This is in conversation from Apple News. I'm Sam Sanders sitting in for Shimita Basu. Today, how real is reality TV.

All right, I will admit, as we start this episode, I am a big reality TV fan, really big.

But dear listener, even if you don't watch reality TV, you know it.

The Bachelor, Survivor, Love is Blind, Vanderpump Rules,

all the real housewives.

I could go on.

All of those shows I just listed, they rank among the most popular

TV shows in the US year after year. But, and we've known this for a while,

there are big questions about just how real

these reality shows are.

Heavy edited would be an appropriate term.

Things were cut and edited a certain way.

So much of it was not what I remember doing and saying.

It was mentally taxing.

Physical and emotional manipulation tactics.

I felt worse than I've ever felt in my life.

I felt like there wasn't a fair shot for us.

The whole experience is hell on earth.

It was horrible.

Nobody who works in reality television is shocked by producers lying to or manipulating or causing

cast members to cry because that's literally what your job is. I'm not saying

that every producer is a monster, but that's literally the definition of what they do.

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