Reality Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      ‘Love Is Blind’: Body Language Expert Offers Clues for Season 7

      by

      As Season 7 begins, an expert says figuring out a participant’s motivation is both an art and a science.Grab a golden goblet. The Netflix series “Love Is Blind” is back, with the first episode of its seventh season having been released on Wednesday, with the host Nick Lachey learning what a situationship is. The series that inspired drinking games (take a sip every time someone says the phrase “genuine connection”) — and is both a reality show and a social experiment — set up shop in Washington, D.C., this time to help 29 singles find love.The premise, of course, is that the singles can’t see whom they are dating because of a glowing blue wall between them intended to eliminate all of the superficial things that might get in the way of love. Once a couple decides to get engaged, they see each other for the first time and attempt to make their relationship work, with all of the complications that phones, work and physical attraction bring.Over the past few seasons, the nagging question concerning the show’s participants was: Are they here for love or for clout? (The recent season, “Love Is Blind: U.K.,” was hailed by many as a return to the show’s original vibe, for its generally emotionally healthy and low-drama cast.)CC Rice, a voice teacher, associate professor and energy reader who posts body language breakdowns of the show under the social media handle @guidedinspiration, says that figuring out a participant’s motivation is both an art and a science.“‘Love is Blind’ is this incredible opportunity to see people in private,” she said. “I’m listening for all of the cues: What do they bring up? Where do they look while they’re speaking? Are they avoidant? Are they trying to connect?”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      Frank Fritz, a Host of the Antiques Show ‘American Pickers,’ Dies at 58

      by

      He and his friend Mike Wolfe launched the treasure-hunting show in 2010, part of a wave of reality TV aimed at finding fortune in everyday items.Frank Fritz, a jocular Everyman who as one half of the duo behind the hit show “American Pickers” found ratings gold by unearthing fortunes in attics, basements and garage sales, died on Monday in Davenport, Iowa. He was 58.His manager, Bill Stankey, confirmed the death, in a hospice. He said that the cause had not been announced, but that Mr. Fritz had been dealing with a number of health issues, including Crohn’s disease and the effects of a stroke in 2022.Debuting on the History Channel in 2010, “American Pickers,” which Mr. Fritz hosted with his longtime friend Mike Wolfe, was part of a wave of reality TV shows that mined everyday Americana for stories, profit and no small amount of drama.Unlike older, more sedate shows like public television’s “Antiques Roadshow,” “American Pickers” blended serious appraisal with rough-edged personality and quirky flair.Each episode featured Mr. Fritz and Mr. Wolfe tooling around a small American town in their Sprinter van, trading quips in between visits to local homes and storage sheds, where they would pick through piles of junk to find diamonds in the rough.Mr. Fritz with his co-host, Mike Wolfe, in an “American Pickers” episode in 2011, a year after the series began. History ChannelWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      Calling ‘Survivor’ Contestants From Tim Walz’s Motorcade

      by

      Covering an election year can be stressful. But instead of binge-watching “Survivor” to decompress, two reporters wrote about the politics — or, lack thereof — on the show instead.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.When I first heard that Jon Lovett, the prominent political podcast host and former speechwriter for Barack Obama, would be a contestant on the new season of “Survivor,” I pleaded with my editor to write about it.(To answer your question, yes, “that show” is still on.)Covering politics during a tense election year in a closely divided country is often deadly serious, and rife with animosity. This seemed like an opportunity to write something lighter.To my surprise, my editor was game.I have vague memories of watching “Survivor” as a kid with my parents in the early 2000s, somewhere around the tail end of the show’s initial run of popularity. I rediscovered it when I started high school in 2012 — season 25 was airing — and was hooked. I began watching religiously, first on my own, and now with a group of friends on Wednesday nights, when the episodes air on CBS.It’s a remarkable run for a series with a relatively simple premise: A group of strangers are marooned on a remote tropical island and must work together to build shelter, forage for food and endure the elements, all while forming alliances and voting someone off the show each week. Though “Survivor” has, on occasion, injected new twists to keep seasons feeling fresh, something about the original format has stuck with viewers like me.For all the various real-life societal issues that have played out on the “Survivor” beach — racial tensions, discussions over gender and sexuality, generational divides — the announcement about Mr. Lovett, one of the hosts of the liberal podcast “Pod Save America,” made me realize that partisan politics had never been prominently featured on the show.I knew my colleague on the Politics desk, Alexandra Berzon, was also a “Survivor” fan, and would be eager to collaborate. At a Wisconsin bar one night in July, after a long day covering the Republican National Convention, Ali and I huddled in a corner, geeking out over “Survivor” factoids while our colleagues swapped political gossip.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Television

