21 Extremely Dark Things I Can't Believe Actually Happened While Filming Reality Shows
1. Steve Irwin, star of Animal Planet's The Crocodile Hunter, died in September 2006 after a stingray pierced his chest with its tail spine. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Irwin had been "doing some shallow water shots for his daughter Bindi's TV show, Bindi the Jungle Girl," when the stingray attacked him. He was then pronounced dead at the scene.
2. Diem Brown, a cast member of The Challenge, collapsed on set in 2014 while shooting Battle of the Exes 2. She was rushed to a New York hospital for emergency surgery related to ovarian cancer that had metastasized to her colon and stomach. Footage of her flight from Panama to NY for the surgery was included in the show and marked her last words on the show, "I'm at a point in my life where I want to just live life," before she died on November 14, 2014.
3. In Season 3 of Deadliest Catch, a search and rescue mission for a four-man crew of a sunken ship found only "one survivor, an empty survival suit, and two dead crewmen floating in the water."
4. In fact, there have been several more deaths while filming Deadliest Catch. During Season 6, fisherman and star Phil Harris died after suffering a stroke while off-loading crab in 2010.
5. And Tom Brossard, an engineer on the Deadliest Catch boat the Saga, died suddenly of a heart attack during Season 20. In Episode 16, cast member and captain of the Titan Explorer, Jake Anderson, received a call from his wife informing him of Brossard's death. Brossard had been one of his former crew members.
6. Outside of the deaths on Deadliest Catch, many cast members have sustained gruesome injuries while filming/working on their boats, too. Like the time, deck boss, Mike Vanderbilt lost the tip of his finger after slipping on ice on deck in Season 8. His hand got stuck between the launcher and a crab pot, causing the severe injury.
7. Mexican American singer Jenni Rivera — who starred in her own show, I Love Jenni — and several members of her inner circle, died in a plane crash in 2012 in the middle of filming Season 3. The final season explored the aftermath of her death.
8. Storage Wars star Darrell Sheets revealed during the series special, Unlocked, that he once found a corpse, wrapped in plastic, inside a locker that he bought back in 1988. According to Sheets, the police told him a man had murdered his wife and left her in the unit.
9. Gerald Babin, a contestant on Koh-Lanta (the French version of Survivor), died during filming. Babin suffered cardiac arrest after jumping off a boat and participating in a tug-of-war challenge. As a result, production was stopped, and the show was canceled for the 2013 season...
...Just one week later, a doctor, Thierry Costa, who had worked on Koh-Lanta and performed emergency care on Babin, died by suicide. In a suicide note, Costa said that his name had been "sullied by the media" in relation to the death of Babin.
10. During the filming of another French reality show, Dropped, in 2015, two helicopters crashed, killing 10 people. Pegged as an adventure reality show, it was to follow eight sports stars who would be blindfolded and dropped in the wild. The show was canceled after the tragic accident.
11. During the 2013 season of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, more than 100 ticks were removed from the celebrities and show's crew...
...and one crew member apparently even suffered "severe anaphylactic shock" from a tick bite.
12. Shain Gandee, star of the MTV series Buckwild, along with two others, was found dead in a truck as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. MTV suspended filming of Season 2 and ultimately canceled the show.
13. While filming the show Teen Mom, a source who worked on the show alleged that police and CPS had to be called multiple times over the years because situations got so "scary."
14. While filming an "Untitled Military Project" show for the Discovery Channel, a helicopter crashed, killing the three people on board. The victims were helicopter pilot David Gibbs, 59, along with Darren Rydstrom, 45, crew of the show, and Michael Donatelli, 45, a cast member.
15. A show called Under Wild Skies on NBC Sports Network (and funded by the NRA) was canceled after the show's host, Tony Makris "shot an elephant in the face and then compared his critics to Adolf Hitler."
16. During an unaired episode of Fear Factor from the 2011–2012 revival run, contestants were challenged with drinking donkey urine and semen. According to host Joe Rogan, the stunt was so disturbing it was the reason the show got canceled (again). Although the episode was unaired on TV, MTV has since uploaded the challenge onto YouTube.
17. Paula Goodspeed, a contestant on American Idol who was reportedly "infatuated" with judge Paula Abdul, died by suicide "a few doors down" from Abdul's Los Angeles home in 2008. Goodspeed appeared on the show during Season 5 in 2006, where she had been "ridiculed and flatly rejected" by the judges during her audition.
According to ABC News, Abdul later told the hosts of The View"that Goodspeed had been stalking her for 17 years and later told co-host Barbara Walters on Walters' radio show that she pleaded with Cowell and the producers not to let Goodspeed audition."
The story continued, "They did, [Abdul] said, for the 'entertainment value. It's fun for them to cause me stress. This was something that would make good television.'"
18. Robert Buchel, who appeared in Season 6 of My 600-Lb Life, died while filming the show. According to Distractify, Buchel "was seeking Dr. Now's help when he came in at 840 pounds and managed to drop 340 pounds with the help of the celebrity bariatric surgeon."
The article continued, "However, Robert also had a painkiller addiction, and he suffered a fatal heart attack while filming his episode of the TLC show. His story (Season 6, Episode 8) aired four months after he passed away."
19. Joey Kovar, a cast member on MTV's The Real World: Hollywood"battled drug and alcohol addiction until he was eventually asked to leave the series." Kovar later went on to appear on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew in 2009, but died a few years later in 2012 as a result of "opiate intoxication."
Raymond Boyd / Getty Images
20. During the third season of Swamp People, one of its stars, Mitchell Guist, died on May 12, 2012, reportedly from natural causes. Authorities said Guist was working on a houseboat when he apparently had a seizure and fell backward in his boat. He was with another (unnamed) person at the time, who called 911 and performed CPR. The episode "Voodoo Bayou," which aired on May 17, was dedicated to him.
Discovery / CNN / Via youtube.com
21. Finally, Gabriel Ben-Meir, a music coordinator for MTV's show Punk'd and other shows was shot and killed outside his home in Los Angeles in May 2011. According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Two suspects, Jabaar Vincent Thomas and Destiny Young, were later charged with second-degree murder. The motive, according to authorities: robbery."
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