iHeartPodcasts and Glass Podcasts

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Main Theme & Purpose

This bonus episode of "Curse of: America’s Next Top Model" serves as a deep dive into the roots and ethics of reality TV, examining how shows like ANTM operate with social and psychological dynamics akin to cults and experiments, and looking at how exploitation and manipulation became entertainment. Through first-hand accounts from former contestants, producers, and reality TV experts, host Bridget Armstrong explores ANTM’s parallels to cults and psychological experiments, connects its practices to the wider history of reality programming, and confronts the culture of body shaming and racial stereotypes perpetuated on the show.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Hidden Power Dynamics of ANTM

• Bridget Armstrong (02:53): Discusses content left on the cutting room floor, especially the strange, manipulative, and sometimes cruel methods used behind the scenes at ANTM.
• Manufacturing Consent:
  • Producers crafted drama and over-the-top challenges—not just for entertainment, but to test how much contestants would endure for fame or exposure.
  • Armstrong challenges the prevailing view that contestants were simply consenting adults who could have just walked away:
    • “I don't think it's quite that simple. From the moment you walk on set... you have to suspend your understanding of how the world... work.” (05:23)

Parallels to Cult Tactics

• Sarah Hartshorn (Cycle 9):
  • “The closest comparison really is a cult.” (06:12)
  • Lists similarities: isolation, charismatic leader (Tyra), obedient followers, “a million girls want this,” threats of punishment (“dock your wages for the rest of your life”).
  • Memorable quote:
    • “They would repeat the same words and phrases to us over and over and over again.” (08:00)
    • “They controlled when we could eat, when we could go to the bathroom... That’s a very jarring thing to hear.” (09:31)

2. Rules for Control & Contestant Isolation

• No talking between contestants (“on ice”), enforced silence to ensure all drama was caught on camera (10:39).
• No socializing with crew. Even phone calls to home were brief and scheduled, resulting in deep isolation.
  • Dr. Stephen Stein (TV Psychologist):
    • Highlights similarity to Big Brother, where interaction is severely restricted. (11:50)
    • Describes the psychological shock contestants faced when reality intruded, such as evacuating the Big Brother Canada house for COVID. (12:50–13:43)
    • “Is this a joke? Is this part of the show?” (13:53)—on contestants not believing the pandemic was real after extended isolation.

3. Reality TV as a Psychological Experiment

• Comparisons to Stanford Prison Experiment and Social Psychology:
  • “It is literally a show about how to survive the Stanford Prison Experiment.” (Lisa D’Amato, 14:35)
  • Dr. Stein explains how the experiment showed regular people taking on roles, with cruelty and obedience arising from assigned power dynamics (14:59–16:40).

Psychological “Fuckery” and Manufactured Anxiety

• Contestant Stories (Hannah Kat Jones, Cycle 16):
  • ANTM often set up elaborate stunts purely to manipulate contestants’ emotions:
    • Fake elimination ceremonies designed to provoke tears before revealing a twist (17:52–19:51).
    • Unpredictability led to heightened anxiety:
      • “Anytime that we walked into a room after that point, it felt like the floor was gonna fall beneath us.” (21:31)
    • Punitive punishment challenges with no relation to modeling—e.g., moving severed animal parts in Morocco while locals looked on (22:40–23:52).
    • “That was a little piece of my soul... not putting my foot down and saying no.” (Hannah, 24:12)—reflecting on why people comply with humiliating demands.

4. The Roots and Evolution of Reality TV

Historical Deep Dive: From Candid Camera to ANTM (29:20–51:23, 55:18)

• Amanda Ann Klein (Reality TV Scholar): Guides a history lesson on the ethical blurriness of reality TV.
  • Reality TV began with Candid Camera (1948): psychological “mini-experiments” observing groupthink and conformity.
  • Queen for a Day: Early example of exploiting real people’s desperation for ratings and sponsor profit. Audience applause determined which woman with a tragic story got their wish granted (34:34–40:23).
  • An American Family (1973, PBS): The first serialized docu-soap, blurring lines of public and private for “entertainment.”
  • The Real World (MTV, 1992): Setting the template for using “outsiders” and conflict to drive drama; the birth of the “reality star” and the showmance between victim and villain.
  • Reality TV’s explosion was partly due to its cheapness (no union writers, actors), tabloid culture, and the appetite for “celebutantes”—people famous for being famous.

Connecting Past and Present:

• The same elements—shame, trauma, financial desperation, and manipulation—are central to both early and modern reality shows.
  • “Almost from the beginning, when we decided to put real people on television to hear their real stories, the ethical lines were blurred.” (41:03)
• Reality TV normalized spectacle and surveillance, paving the way for social media and self-curation in our own lives.

5. ANTM, Stereotypes, and Body Shaming

• Angry Black Woman Trope:

  • ANTM perpetuated the “loud, mean, bitter, confrontational” Angry Black Woman stereotype, echoing the history of characters like Sapphire from Amos and Andy radio show (55:18–56:07).
  • Contestants were cast and edited to fit these archetypes—an extension of American entertainment’s long history of racist caricatures.

• 2000s Body Image Culture:

  • “America’s Next Top Model is such a tip of the iceberg.” (Jess Sims, 58:31)
  • Highlights the relentless body scrutiny faced by celebrities (Renee Zellweger, Jessica Simpson) and ordinary women alike.
  • Perez Hilton’s Role:
    • Called out for his role in propagating misogynistic and body-shaming content.
    • “I was so selfish... I was purposefully trying to be shocking. Cause that worked. It got attention, it got me views, and it got me success.” (Perez Hilton, 62:36)
    • Now on an apology tour, admits: “I take full accountability for everything I did. I knew at the time... I didn’t care.” (62:36)
    • “Attention is a very powerful drug, and I was an attention addict.” (63:27)