      Jessel Taank is Back For More on ‘RHONY’ Season 2

      by

      Early on a Monday evening during New York Fashion Week, Jessel Taank breezed into the Sabyasachi boutique in the West Village, passing a life-size elephant sculpture near the sidewalk. But the “Real Housewives of New York City” star couldn’t quite say what it was doing there.“Good question,” she said with a laugh. “There’s apparently a great elephant migration that I wasn’t aware happens this time of year, and Sabyasachi is celebrating that tonight.”In fact, The Great Elephant Migration is a touring art installation featuring a herd of 100 faux pachyderms, handcrafted in Tamil Nadu from a dried invasive shrub. (Actual Indian elephant migration in India happens year-round.)Such obliviousness to details seems on brand for Ms. Taank, 41. After all, who could forget when she called TriBeCa “up and coming” on the last season of the “Real Housewives of New York City”?Ms. Taank with an art installation outside the Sabyaschi fashion week party she attended on a recent Monday night. Lanna Apisukh for The New York TimesBut when she commits these faux pas, she does so with a disarming smile, one that has won over prickly fans. By the end of the show’s 14th season — and the first of the cast reboot — it was clear that she had received the villain edit, criticized for what came off as willful ignorance and bratty behavior. But she had also found a fan base so ardent that, according to Rolling Stone, its members call themselves “Taank Tops.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      When the Devoted Wife Becomes a Winning Brand

      by

      “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” the new Hulu reality show, centers on a clique of influencers in Provo, Utah. In their community, they are steered at young ages into marriages and pregnancies. But on TikTok, they converge into a #MomTok squad, executing coordinated dances in crop tops amid beige McMansions as they rack up followers and brand deals. Now they’ve been upgraded to reality television stars, a cast of frenemies who act out mean-girl scenes and hunt for loopholes in the strict codes of their church.It’s significant that the show identifies these women first as wives, not as influencers. They are professional content creators and, in some cases, family breadwinners. It is their social media popularity that landed them the show, not their unexceptional husbands. Several cast members are actually divorced.The “Mormon Wives” join an extended wife universe — see also: Bravo’s chaotic “Real Housewives” and Instagram’s ethereal tradwives — where the term “wife” no longer strictly refers to a woman’s marital status. “Wife” is a brand. In “Mormon Wives,” it suggests a woman whose public identity is defined by her relationship to the home. A woman whose worth is still measured by her proximity to the patriarchy, even as she claims that her profitable TikTok presence challenges it.These wife-themed shows and tradwife social-media accounts might qualify as simple brain-bleaching distractions, were they not proliferating during this particular presidential election season. The Trump campaign and some of its allies have repeatedly suggested that a woman’s domestic contributions are her highest calling — so much so that they have cast motherhood as a prerequisite for her participation in work outside the home. If a woman hopes to claim a role in public life, she must play the wife and mother everywhere that she goes.In comments from three years ago that resurfaced recently, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, complained of “childless cat ladies” in business and politics, and railed against the “leaders of the left,” like the American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, whom he called “people without kids trying to brainwash the minds of our children.” (Like Kamala Harris, Weingarten is a stepmother.) Last week, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas appeared alongside Donald J. Trump and suggested that because Harris has not birthed children, she has acquired a character defect unbecoming of a leader: “My kids keep me humble,” Sanders said. “Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.”Meanwhile, since Elon Musk took over Twitter, rebranded it X and transformed it into what Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic has called “a right-wing echo chamber,” my feed has featured commentary about how infant formula is poison, day care causes mental illness and children ought to be home schooled or “unschooled” by devoted mothers. Instagram and TikTok supply montages of fantasy housewives: white women in pastoral settings, wearing aprons and kerchiefs, kissing their husbands, rubbing their baby bumps and proselytizing about the benefits of beef tallow.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      7 Days in the Cultural Life of a Real Housewife of N.Y.C.

