The victim of an extreme gameshow has addressed what he went through.
Aspiring comedian Nasubi was forced to eat dog food to stop himself from starving, kept away from any other human for hundreds of days at a time, stripped naked and had to do handstands to stop himself from going crazy.
The contestant’s genitalia was covered by an aubergine emoji and he was locked away in an empty apartment where he had to win prizes to survive. The Japanese show, A Life In Prizes, pulled in a whopping 30 million viewers a week at its peak back in 1998.
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A Life In Prizes has been described as the real life Truman Show and is the subject of a Hulu documentary titled The Contestant. Nasubi was none the wiser as on the outside world, his activities were being broadcast to the whole of Japan to more than $15 million viewers.
The now 48-year-old confessed that he had no idea he was being filmed. He told CBS: “I watched a little bit at first but it brought back all kinds of painful memories so I couldn’t watch all of it.”
Nasubi, who spent 15 months in isolation, added: “The producers didn’t give me any detailed explanations so I was very concerned and confused about how I was going to survive in this place.”
To win everything he needed to survive, Nasubi took part in mini competitions and was awarded with essentials throughout the experiment. He was left alone with just a telephone that he was told to use only in an emergency.
“I definitely understood that if I didn’t write these postcards [for the competition], I wouldn’t be able to live.”
Nasubi wrote a whopping 300 sweepstakes a day and it took him three weeks to earn his first prize. TV bosses allowed him to eat crackers to stop him from wasting away.
(Image: Hulu)
When asked what he thought he’d gotten himself into, Nasubi told CBS: “At first I was excited and I was thinking about all kinds of things, like how to do something funny in this space. After about a week I began to worry about whether I could really continue this on my own.”
“The hardest part was definitely the loneliness. I couldn’t quite overcome those feelings.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