6. The Legacy and Future of Reality TV: Everyone’s a Star

• Amanda Ann Klein:
  • “It feels like right now everything is reality tv because... social media, you can hate-follow people online and come on, we all do it...” (64:01)
  • Real-world behaviors are changing—we curate, produce, and present content for others like reality TV producers, perceiving others as "characters" for entertainment instead of as people (64:28).
• Bridget Armstrong:
  • “Reality TV started this phenomenon of wanting to watch real people in ridiculous situations and everyday dramas. And now, in a way, we're all on a reality show whether we want to be or not.” (65:01)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |-----------|-------|---------| | 06:12 | “The closest comparison really is a cult.” | Sarah Hartshorn | | 09:31 | “They removed our ability to have any agency, right? They controlled when we could eat, when we could go to the bathroom.” | Sarah Hartshorn | | 13:53 | “Is this a joke? Is this part of the show?” | Dr. Stephen Stein | | 14:35 | “It is literally a show about how to survive the Stanford Prison Experiment.” | Lisa D’Amato via Jess Sims | | 19:51 | “Some of the girls were literally falling on the ground in shock.” | Bridget Armstrong | | 21:31 | “Anytime that we walked into a room after that point, it felt like the floor was gonna fall beneath us.” | Hannah Kat Jones | | 23:33 | “It felt like shame from Game of Thrones... It just felt so demeaning and, like, not fashion forward at all.” | Hannah Kat Jones | | 24:12 | “I felt like that was a little piece of my soul, like, kind of went in that meat locker too, as far as, like, not putting my foot down and saying no.” | Hannah Kat Jones | | 41:03 | “Almost from the beginning, when we decided to put real people on television to hear their real stories, the ethical lines were blurred.” | Bridget Armstrong (on Amanda Klein’s point) | | 50:19 | “This creates a perfect environment for something like reality TV because of how cheap it is, because you can avoid union labor and all of those things. The other factor is the rise of tabloid culture at this time.” | Amanda Ann Klein | | 55:18 | “ANTM had a pattern of casting and editing contestants to fit the stereotype that black women are loud, mean, bitter, confrontational, belligerent divas.” | Bridget Armstrong | | 62:36 | “I take full accountability for everything I did. I can't blame ignorance and I can't blame youth. … I knew at the time that what I was doing was wrong and I didn't care.” | Perez Hilton | | 64:28 | “We're all reality TV producers. We're all curating the world for other people. And I don't think that's a good thing because I think that's changing the way we view each other. We are viewing other people as content, so we're more prone to view each other, I think, as characters. Now.” | Amanda Ann Klein | | 65:01 | “Now, in a way, we're all on a reality show whether we want to be or not.” | Bridget Armstrong |

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Timeline of Key Segments

• 02:53–13:59 – Behind-the-scenes control, cult comparisons, interviews with Sarah Hartshorn, Dr. Stephen Stein.
• 14:35–24:40 – Psychological experiment parallels, harrowing on-set manipulations, Hannah Kat Jones and Lisa D’Amato stories.
• 29:20–51:23 – History of reality TV, from Candid Camera to The Real World and ANTM.
• 55:18–64:28 – ANTM and harmful tropes, the 2000s era of body shaming, Perez Hilton’s influence and reckoning, social media as the new reality TV.
• 64:28–65:01 – Reflection on media’s future: everyone as a reality star.

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Tone & Language

The episode is investigative, candid, and critical—using humor and pop-culture savvy to reveal the dark foundations and lasting consequences of reality TV. Contestant and expert accounts balance empathy with sharp critique, especially around ANTM’s legacy and the damage done by media figures like Perez Hilton. Throughout, Armstrong maintains a conversational yet thoughtful approach, rooting industry critique in real human stories.

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Takeaways

• ANTM used tactics mirroring cults and psychological experiments to manipulate contestants and shape their behavior.
• This approach has deep roots in reality television, which has always blurred lines between entertainment and exploitation.
• The show perpetuated harmful stereotypes (especially about Black women) and body shame that echo the toxic tabloid and celebrity blogger culture of the early 2000s.
• The culture of manufactured spectacle once reserved for TV is now everyday life, with social media making everyone a participant in—and producer of—ongoing reality TV.
• Despite changes and public apologies, the legacies of these shows and their underlying dynamics continue to shape how we view, judge, and treat each other.

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End of Summary

Transcript

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[Bridget Armstrong]

Now if y' all know I couldn't just leave you high and dry like that. Welcome to the Curse of America's Next Top Model, the bonus episode. First, let me say thank you for listening to the season. The response has been great and a little overwhelming. When my team and I started researching and reporting, we had to make some difficult decisions about what to include in the 10 episode season and what to leave on the cutting room floor. That's one of the hardest things about this job. My interviews for this show usually went on for hours. As you can imagine, we heard a lot of stuff that didn't neatly fit into the season arc. We decided on like the cringy origins of reality TV.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

When we talk about ethics and reality TV, even back in the 50s, we were doing some pretty suspect things.

[Bridget Armstrong]

And of course there were more behind the scenes details from the models that couldn't fit into the season. Some of it was downright weird. I heard a lot about stuff that happened on set that made me realize what a strange world reality TV production really is. All season long, we talked about how producers created the stories we saw play out on antm. Casting producers find and create characters. Show producers stir up drama and manufacture storylines. Creative producers craft over the top photo shoots and runways. And a surprising number of contestants willingly sign up for it all. Now, of course, there are some who walk off set and others who asked to be eliminated. But for the most part, ANTM got 10 to 14 contestants to stay through the humiliation for 24 seasons. People stuck it out because they wanted the title and the prize. Others just wanted the exposure. But still, it's actually impressive, I mean, in a dark way that producers got contestants to cooperate with all this. There's a quip I hear a lot from people who criticize the models for coming forward today to talk about their negative experiences on the show.

[Perez Hilton]

These were not minors. They were grown ups who knew what they were getting into. And if you hated it that much, you could have quit, you could have stopped.

[Bridget Armstrong]

That was Perez Hilton standing in for the popular opinion. There's a belief that if the models didn't like it, they could just leave. But I don't think it's quite that simple. From the moment you walk on set is a reality show participant. You have to suspend your understanding of how the world and normal human interaction work. Reality shows like ANTM are successful because the contestants trust, to a certain extent the version of reality the show is creating. In order to maintain that reality, producers have to get the contestants to do what they say. Sarah Hartshorn, who competed on Cycle nine, told me how ANTM achieved this power dynamic and what she compared it to surprised me.

[Sarah Hartshorn]

I think it's difficult to convey the power dynamic to someone who hasn't been in it. But the closest comparison really is a cult.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Sarah explained this using her own cult ranking system. So the People's Temple, AKA Jonestown, you know, the ones who drank the Kool Aid, That's a level 10. Fitness programs like SoulCycle or CrossFit with cult like followings are a level one. Lots of people follow level one cults. Even dedicated fandoms are level one cults. I'm a Beyonce devotee. Sara wrote a book about her experience as a contestant on antm. When she started her research, she saw some parallels between ANTM and Colts. @ first she felt like being a contestant on the show was a level 2 or 3. Now, after writing the book, Sarah thinks the show's actually closer to a five or six.

