If you were a couch potato in the ’90s and 2000s, a certain type of daytime TV show is probably burned into your brain. If you were ever in the mood for chair-throwing, beeped expletives, and full-on breakdancing reactions to “you are NOT the father”…you knew which programs to turn to.
But what was it actually like to be on those shows? After Reddit user PenguinKilla3 asked about people whose mothers went on Maury, I went down a rabbit hole ofsimilarthreads about the tabloid talk shows of that era. Here are the best stories from people who appeared on Maury, The Jerry Springer Show, The Montel Williams Show, and others — or knew someone who did.
NOTE: There are mentions of suicide, molestation, and statutory rape.
1. “A girl I was best friends with in high school went on Maury. She was dating an absolute douche; they were both 16, and he WANTED to get her pregnant. When he did, he dumped her. She decided to keep the baby, and he immediately denied he was the father. She played into the whole angry teen mom thing, and he looked like an idiot when he was proven to be the father. He threw and broke a chair backstage, yelling, ‘I’ll pay for it!’ (the chair) which quickly became everyone’s favorite thing to yell at him for the rest of his time at our high school.”
“How did that story turn out? How are your friend and the baby doing now?”
“She is a great mom. Graduated high school, worked full time, put herself through school. We’re not friends anymore, but from what I see and hear, she and her child are doing really well. I wish her nothing but the best.”
2. “My uncle was on Maury, but not because he wasn’t claiming his kids. He was on there because, when he was 34, he impregnated his 17-year-old coworker in the freezer of the Hungry Howie’s they both worked at, and her mom was trying to break them up.”
“My cousin (the resulting baby) is actually somewhat well-adjusted, last I heard. I don’t think she’s had a lot of contact with my uncle in the last decade or so. Her mom ended up being a lesbian, though they had two more kids first. The ones not conceived in a Hungry Howie’s freezer are having a rougher go of getting their life figured out.”
3. “My mom was on Maury and took a lie detector test to prove she wasn’t sleeping with her sister’s husband. She’s so proud of this episode; she recorded it (poorly and sideways on a cellphone). This recording is the only thing she’s ever posted to her YouTube.”
“I need to know more. Was there really any question that she had slept with her brother-in-law, or did they just make it up to be on TV?”
“My aunt was in prison for selling prescription drugs, so my grandma arranged for my mom to take my uncle (aunt’s husband) to the prison to visit my aunt. Afterward, my grandma told my aunt that the only reason my mom would take my uncle to see his wife is if they were sleeping together. My aunt got released from prison, and the tension with my mom was terrible. My aunt heard you could basically get a free vacation and a per diem for food, all expenses paid, if you agreed to embarrass yourself on national TV, so my aunt called Maury, and one thing led to another. My mom agreed because putting the rumors to bed publicly meant the family wouldn’t keep whispering behind her back. She and my aunt are good now.
My uncle also took a lie detector test during that episode. His test determined that, while he was innocent of cheating with my mom, he had, in fact, been with multiple sex workers during the time my aunt was in prison. They are still married, and occasionally I’ll get a Facebook invite to a vow renewal.”
4. “Years ago, a friend of mine was on The Jerry Springer Show. She and her two housemates had been sitting over a couple of beers, and someone came up with, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be fun to be on Springer?’ They devised some dumb premise, phoned the show, and three weeks later they were on a paid-for trip to Chicago on a show called ‘My Girlfriend Is a Sex Worker’ (or something similar).”
“Their idea was to pretend that she was the sex worker and that one of her housemates was her boyfriend and the other a client.
The guys went out partying the night before the show, but she decided to stay in. Watching Frasier that night, one of the characters said something like, ‘Some of us are angels, some are devils, and the rest of us are just doing the best we can.’ … She thought that that would be something a sex worker might say, so she dropped it during the segment the next day.
She is a very funny girl and lots of fun, but she did not give me the sense that being on Springer was particularly enjoyable. I have the impression that she wishes she hadn’t gone through with it.
They were paid only for their trip, accommodation, and about $100 in expenses each. She didn’t speak with Jerry behind the scenes, but said that there is a ‘priest’ who works behind the camera who spent tons of time with them and even contacted them after the show to see how things had worked out for everyone following the show. She said this guy hit on her pretty hard.”
5. “When I was 13, I answered the phone, and a woman from Maury asked for my mom. My mom was accusing my dad of cheating, and so she took him on the show. The funny part was there wasn’t even a paternity test. My dad just passed his polygraph. Just last November, I was 23; my half-sister (same mom) called to tell me that, according to a DNA test from an aunt on her dad’s side, I came up as a match. Turns out the father that raised me and went on the show actually wasn’t my father after all. My sister and I are full siblings. I also found out I have an older half-brother, lmao.”
