20 Reality Shows With Disturbingly Dark Downsides

Ah, reality TV. Can’t live with it -- Anyway, reality TV may be fun and quirky and full of awkward zooms, but we can always sense something isn’t quite right. An entire genre built on desperation and artificial drama almost by definition entails that something must be hiding somewhere -- the dark. No, not the Kardashians, we mean actual dark downsides to all the gloss. Behind the scenes, the apparent spontaneity of reality TV shows machinations, even manipulation, entire lives ruined just to keep millions of judging strangers glued to their seats with empty fluff.

Now, our favorite reality show is Pregnant in Heels, so we had to do some digging. What we found is that, indeed, in order to sustain such an artificial form of “reality,” some dark things must be kept out of sight. And we mean truly dark, like drug addictions, child abuse, forced precarization, psychological manipulation, or Donald Trump. Truly chilling stuff. Following the lead of some true Cracked classics, in this list we gather 20 disturbingly dark downsides of reality shows -- that is, besides their very existence.