[Sarah Hartshorn]

It takes young girls and it uses our labor, it does not pay us and then it spits us out. Really poor and ill equipped to deal with the after effects.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Here's a list of parallels Sarah saw between A&TM and Colts. Isolation from everyone you know and love. Check. A figurehead or leader the followers can believe in. Check. A group of people who are in charge and do the leader's bidding. Check. A group of followers who are willing to do whatever is asked of them. Check. And a prize or reward at the end to make up for all the followers suffering. Also, Check. Sarah says ANTM even used coercive tactics on the contestants. Some of the same ones cults have been known to use like language, parroting.

[Sarah Hartshorn]

They would repeat the same words and phrases to us over and over and over again.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Sarah told me that during the casting process, she and the other finalists were kept in a small conference room for hours.

[Sarah Hartshorn]

They were prepping us and we spent hours just sitting in these conference rooms with lawyers and producers talking at us for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. They used mind control tactics.

[Bridget Armstrong]

The lawyers and producers repeatedly told contestants that if they ever violated their contracts.

[Sarah Hartshorn]

We will dock your wages for the rest of your life. That's the phrase that they said over and over. We will dock your wages for the rest of your life.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Sarah said it felt like producers were trying to drill the message into their heads. And that wasn't the only thing. From the start, producers wanted the contestants to feel disposable and replaceable. The other Mantra they would repeat, there.

[Sarah Hartshorn]

Are a million girls that want this opportunity, and we have their phone number. They probably said that to us hundreds of times, different people saying it. And those phrases just got stuck in our head. There are a million girls that want this opportunity, and they have their phone number.

[Bridget Armstrong]

While it was probably true, the statement served a larger purpose. It made the contestants more cooperative. They knew if they didn't do what the producers said, there would be someone waiting in the wings to take their place. Once producers established that power dynamic, they could get contestants to follow rules they wouldn't normally agree to.

[Sarah Hartshorn]

They removed our ability to have any agency, right? They controlled when we could eat, when we could go to the bathroom. Like, I still remember the first time I said, can I go to the bathroom? And they said, no. That's a very jarring thing to hear. Like, that's a script that humans have, right? You say, can I use the restroom? Someone says, oh, yes, of course. That's like a back and forth. It's like a given. It's like a social norm. And that was removed when we said, can I go to the bathroom? We didn't know what the answer would be.

[Bridget Armstrong]

While reporting this podcast, I learned ANTM and shows like IT have pretty strict rules contestants have to follow. It's so producers can control what's happening on set. They didn't want the models just wandering around while they were taping. Another rule I heard about might seem counterintuitive. Sometimes the models couldn't even talk to each other. Let's say they were waiting to start a photo shoot or a judging panel. Maybe the location wasn't ready or Tyra wasn't there yet. The models couldn't pass the time by just chatting with each other. They had to be on ice. Here's cycle four and 17 contestant Lisa D'. Amato.

[Hannah Cat Jones]

Ice is being silent.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

You can't even talk to each other.

[Bridget Armstrong]

So I'm not allowed to talk. The whole point of a reality show is to get everything on camera. Producers didn't want to risk missing juicy moments. They also didn't want the contestants plotting behind their backs. Producers didn't just draw the line at talking with each other. There was a no socializing rule between contestants and crew members, even though the camera operators and sound engineers were in their faces every day. The models weren't supposed to even say hello or how you doing? Producers wanted the models to behave as though the cameras weren't there. So they literally told them to ignore the people behind them. Although one crew member told me that Rule eventually went out the window a few seasons in because it was too hard to enforce. Even though you're surrounded by people with these rules, you can see why so many contestants say being on a reality show is actually a pretty isolating experience. And that wasn't just on ANTM. Here's reality TV psychologist Dr. Stephen Stine. He's worked on shows like Survivor and Big Brother.

[Dr. Stephen Stein]

Some shows are really restrictive, like a show like Big Brother. The only people they can talk to would be one person in production when they're in the diary room and then myself. And that's it.

[Bridget Armstrong]

We see contestants on ANTM talking on the phone to their loved ones back home. But those calls are usually scheduled and very brief. On some reality shows, you can't even talk to your loved ones. I don't know. It's getting a little more culty. Removing objective reality is a foundational part of brainwashing. Also, from a production standpoint, they didn't want their cast to be distracted with personal updates and breaking news. They want the set and the house they're filming in to be their entire world for the weeks and months they were in production. But the outside world doesn't stop, and sometimes it trumps the reality that's being created by the show. Dr. Stein remembers a time when he had to burst the reality TV bubble with some big news from the outside world.

[Dr. Stephen Stein]

I think my worst situation was Covid. I had to empty entire house at Big Brother Canada when Covid happened. The city forced everything to close down and everyone's dream sort of fell apart and had to deal with each contestant, each house guest coming out.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Filming had started right before the COVID 19 crisis. The cast had no clue what was going on. They'd been completely isolated, and now they had to abruptly leave and go back into this world that was all of a sudden very different.

[Dr. Stephen Stein]

I had to tell them there's something that's. That's happened. The world has kind of changed from what it was like when you went into the house and just go through what some of these changes are, and it's going to affect you and you're going to have to go right home and you're going to have to isolate and no, they were shocked. They couldn't believe we were telling them. It's like, like what? What is this?

[Bridget Armstrong]

Here's the thing. The Big Brother contestants were in such a controlled environment already that when Dr. Stein delivered the news about the COVID lockdown, they didn't believe him.

[Dr. Stephen Stein]

They're like, is this a joke? Is this part of the show.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Big Brother, had so thoroughly conditioned the cast that they were initially unsure if the pandemic was even real or part of the production. To me, that says a lot about how much of a mind fuck being on reality TV can be. Sarah Hartshorn compared ANTM to being in a cult. And Sarah's not the only one who said something about mind control in reality tv. Several people I've interviewed for this podcast compared reality television and more specifically ANTM to psychological experiments. Here's Lisa d'. Amato.

[Jess Sims]

It is literally a show about how.

[Bridget Armstrong]

To survive the Stanford Prison Experiment. Like psychological warfare, the Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological study done in the 70s at Stanford University. Researchers were interested in looking at obedience, power and control. Here's Dr. Stein explaining the experiment.

[Dr. Stephen Stein]

It stemmed from the Nazis in Germany. Like, the question was, were the people who orchestrated the Holocaust, were they inherently evil and bad, or can anybody be bad and evil in the right circumstances? That's what he intended to look at, which was, you know, a really good question. Were they evil people who were doing all this stuff, or were they ordinary people who just did bad things?