      by

      Between seasons of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” Erin Lichy is researching recipes, listening to Charli XCX and checking out fashion at the Met.Erin Lichy joined the cast of “The Real Housewives of New York City” last year, and like so many of the women on the long-running Bravo series, “housewife” doesn’t really even scratch the surface of her life. Lichy, 37, is a mother of three and sells luxury real estate in New York City and the Hamptons. She has a home on the Upper West Side and another in Sag Harbor.Before the premiere of the new season of “Real Housewives of New York City,” which is set for Oct. 1, Lichy kept track of her cultural goings-on during a busy week this summer. These are edited excerpts. (“RHONY” fans will be delighted to know that Lichy really does serve a lot of shakshuka.)On a busy summer Wednesday, Lichy visited bookstores around New York City to research recipes. Monday: Pilates and PickupsI arrived back in the Hamptons from visiting my son at sleep-away camp in Maine, then drove my two younger kids to day camp back in the Hamptons and finally got to a Pilates class. I picked up a cappuccino and a croissant at Carissa’s Bakery and got home around 10:30 a.m. to begin my meetings and calls. Then, I picked up the kids from camp at 3 p.m. and stopped at the farmers’ market on the way home to pick up fresh produce to grill for dinner that night. After we ate I put the kids to sleep, journaled and got to sleep early.Tuesday: Italian in Sag HarborBefore I dropped the kids off at camp, I stopped with them at Provisions to get the kids smoothies they love called “Strawberry Monkey.” I went to acupuncture in Sag Harbor for my “trigger finger,” and it actually healed it. Steroid shots didn’t work, but acupuncture did. It’s amazing. Then I got back around 10 a.m. to hop on a call with the mezcal brand Mezcalum team about a weekend that we planned in early August. We created lots of video content and social/YouTube content for the brand in addition to cocktail and recipe videos with Joey Wölffer from Wölffer Estate. Then, after a long day of work, I landed at Tutto il Giorno for dinner in Sag Harbor.Lichy outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she saw the “Sleeping Beauties” fashion exhibition.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Dawn Richard Sues Sean Combs, Alleging Threats and Groping

      by

      The lawsuit was filed by Dawn Richard, a member of groups assembled by Mr. Combs. A lawyer for Mr. Combs called the suit “manufactured” to get a “payday.”Dawn Richard, a singer who came to prominence on the MTV reality show “Making the Band,” filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the music mogul Sean Combs, accusing him of threatening her, groping her and flying into “frenzied, unpredictable rages” while he oversaw her career.A former member of the now-defunct groups Danity Kane and Diddy — Dirty Money, which were both assembled by Mr. Combs, Ms. Richard detailed a litany of complaints from her time working with him, alleging a culture in which her boss would order her to strip down to her underwear, smack her behind, throw objects such as laptops and food, and at times fail to pay her for her work.In response to the lawsuit, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, Erica Wolff, said in a statement that Ms. Richard had “manufactured a series of false claims all in the hopes of trying to get a payday,” noting that the lawsuit came shortly before Ms. Richard is slated to release a new album.In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, Ms. Richard detailed several occasions from as far back as 2009 in which she said she witnessed Mr. Combs physically abuse his former girlfriend Cassie, whose lawsuit last year prompted a cascade of civil claims against Mr. Combs. Once, the lawsuit said, Ms. Richard saw Mr. Combs push Cassie, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, against a wall and choke her, then throw a hot pan of eggs at her.“On many occasions, Ms. Richard tried to intervene, offering Ms. Ventura support and encouragement to leave Mr. Combs,” the lawsuit says. The court papers accuse Mr. Combs of responding with threats such as “you want to die today” and “I end people.”This is the eighth sexual misconduct lawsuit that Mr. Combs has faced since Ms. Ventura sued last November; the two sides settled in one day. Mr. Combs, who is also facing a federal investigation into his conduct, has described the civil suits as “sickening allegations” from people looking for “a quick payday,” and his lawyers have been fighting them in court.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares109 Views

      in Television

      Taylor Frankie Paul and the Story Behind ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’

      by

      A new Hulu series will explore a cheating scandal — and its aftermath — that rocked the world of Mormon social media influencers.In the summer of 2022, the world of Mormon influencers was rocked by a scandal that even their most dedicated followers did not see coming. Taylor Frankie Paul, a married TikTok influencer and mother of two, announced in a TikTok livestream that she and her husband had decided to get a divorce after “soft swinging” with other Mormon couples in their Salt Lake City-area friend group.The public admission prompted denials from Ms. Paul’s friend group, cheating accusations and even more shocking revelations, all of which have followed the so-called #MomTok influencers ever since.Now, the scandal and its aftermath have been documented for a new reality series for Hulu — the aptly titled “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” — which premieres on Friday. Here’s what you need to know about the women, and the scandal, at the heart of the series.OK, what is #MomTok?“I created MomTok,” Ms. Paul, 30, declares in the trailer for the show.MomTok is a nickname for a loose collection of popular young Mormon influencers who post TikTok videos of themselves dancing, lip syncing and behaving in ways you wouldn’t necessarily expect religious women to behave. But that’s part of the point: Ms. Paul and her friends, including Mayci Neeley, Mikayla Mathews and Whitney Leavitt, say that MomTok is about subverting expectations of how Mormon wives and mothers should act.“We are trying to change the stigma of the gender roles in the Mormon culture,” Ms. Neeley says in the trailer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More