reality blurred: reality tv reviews, reality show recaps, and news

News & updates

• ❑ Friday, Apr. 18, 8:45 am | Andy Dehnart

  Peacock will follow Love Island USA "around Los Angeles as they navigate new careers, evolving friendships, newfound fame and complex relationships outside of the Love Island villa" for a new series, Love Island: Beyond the Villa. Will anyone care to watch Islanders while they're wearing clothes?

• ❑ Thursday, Apr. 17, 9:54 pm | Andy Dehnart

  Padma Lakshmi created and will host a new CBS cooking competition, America's Culinary Cup.

  CBS describes the show, which will air next summer, as "an invitation-only cast of the nation’s most decorated chefs as they embark on a one-of-a-kind competition designed to challenge their creativity, endurance, presentation, leadership and more."

• ❑ Tuesday, Apr. 15, 10:18 am | Andy Dehnart

  Survivor 47’s Teeny Chirichillo wrote in Cosmpolitan about his Survivor experience, and how, while fan response "felt like an extreme pressure to be this genderfluid representative, what it really did was open the door for everyone in my life to know I’m not cisgender without my having to initiate these conversations."

• ❑ Sunday, Apr. 13, 11:22 am | Andy Dehnart

  How shocking: Mickey Rourke has been booted from the Celebrity Big Brother house for what ITV called "inappropriate language" and "instances of unacceptable behaviour," BBC News reported. He'd previously been warned after using "offensive and unacceptable" language about JoJo Siwa and her sexuality.

• ❑ Saturday, Apr. 12, 1:46 pm | Andy Dehnart

  As a fan of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, I cannot stand Gordon Ramsay's slide into histrionic bullshit.

  So I just rolled my eyes at the latest attempt to one-up this tired formula, Gordon Ramsay’s Secret Service, in which "Gordon Ramsay trades his signature chef knives for a state-of-the-art surveillance vehicle and cutting-edge spyware" and will "infiltrate the restaurant after-hours for a dramatic nighttime black light kitchen investigation."
  
  But oh, did I laugh and laugh at the fact that Gordon Ramsay is going to use "spyware"—certainly not "spycraft"!—in his new series.

• ❑ Friday, Apr. 11, 4:39 pm | Andy Dehnart

  David Siegel, a guest on Below Deck, participant in Celebrity Wife Swap, and monstrous star of The Queen of Versailles died April 5.

  His wife Jackie Siegel's sister died two days later. Jackie wrote on Instagram that it was from "a scourge we as a family sadly know too well – accidental drug overdose."

  David and Jackie's daughter Victoria died at 18 from a drug overdose. She was prominently featured in the documentary; if you haven't seen it, it's on Hulu and Hoopla, and free on Tubi until tomorrow.

• ❑ Friday, Apr. 11, 3:31 pm | Andy Dehnart

  Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio—fresh off of blaming a marketing agency for tweeting banana emojis at Taylor Hale, Big Brother’s first Black female winner, which resulted in Johnny's fans tweeting racist things at her—was the first suitor on Netflix's disastrous attempt at a live version of the YouTube series Pop the Balloon.

  After all the women rejected him, he critiqued them, starting with toes, and told a Black woman, "You look like you sleep from a tree upside down." Decider has clips.

• ❑ Tuesday, Apr. 8, 8:27 pm | Andy Dehnart

  Tiffany Derry is MasterChef’s new judge; she's joining the Fox show for season 15 alongside Joe Bastianich and Gordon Ramsay. That may explain why she left Bobby's Triple Threat. The new season is titled MasterChef: Dynamic Duos and features an Amazing Race-like cast of duos.

• ❑ Tuesday, Apr. 8, 3:38 pm | Andy Dehnart

  Brent Freeburg is the Below Deck camera operator who saved deckhand Ashton's life when Ashton's foot got caught in a line and was dragged off the boat during season six. This year, he was fighting for his own life.

  In February, Brent was hospitalized, comatose and suffering from strokes and subdural hematoma. Like so many freelancers who work on reality TV shows, he was without insurance. Now he's recovering in a sub-acute care facility. His mother gave a detailed account of his medical ordeals on a GoFundMe page set up to help cover costs of his care.

• ❑ Monday, Apr. 7, 8:03 pm | Sarah D. Bunting

  The Rock is writing a true-crime book. "Oh, obviously." Well, actually it does make sense -- Dwayne Johnson is set to star in an upcoming Scorsese pic about Hawaiian OC kingpin Wilford "Nappy" Pulawa; Vanity Fair's Nick Bilton, the screenwriter on that project, is also Johnson's co-author. I'm not super-stoked about all the "can you read what The Rock is writing?" heds that await us, but I'd give the book a look, come the day...