[Bridget Armstrong]

The Stanford Prison Experiment is infamous for two reasons. First, because of how unethically it was conducted, and second, because of what it revealed. The lead researcher, Dr. Philip Zimbardo, took a group of 24 college age men, paid them $15 a day and randomly assigned them to two groups. The first group were the prisoners. They went through a mock arrest by real police. Then they were sent to a makeshift prison in the basement of a building on campus. They were searched, given a prisoner number, a uniform, and led into cells. The second group, the guards, were given fancy uniforms, including mirrored sunglasses to prevent eye contact. The guards received the simple instruction to keep the prisoners in line without physically abusing them. Needless to say, all hell broke loose. What they learned was that given the chance, in the right circumstances, humans will be trash.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Please welcome Dr. Philip Zimbardo.

[Bridget Armstrong]

What did your experiment prove? Evil behavior can be elicited in the best of us. The study was supposed to go on for two weeks, but after six days, they had to pull the plug.

[Dr. Stephen Stein]

Phil Zimbardo just sort of threw it out there and let it happen. And my goodness, those bad people got really bad. There was physical altercations. The prisoners took on the role of prisoners, like they fought back like prisoners would. And the guards were mean and awful and authoritarian like guards would be. And again, these were ordinary people who were randomly assigned.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Now saying ANTM is like the Stanford Prison Experiment. Can be a little extreme. But as I looked into the history, I learned that the comparison between reality TV and psychological experiments isn't that much of a leap. Hannah Cat Jones was a contestant on cycle 16. She told me about two situations that happened on her season that I didn't know what to make of. Producers could argue that certain photo shoots and challenges were a test of the contestants talent or their ability to perform under pressure. But the situations Hannah told me about were seemingly designed solely to fuck with the contestants and see how they would react. One of those moments happened before the season even kicked off.

[Hannah Cat Jones]

This is the final round before the show officially begins. Mr. And Mrs. J walk up and they're like, okay, ladies, the girls who have their pictures in these envelopes are the ones going into the house, and the girls who don't have their pictures in the envelope are going home. Each person gets their envelope and they're like, okay, ready? One, two, three. And I pull out a blank piece.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

Of paper.

[Hannah Cat Jones]

And I'm like, it's over that crushed bank.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Then the contestants were separated. Hannah's group, the ones with no pictures in their envelopes, were sent up the elevator to a room, presumably to get their bags and go home.

[Hannah Cat Jones]

We're like, picking up our suitcases, and then Tyra Banks starts walking down this staircase, and she's like, looking down at us.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Hi, ladies. I'm so sorry. It's okay. But you guys can't give up, right?

[Sarah Hartshorn]

No.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Right. This is like, you guys got really far. The tears keep coming, and you're trying.

[Hannah Cat Jones]

To hold them back, and you can't.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Hold them back anymore because she's coming to say goodbye. This is it. I've gotten, like, so turned down. Door slammed in my face. The road to success and to the top is not a straight line. It's a zigzag line.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

So unfortunately, you guys have to go home now.

[Bridget Armstrong]

But you don't have to go far because you're home.

[Hannah Cat Jones]

And she pressed a button, and there was like, drapes that I hadn't really noticed around the stairwell. So then all of a sudden, these drapes fall, and we're in, like, a penthouse apartment with, like, pictures of ourselves and toys and candy and, like, we're all like. There's like, this silence, like, what's going on? And she's like, you're on this show. And we all just start, like, jumping up and down. We're like, some of us are crying again.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Some of the girls were literally falling on the ground in shock. Punk'd was popular at the Time Tyra referenced it on this episode. This little stunt was her sick nod to the show.

[Hannah Cat Jones]

And that was like the first night. The next day they were like, okay, we're gonna start filming, but remember there.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Was another group of girls who had gotten pictures in their envelopes. They thought they made it onto the show, but they were actually getting sent home. We didn't see ANTM break that news to them.

[Hannah Cat Jones]

The girls that didn't get on the show, like, that's way worse for them psychologically. I would have trust issues for a really long time after that because I remember running into one of the girls like a year later that had been in the group that thought they were on the show first. And she said that they sat in a bus for hours. And then somebody came on the bus and said that was all for show. You're going home tomorrow. And Tyra Banks did not say bye.

[Bridget Armstrong]

I asked Hannah why she thinks A and T M did that. Like, what was the point of setting these girls up just for the three minute payoff of saying haha, we gotcha?

[Hannah Cat Jones]

I think at that point they really just loved like the shock value of things. Like they realized that it was a great formula for the audience do to be surprised that this happened to them.

[Bridget Armstrong]

I think they also did it to put their test subjects on edge, to make them feel like they never knew what to expect. Unpredictability can cause anxiety, and anxiety can cause people to act out. Hannah told me after the casting prank she didn't know what to expect.

[Hannah Cat Jones]

It was just such a strange couple of months. And like, honestly, anytime that we walked into a room after that point, it felt like the floor was gonna fall beneath us.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Her feelings were justified. On Hannah's season cycle 16, ANTM really leaned into the psychological experiment thing. There was one more incident Hannah told me about that was so bad it didn't even air on the show. On her season, Hannah made it to the international trip to Morocco. She was one of the final three. While there, they had a challenge where the contestants interviewed locals about beauty products. Except the people they were interviewing didn't speak English and Hannah didn't speak the local language. She lost the challenge. But instead of just awarding the winner a prize, A&TM decided to also punish the two losers. Just a heads up, the punishment was nasty, even by Top Model standards, and it certainly didn't have anything to do with modeling. When the challenge was over, Hannah and the other losing contestant were led to a table on the street with a tarp over it.

[Hannah Cat Jones]

Somebody from production pulled off the tarp. And it has a cow's head that's severed and its tongue is hanging out. And that's just, like, one of the pieces of animal carcass that's on the table. There's, like, organs, and there's, like, a goat's foot, and there's just, like, all these different, like, pieces of meat. And he said, you're going to pick up these animal pieces and you're gonna put them on the wagon that's attached to this donkey, and you're gonna pull his donkey down the road to the butcher shop. So Brittany and I have to team up to pick up the cow's head. That's how heavy it was. And we're both, like, gagging, like, you know, because it's not, like, fresh. It's, like, gross. And we finally get all the pieces.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Onto the wagon, and it got worse.

[Hannah Cat Jones]

As we're picking up the pieces and everything, the Moroccans are, like, around the table and, like, watching us do this, they're all like, Moroccan men who are like, ha, ha, ha. It felt like shame from Game of Thrones. They were like, shame. You know, it just felt so demeaning and, like, not fashion forward at all.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Hannah told me when she looks back at that moment, she regrets not telling the producers no. But that's the thing about the great psychological experiment that is reality tv. It's designed to push you to do stuff that under normal circumstances, you'd never do.

[Hannah Cat Jones]

I felt like that was a little piece of my soul, like, kind of went in that meat locker too, as far as, like, not putting my foot down and saying no. Instead, I was like, okay, I'll do this for the sake of the show, because if I do this, then maybe I could win the show. And I felt like it was, like, just a really messed up way for production and people who were writing those pieces to just exercise their control and to kind of laugh at us.