6. “A girl I used to work with went on a UK TV show, similar to Maury, for a DNA test with her father. She went as a bit of an ‘F-you’ to her mother, who had randomly claimed her father wasn’t really her father, so this was all to prove 100% that he was. Turns out, he really wasn’t her biological father, and she was pretty messed up by the whole ordeal. As far as I know, she took the route of ‘this man raised me, so he is my father regardless,’ but the whole shock kind of messed her up for a little bit.”
7. “My sister went on The Steve Wilkos Show. I’d never really watched it, but I knew it was a spin-off of The Jerry Springer Show and heard it was trash. I didn’t want her to go, but her lawyer suggested it. The backstory is that my sister thought her ex-boyfriend was molesting their daughter. They’d only been together about a year, and there was a huge custody battle because his mom wanted the baby (he wasn’t too interested in it).”
“They ended up switching off weeks. When my niece was around 2 years old, we all started noticing some disturbing sexual behavior. My sister called the police and child services; at the hospital, they couldn’t find anything to confirm molestation but said that it didn’t mean she wasn’t. They opened a case but closed it and refused to revoke the court-mandated custody agreement. We all knew it was happening, but there was absolutely nothing we could do to get her daughter away from him immediately.
We got a lawyer who suggested that going on The Steve Wilkos Showcould get the case reopened. They use the same test as the FBI, and it’s conducted by one of the best polygraph examiners in the country. Quite a few people have been arrested after having their case reopened because of their appearance on the show, and one was in our state. We were desperate and decided airing out our dirty laundry would be worth it if it could get her away from him.
The show was nothing like I expected. I figured they’d tell us what to say and do, but they didn’t. They gave us five lie detector tests each. It was weird talking about that shit on a stage in front of an audience. Now I understand why people flip out; it’s extremely stressful on the stage.
The bastard failed the test, which wasn’t a surprise to anyone except his mom. She’s the one who flipped out; she was really heartbroken about it. After the show was over, the show stayed in contact with us and got my sister into therapy. It did get the case reopened, and he was arrested a few months later after they seized his computer, found pictures, and discovered he was sharing them online, too. He was arrested and charged with a bunch of felonies.
We’re happy we went on the show. It’s really embarrassing, but we got the outcome we wanted and have no regrets.”
8. “My old roommate’s baby daddy was on Maury. Before they got together, the dude already had, like, eight kids by five different women or something (including two sets of twins). He had a threesome with my roommate and her friend. They both got pregnant. Her friend also had a boyfriend, and he went on Maury to dispute paternity. On the show, my roommate’s friend told him about the threesome. Shocker — the baby wasn’t the boyfriend’s and was a result of the threesome.”
9. “A distant cousin of mine went as a supportive friend to someone whose husband was in a love triangle or some bullshit like that. They flew the whole lot in from California, put them up in a hotel, and drove them around the city in a limo. My cousin wasn’t allowed to wear what she brought (slacks and a blouse), and they put her in some short, ill-fitting dress. This was back when they encouraged the guests to fight. Fake tufts of hair were put in with their actual hair so it would look like hair was being pulled out. So, some of the stories were true…just over-dramatized.”
10. “My sister-in-law and her boyfriend went on Maury. She was testing which of two guys was her baby’s father. (The other guy wasn’t on the show.) It came out that the baby’s dad was her boyfriend; he proposed on the show.”
11. “I had a friend go on The Montel Williams Show with her mom because they had kids with the same guy. It was 100 percent not fake; they really did. Montel was a little more low-key, though.”
“My friend also went on The Montel Williams Show. She spoke very highly of him and his staff. They paid for her therapy for years — as well as for every kid they have on for paternity tests. They also had a chat telling them not to expect anything from a parent who’s been absent so far; they let them know that parent will probably talk a big game onstage and to trust their gut. It was a really great experience considering the circumstances.”
12. “A dude I knew killed himself after it was revealed on the show that the man he thought was his father for his whole life wasn’t. Turns out his mom fucked some dude and didn’t even know his name. After the show, his ‘dad’ treated him coldly, and his parents argued a lot, leading to his suicide.”
13. “I recognized a friend from elementary school on the show. She was on one of the ‘My daughter is a teenager on crack’ episodes, as the daughter. She was troubled, for sure. There were rumors around town that she was doing sex work, but I don’t know the extent of it. What I do know is that her mom was on the show giving this big sob story about how she ‘didn’t put her daughter on this earth so she could hurt herself,’ making herself look like a caring mother who had no idea how things turned out the way they had.”