[Bridget Armstrong]

ANTM sound mixer Jose Torres told me that he and other crew members were aware of this dynamic too. You've signed on to live in this bubble. The microscopes are going to be on immediately. We're going to dissect every word that you say, every step that you take. I always thought the original concept for reality TV was to just observe and see how people react to different people in different circumstances, and you document that. But as time goes on, you amp up the stress level. It turns out sticking people in unnerving and uncomfortable situations to see how they react is the very cornerstone of reality programming.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Here's the candid subject. Here comes the candid camera staff. Three of them at least.

[Bridget Armstrong]

To really understand where America's Next Top Model came from, we have to go back in time. Way back to the 1940s. That's where we're going after the break.

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[Bridget Armstrong]

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[Perez Hilton]

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[Bridget Armstrong]

Antm premiered in 2003 and let me tell y', all, what a time to be alive. There were the reality shows like the Osbournes and Laguna beach that gave us a glimpse into the lives of the rich and famous to let us know they are truly nothing like us. And then there were the shows that were making dreams come true. If you wanted to be a singer but never got that big break, American Idol could make you a star. And if you wanted to know what it feels like to have 20 desperate debutantes fighting for your affection, you could go on the Bachelor. If you wanted to be a millionaire and you weren't good at trivia, you could voluntarily strand yourself on an island for weeks and play mind games with strangers on the Swan. Self proclaimed ugly people could get plastic surgery so that their inner beauty would finally be reflected outside. This is the landscape ANTM was born into. But reality TV didn't start in the early 2000s and it definitely wasn't invented by Tyra Banks.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

My name is Amanda Ann Klein. I am professor of Film Student Studies at East Carolina University. I've also written a book called Millennials Killed the Video Star.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Y' all know Amanda. She pretty much has my dream job. She's a reality TV historian and expert and she's going to be our guide for this brief journey through reality programming. Reality based television wasn't really possible before the advent of handheld cameras, portable sound equipment and fast film stock. But almost as soon as the tech was available, production studios decided to use it to make fools out of everyday people for our entertainment.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

So there was this post war belief that technology will allow us to uncover the secrets of kind of human behaviors that were not accessible prior to this technology.

[Bridget Armstrong]

The first show to test out this theory was Candid Camera. You might remember iterations of it from the 70s 90s and early 2000s, but the show first premiered in 1948.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

Smile your uncandid camera they were like mini psychological experiments and there would generally be a mark. So someone who didn't know that they were being recorded, that was key. And one of the more famous examples involves an elevator full of people who were all part of the production.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

The gentleman in the elevator now is a Candid star. These folks who are entering, the man with a white shirt, the lady with a trench coat, and subsequently one other member of our staff will face the rear.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

When the mark walks in, the person who doesn't know he's being recorded, the people in the elevator all turn at once to the left. And he looks around, he's a little confused, and then he turns.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

And you'll see how this man in the trench coat. Tries to maintain his individuality. But little by little.

[Bridget Armstrong]

He looks at.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

His watch, but he's really making an excuse for turning just a little bit.

[Perez Hilton]

More to the wall now, which.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Try it once again.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

Then they all turn to the back and he again is like, well, damn, okay? And he turns.

[Bridget Armstrong]

And this goes on for a while. Everyone in this elevator just randomly turning at the same time, and this poor guy following their lead. In 1948, this was peak television. Audiences could watch real people experiencing seemingly real dilemmas and see how they would react. It was punked before. Punked. But Candid Cameras host Alan Funt wasn't just playing these practical jokes for shits and giggles. He was interested in something deeper.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

A lot of this has to do with post World War II culture and the sense of what makes groupthink happen. How could these atrocities of World War II have happened to just normal, regular, moral people?

[Bridget Armstrong]

Remember what Dr. Stein said about the Stanford Prison Experiment in the 1970s? Those researchers were also interested in what drove people to commit atrocities during World War II. This guy, Allen Funt, was looking into it 30 years before, and he made it entertaining.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

So there was a lot of investigation into that in the world of psychology, and Alan Funt was very interested in that as a result. Candid Camera was actually studied a lot in the 60s by psychologists.

[Bridget Armstrong]

But not all reality programming was a deep psychological exploration. Some of it was a lot more reminiscent of contemporary reality tv. People laying their pain and trauma bare in front of audiences in the hopes of gaining fame, fortune, and, in this case, nominal prizes.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Would you like to be Queen for today?

[Amanda Ann Klein]

Queen for a Day ran from the middle 40s up through the mid-60s. First it was on radio, and then starting in 1956, it goes onto TV.

[Bridget Armstrong]

When it comes to early reality TV shows, this one might be the most disturbing of all. And I think it tells us a lot about later prize based shows like Top Model.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

The premise of Queen for a Day is pretty wild. So women write into the show and they tell the producers about their sob story and it's pretty bad stuff. A woman whose son has polio and he's bed bound, so she wants a rolling bed so she can take him out into the sun. A woman who has a lot of children, she just wants wood so she can build bunk beds for them to sleep in. It's awful. So they picked four women and they're all seated in the audience. They come up, the host interviews them, and at the end of the show, they place all the women on camera and the audience claps for the saddest story. And then the winner becomes Queen for a Day and they get the thing that they asked for.

[Bridget Armstrong]

The show was shot in front of a studio audience and these matronly women are escorted on stage by young models in many dresses to meet this host who's honestly just over the top. Every episode is riddled with ads and sponsorship plugs. Like literally every five minutes they're trying to sell you Saran Wrap or jewelry or Worcestershire sauce. For some reason, this particular episode you're about to hear was sponsored by the egg industry. So all the contestants have something to do with eggs. The first woman works the night shift as an egg candler, which apparently is the person who takes the bad eggs off the conveyor belt before they're packaged well. My husband has been disabled for the last 10 years and it's been up to me to make a living. And I've been very thankful that I've had a good job that I could. This woman went on the show because it was offering her something she couldn't afford. A set of adjustable stools so that she and her co workers could sit more comfortably as they sort the eggs. These were mostly working white women at a time when only a quarter to a third of white women were worked outside of their homes. This is also in an era of respectability politics, a time when you didn't air your dirty laundry even to your neighbors. And these women are going on national television saying they're broke and they're not doing it for fame. They're doing it because they've been promised the chance to win. You can even see it in the episode and hear it in their voices. They're nervous, uncomfortable even. Like this next woman who ran a chicken farm with her husband. She had a pained, nervous look on her face. She's fidgeting Almost shaking. She doesn't even know how to answer the questions.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

How many kids you got?

[Bridget Armstrong]

Three.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

How many chicken?

[Bridget Armstrong]

About 7,000.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Oh, boy. How many eggs did a chicken lay a day?

[Annabe Sofas Advertiser]

Ours?

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Yeah.

[Bridget Armstrong]

About 3,000 right now.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

You didn't hear the question, I guess. How many eggs does us chicken lay? Oh, if you got one lay 7,000, you and I can get pretty rich.

[Bridget Armstrong]

On the average one a day, I think.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

How many roosters per lady chicken?

[Jess Sims]

None.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

She's new in the egg business.

[Bridget Armstrong]

There's no way this woman was on the show to be famous like reality TV contestants we see today. She was on queen for a day because she desperately wanted to get her son an expensive gift. I would like to have more than anything in the world a record player for my boy. He just had open heart surgery in February.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

How old is this old boy?

[Bridget Armstrong]

15. He was 15 Saturday.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

What's his name?

[Bridget Armstrong]

Chester Ayers.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Oh, Chet.

[Bridget Armstrong]

And it only gets more sad and desperate. Woman number three, whose husband was apparently a teacher, pastor and eggman, wanted an intercom so she could keep track of her five kids. I candle eggs in the egg room quite long. And I got to keep track of the children in the house. Sure. And it's quite a ways to run back and forth. And finally there was woman number four who maybe had the most odd but sweet request. I like to have 80 moo moos.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Now that. That scared me a little bit. Two you could use. But she wanted 80. And what a nice reason to tell her.

[Bridget Armstrong]

I have a daughter in pacific state hospital and they're going to have a luau this fall and I wanted the moo moos for the girls.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Explain, if you don't mind, what is that school that your little daughter attends? It's a special school.

[Bridget Armstrong]

It's a school for the handicapped.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

And they're going to have a luau. You want 80 little girls to go to this luau all dressed in muumus? I can't think of a nicer thing for those kids. Now we're going to have a queen right now. And here we go. Number one, Mrs. Irma Franklin.

[Perez Hilton]

Number one.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Thank you. Number two. You want a phonograph of that boy?

[Bridget Armstrong]

Number two. The crowd chose number four, the muumu lady. But the muumus were not her only prize.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

And here's a good way to start with this handsome queen for a day watch by Hellbros. It was designed just for our queens and has two tiny diamond encrusted crowns adorning the face. Now you put in a lot of work There. And I'm sure that the perfect way to relax at day's end will be a great comfort to you. It's with a jacuzzi, whirlpool bat.

[Bridget Armstrong]

She also got a canopy bed, a gift certificate to shop in a catalog. And you'll love this. The woman who ran an egg farm got a year's supply of eggs.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

What really makes the show so surreal is that not only does she get the prize she asked for, but she gets all these sponsor gifts and they're completely inappropriate for the women that are going to win this. So it's like outfits for the country club. Every woman will look chic in this matching polyester tennis outfit. It's outrageous. There's this huge disconnect. So when we talk about ethics and reality TV, even back in the 50s, we were doing some pretty suspect things.

[Bridget Armstrong]

This point Amanda makes is the reason why we just listened to all of that. Other than I just wanted y' all to hear how ridiculous that show is. Almost from the beginning, when we decided to put real people on television to hear their real stories, the ethical lines were blurred. These women were more than likely not rich. I mean, the first woman couldn't even afford some stools. But producers understood that if they dangled the promise of something people couldn't otherwise get on their own, they would be willing to do stuff they wouldn't normally do. It's something we saw all the time on antm. Queen for a Day is an early example of how desperation became entertainment. By the time Tyra Banks and Kim Mott came along, they intuitively understood that the most desperate people make the best contestants. For a long time. Candid Camera, Queen for a Day and game shows were really the only type of reality television programming. That is, until the mother of reality TV as we know it premiered in the 1970s on PBS of all places.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

During the next hour, you will see the first in a series of programs entitled An American Family.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

An American Family comes out in 1973. It is a PBS show and it is what we would consider the first serialized form of reality tv. What made An American Family different is that it told a story, a continuous story across episodes.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

The series is about the William C. Loud family of Santa Barbara, California. For seven months from May 30, 1971 to January 1, 1972, the family was filmed as they went about their daily routine.

[Bridget Armstrong]

An American Family doesn't sound like the reality TV we watch today. It just sounds like a really mundane documentary about the day to day lives of a typical family. But when you think about it, being there to capture their day to day life while happening to catch the truly unhinged. Drama is the basis of all docusop reality. Think about the Kardashians or the Real Housewives or Jersey Shore. An American Family pioneered the whole genre. Half of ATM was the plot of the modeling competition, but the other half was about the drama in the house. You know, who stole my granola bar? An American Family was the earliest example of this type of reality tv.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

It's the first time people said, come into my house, come into my life. You're inviting the camera in. Which is a very different relationship with the camera. I teach it in my reality TV class. And one thing that I find interesting is how the students get frustrated with the downtime because we're so used to reality shows kind of, you know, give us this, give us that, give us the reaction. Whereas this was more in kind of the direct cinema documentary tradition where you might just see someone, you know, their finger drumming on the table for a while as a boring conversation happens.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Who's coming up tonight?

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Oh, just, you know, a bunch of kids and friends and things.

[Bridget Armstrong]

What's Kevin doing?

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Kevin? Nothing much. What are his plans for the new year?

[Bridget Armstrong]

Zero. But eventually some real life drama happened.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

They got a lot of crazy content out of that because the husband and wife ultimately divorce by the end.

[Bridget Armstrong]

A tense breakup unfolding before our eyes. Oh, now is starting to sound familiar. And that wasn't the only scandalous thing happening in this average American family.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

Their son basically comes out as gay. It's very coded. But there's a whole episode of his mother visiting him at the Chelsea Hotel in New York where like, they go to this crazy drag show.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Oh, now we got some controversy, at least by 1973 standards.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

And it obviously caused a huge stir when it came out. Some people were like, it's the end of America, right? We're seeing an American family fall apart, where, you know, we've got this guy who's clearly gay.

[Bridget Armstrong]

The family's son Lance later came out as gay. I don't think in American Family producers knew Lance was in the process of coming out when they chose to cast the Loud family. But it became the most interesting thing about the whole show. Years later, when the reality genre started to pick up, producers took a page from An American Family. They cast people who were outsiders, who were different because that brought in viewers. Even with all the makings of great reality tv, An American Family didn't really inspire any other reality programming for a while. It was Seen as an artsy docuseries, not something to be replicated season after season after it. We had shows like Cops, which presented itself as raw reality from the perspective of the Police Star Search, which I guess is a bit like American Idol and America's Funniest Home Videos, where every week a lucky family was rewarded for catching the moment when some poor dad gets knocked upside the head with a pinata stick. But nothing like an American family. That is, until 1992, when MTV premiered the Real World. This is the true story. True story. Seven strangers picked to live in a.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Loft and have their lives taped to find out what happens.

[Bridget Armstrong]

What when people stop being polite.

[Perez Hilton]

Could you get the phone and start getting real?

[Bridget Armstrong]

The Real World.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

The reason why they decide to do the Real World at MTV is because their ratings were kind of flagging. They still obviously did a lot of music videos, but people were kind of losing interest. And so they saw that something that young audiences really loved was Beverly Hills 90210. So MTV thought, let's do that. Let's do a scripted show. But it turns out it's really expensive, right? You need writers, you need actors, all that stuff. So instead they went for a reality TV format.

[Bridget Armstrong]

If you go back to the first season of the Real World, you'll notice that everyone was an artist of some kind trying to make it in New York City. It was a group of young dancers, actors, rappers and singers all hoping to get their big break.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

They were actually led to believe that this was going to really focus on their art and kind of launch their careers.

[Bridget Armstrong]

MTV's the Real World was the first time when people started using reality TV as a platform or a means to launch the career they actually wanted. At this point, there was no such thing as a reality star. And for the first two seasons, the show was, well, boring and the ratings were bad. That is, until the third season featured Pedro Zamora, an HIV positive gay man.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

I am a person living with aids and I am a gay man, and I am Hispanic. I'm a person of color, and this is simply who I am, you know?

[Amanda Ann Klein]

The AIDS crisis was kind of at its peak at that time. It was pretty remarkable to put an HIV positive gay man on tv.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Pedro was a sympathetic hero you could root for, but this wasn't an artsy docuseries. They needed to bring the drama to stay on air. And every hero needs a villain. Enter Puck, who is antagonistic and openly homophobic. Great idea, right?

[Amanda Ann Klein]

They put on someone who was abrasive, who didn't back down. And as A result, you had your perfect villain and you had your perfect victim. Very melodramatic structure.

[Bridget Armstrong]

That structure eventually became the backbone of reality tv. Producers understood that rooting for your faves isn't as fun without someone to root against. And that tried and true formula is something we see season after season on a certain reality modeling competition show. I don't think casting Pedro was some altruistic act humanizing the AIDS crisis. I think they were using his identity to stir up conflict, just like I think ANTM did when they cast Isis King as the show's first trans woman. The real world success was a turning point in the history of reality TV. After 1995, new shows started popping up like daisies. Judge Judy making the band, Big Brother, Fear Factor, the Amazing Race, American Idol, the Bachelor, Survivor. And here's one big reason reality TV exploded. It's a lot cheaper to make than scripted programming. Networks realized they could get the same viewership for a fraction of the cost of a show like Gilmore Girls or X Files. There were no pesky actors unions, no costume designers, and no writers.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

So this creates a perfect environment for something like reality TV because of how cheap it is, because you can avoid union labor and all of those things. The other factor is the rise of tabloid culture at this time. So, you know, there were always tabloid magazines. You know, when I was a kid, my grandmother loved the Inquirer and I think she called them the Scandal Sheets, which is such a great, such a great term. But they really take off. And as a society, we get very interested in seeing seen celebrities caught unawares. And as a result, you have these individuals who we called at the time, I think we called them like celebutantes, people who were famous for being famous. This was an outrageous idea to people at the time. They just couldn't believe it. So Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, people who didn't do anything. They just kind of existed as pretty rich girls who go and party.

[Bridget Armstrong]

And this is where reality TV history meets a young Tyra Banks who had an idea to cash in on this newly evolved genre. And we just spent 10 episodes talking about how that went. After the break, we're revisiting ANTM's worst tropes and their dark history. And then I'll be signing off for real. This real.

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[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

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[Perez Hilton]

Amazon Five Star Theater presents real customer reviews performed by Ed Helms. Tonight's review Tactical Jacket I was living a simple life. Didn't get out much. Then I bought this jacket and everything changed. Women came flocking to me from lands domestic and foreign. I bought a motorcycle, started hanging out with drug dealers. But like rich ones and we flew helicopters. I ended up taking down a communist regime with a band of rebels. On the 245 day sailboat voyage home, I was attacked by a shark. I knew it was the jacket he was after. I tossed it, giving up the jacket in exchange for my life. I'm alive today, but jacketless. We'll buy this jacket again soon. 5 stars Amazon Customer 69 thank you for listening to Amazon 5 star theater looking for unforgettable gifts this holiday season Like a jacket that becomes your whole personality. Shop the perfect gift this holiday on Amazon.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Back in episode seven, we explored the angry black woman trope. ANTM had a pattern of casting and editing contestants to fit the stereotype that black women are loud, mean, bitter, confrontational, belligerent divas. If we didn't get kicked off for hitting somebody, your ass will be toe up right now. Shut up, T shirt. She not come up to me and say that.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

Bri, your anger is with genuine tr.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Honestly, I don't feel it. You in my competition and I don't feel that you're my competition. Your body type is not better than me. I'll be Shaya no matter what. Any girl up in this room say. Shaya gonna be Shaya no matter what. Anybody, right? But ANTM didn't invent the ABW trope. They just did it really well. The trope has history.

[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

Yes, sir.

[Bridget Armstrong]

The Amos and Andy Show There was a radio sitcom called Amos and Andy that ran from the 20s until the early 1960s. It was also briefly on television. The characters Amos and Andy were two black men who moved up north from down south for a better life. On the radio program, the two men who voiced Amos and Andy were white. They used offensive accents that were supposed to mock black dialect. The show was extremely racist and extremely popular. There was one central woman on the show. Her name was Sapphire. The character was voiced by an actual black woman, Ernestine Wade. But it was still a demeaning caricature of black women. Sapphire didn't have any redeeming qualities. She was always loud, rude, overbearing and angry. You is a lazy loafer and you ain't never supported me in 22 years. You ain't got no ambition. You is the weakest, most finest character I done ever met. And you ain't ever done nothing to make a home for me. And I'm leaving. You sound familiar? When Amos and Andie was on air, there were very few roles for black people in Hollywood. This actress, Ernestine Wade, was actually a theater trained performer, singer and musician. But she was relegated to one note roles like Sapphire. The Sapphire character confirmed widely held racist beliefs at the time about black women. And that trope took root in American entertainment. I could do an entire podcast just on the variations and evolutions of Sapphire in media. The Sapphire character never died. She just became the angry black woman. Okay, y' all still with me? Let's take a trip to a more recent history. A time when most of us were alive, although we may wish we didn't have to live through this. I'm talking about the early 2000s, a period of rampant body shaming. ANTM is in the pantheon of body shaming offenders from this era. And I want to give y' all some context about the 2000s culture that birthed Top Model. Jess Sims is a health writer and she remembers just how brutal the odds were on women's bodies.

[Jess Sims]

America's Next Top Model is such a tip of the iceberg in terms of what we're looking at. We had, I always say, a really good example was the treatment of Renee Zellweger. Renee Zellweger was in Bridget Jones Diary.

[Bridget Armstrong]

The movie Bridget Jones Diary came out in 2001 and it took America by storm. The entire premise was that Bridget Jones was fat, frumpy, and looking for love. But Bridget Jones was no more than a size 10 and weighed 136 pounds. Renee Zellweger put on weight for the role and lost it afterwards. For years, she says strangers would come up to her on the street and ask, how did you lose that weight? She refused to answer the question. Here's writer Jess Sims again.

[Jess Sims]

In the early 2000s, no matter what your body looked like, it was a problem. We also have Jessica Simpson.

[Bridget Armstrong]

In 2009, there was a photo of pop star Jessica Simpson on stage at a concert.

[Jess Sims]

She's wearing these high waisted denim jeans and a leopard print belt and it was on the news cycle for a good two or three weeks.

[Bridget Armstrong]

The photo went early 2000s viral, not because Jessica Simpson was doing anything in it, but because she had gained some weight. Jessica Simpson rose to fame in the late 90s when she was a literal teenager and because she had the nerve to be bigger than she was. When she was 17, she found her picture on the COVID of all the tabloids and the subject of a lot of blog posts, blogs like Perez Hilton's. His name kept coming up while I was interviewing people for this podcast and I'm glad I decided to interview him myself because it was illuminating. I have some more clips from our interview. I'll share in a minute. But first, here's what Jess Sims had to say about Perez's role in that body shaming era.

[Jess Sims]

We saw people who got famous off of being cruel to fat people. I always talk about Perez Hilton who tried to turn a new leaf, which I always find to be very bizarre because he was disgustingly cruel to all women. He's such a good example of how gay men can be so misogynistic. Beyond his calls for Britney Spears to hurt herself, which he was Very open about and was very persistent. His coverage of women's bodies is a really good example of how the media were able to make money off of discussing women's bodies. And these weren't people who were journalists. Not a journalistic code of ethics.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Writer Michelle Konstantinofsky also had thoughts about Perez's impact. In the climate of the early 2000s.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

Tabloid culture was beyond out of control at that point. We all remember, you know, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie either being celebrated or torn apart, depending on the day.

[Bridget Armstrong]

You know, in the Perez Hilton of.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

It all, all of the bloggers who.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Felt very comfortable not only displaying women's.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

Bodies, but literally circling parts of them and magnifying them and saying what was wrong with them. But the Perez Hilton culture just kept.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Doubling down and doubling down on how.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

It'S not only acceptable to dissect and almost like take glee in mocking women's bodies, but it's expected.

[Bridget Armstrong]

That's what we do as a culture. Perez was one of the absolute worst when it came to body shaming. This is the man who said one of Bruce Willis daughters was a fugly child. He described the OC's Mischa Barton's thighs as being barfalicious. And he once called Britney Spears Fat Elvis in a headline. No one was off limits. These days, though, Perez is singing a slightly different tune. He's been on a bit of an apology tour. When I interviewed him, I had prepared some hard hitting questions about the damage he caused with his post, but he came out swinging.

[Perez Hilton]

I take full accountability for everything I did. I can't blame ignorance and I can't blame youth. I was in my late 20s and I was so selfish. I was incredibly selfish. I knew at the time that what I was doing was wrong and I didn't care. I was selfish. I cared about me. I cared about the clicks, the page view. I was purposefully trying to be shocking. Cause that worked. It got attention, it got me views, and it got me success. I was horrible and I was rewarded for it.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Whether or not this mea culpa is genuine, Perez knows what to say. And that's strikingly different than what we hear from, say, Tyra Banks.

[Perez Hilton]

Attention is a very powerful drug, and I was an attention addict.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Perez might have changed his ways, but the thing is, today there are millions of perezes. When reality TV started 80 years ago, it was openly deemed a social and psychological experiment. Then it became normal. And today we're in the middle of a new psychological experiment, one that's hard to opt out of Amanda Klein again.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

It feels like right now everything is reality tv because, you know, first of all, of course, social media, you can hate. Follow people online and come on, we all do it because they're drama and they put all their mess out there and you're like, oh, what's messy up to today? So, like, that's your personal reality show.

[Bridget Armstrong]

And we're all the main character in our own story. Amanda thinks it's changing the way we approach our daily lives.

[Amanda Ann Klein]

You see something happening, you pull your phone out. Not because you want to remember it later. It's because you're like, ooh, content. I don't have a big social media following, but even I'm like, oh, this is so interesting. Let me get this. We're all reality TV producers. We're all curating the world for other people. And I don't think that's a good thing because I think that's changing the way we view each other. We are viewing other people as content, so we're more prone to view each other, I think, as characters. Now.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Reality TV started this phenomenon of wanting to watch real people in ridiculous situations and everyday dramas. And now, in a way, we're all on a reality show whether we want to be or not. That's all for this very special bonus episode. Thanks for listening to the Curse of America's Next Top Model. Someone once told me, in this business, the only reward you get is to get to do it again. And my team and I worked really hard, so. So if you want another season or more episodes, the best way to let us know is by leaving a five star rating and a glowing review. All right, roll the credits one last time. The Curse of America's Next Top Model is a production of Glass Podcast, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart podcast. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass, hosted and singer produced by me, Bridget Armstrong. Our story editor is Monique Laborde. Also produced by Ben Federman and Andrea Gunning. Associate producers are Alaisha Key, Kristin Melcurry and Curry Richmond. Consulting producers on this podcast are Oliver Twixt and Kate Taylor. Our iHeart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krynczyk. Audio editing and mixing on this episode by Matt Del Vecchio and Dean Welch. The Curse of America's Next Top Model theme was composed by Oliver Baines Music library, provided by My Music. Special thanks to everyone we interviewed, especially the former contestants. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Also check out the @glass podcast Instagram for Curse of America's Next Top Model behind the Scenes Content.

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[Bridget Armstrong]

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[Amanda Ann Klein]

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[Podcast Narrator / Various Historical Voices]

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[Bridget Armstrong]

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[Amanda Ann Klein]

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[Bridget Armstrong]

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[Bridget Armstrong]

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[Bridget Armstrong]

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