“In reality, she was a neglectful piece of shit. She gave her kids over to social services during the summer because school wasn’t around to parent for her. I had a birthday one year at a pool with a sleepover after. My friend got a concussion at the pool and had to go to the hospital. Her mom dropped her off for the sleepover portion of my birthday in nothing more than a damp bathing suit and hospital towel. That woman could not have given less of a shit about her daughter if she tried.”
14. “A family friend went on Dr. Phil.They actually filmed her ‘at-home interview’ at my parents’ house. The deal was that her ex-husband had alienated her from their kids and was such a douche that his own mother sided with my friend. My friend looked bad because she’d had an affair while they were still married. She did not like Dr. Phil. She went on the show truly hoping to heal her relationship with her kids, but she felt like Dr. Phil just made her out to be a horrible person. Of course, her ex agreed to post-show counseling but didn’t follow through. All in all, it was a negative experience.”
15. “My family and I were on Dr. Phil several years ago for watching too much TV. They sent a TV crew to our house and filmed us without TV for 24 hours. After having strangers in our home for several days of filming, they flew us out to LA for the show. During this show, my sister and I had to stay backstage the first half of our segment so that my parents could talk about their relationship. Before the show, they had the spouses fill out a questionnaire about each other. My dad had mostly answered, ‘I don’t know.’ When Dr. Phil read this information aloud, there was a collective gasp from the audience, which was mostly older women.”
“Dr. Phil basically said, ‘Don’t watch as much TV.’ He even added a terrible joke that not all TV was bad, with a shit-eating grin.
Overall, we left the show knowing that what we had said was taken out of context and made us look like drooling TV zombies.
After a couple of years, they had us come back on the show for a follow-up. My mom laid into Dr. Phil about how they made us look and that the problem was never as bad as they made it seem. His face after was priceless.”
16. “I was on The Jerry Springer Show at about 10–11 years old before it was nationally syndicated. It didn’t air in my area at the time, and if we’d known what it was, we’d never have gone on. I have a physical disability, and when I was a kid, I was part of this athletic organization for kids and adults with disabilities. They helped me learn to walk, and I became a poster child for the organization and frequently made TV appearances to promote it. We were just told it was ‘a talk show in Chicago’ the same day we were asked to go. I remember talking to a producer on the phone for an audition, I think.”
“Anyway, this was back when Jerry did a lot of ‘freaks’ episodes. When we arrived, they were filming an episode about a guy who had children by various women, and they were all arguing. We thought about leaving but didn’t.
The actual episode I did was pretty positive for the ‘freaks’ genre. It was me and the founder of the organization, a woman with no arms, a mother and daughter experiencing homelessness (who were given a place to live as part of the episode), and conjoined twins. I don’t regret it because it makes a good party story, but I wouldn’t let my own kid on it.
I’ve never seen the episode. It seems to be lost to the ages, which is a shame, because I was a cute kid.”
17. “An uncle who had lost most of his face in a car accident went on Maury. From what I understand, they simply told him that they wanted to hear his story and asked him to talk about it on the show. By the end of the episode, they revealed that the point of him coming down was to give him a mask that would cover most of his face that had been destroyed. The mask looked okay, but you could certainly tell it was a mask. Regardless, he absolutely loved this, since it was made specifically for the areas of his face that had been damaged.”
18. “Well, my family was on Maury back in the mid-’90s when it wasn’t just a bunch of ‘who’s the real baby daddy?’ garbage. My mom was a huge fan of the show, so she wrote to them and got to be on an episode themed around wild wedding proposals. She planned to fake some weird stuff to mess with my dad, and then she would propose! So my mom, dad (who thought we’d won tickets), and 1-year-old me were on the show, and my mom goes through this whole act where she says she could telepathically talk to me, and I’d, in turn, spell stuff out with blocks. My dad was losing his shit because he thought everyone was going to see this episode and think we were out of our minds.”
“So it’d cut back and forth to my mom saying she’s ‘sending me a message.’ And me having blocks set up saying, ‘I love you, too’ or something. And then at the end, my blocks would spell out ‘Daddy, will you marry Mommy?’ My dad was totally surprised, audibly said, ‘What the fuck?’ and Maury had to clarify that my mom just proposed. But he ended up saying yes!! They got married in Vegas and have now been married for a little over 20 years!!!”
19. “I was on The Jerry Springer Show for an episode called ‘Secrets Come Out.’ I called the producers, telling them that I was sleeping with my friend, his girlfriend, and their roommate, and wanted to expose the scandal. We fought, made out, fought again, made out, etc. It was pretty ridiculous. I never got to talk with Jerry, though my friends shook his hand. We were actually discouraged from being violent, but we were encouraged to make out with each other.”
20. “I had a buddy that was on Springer a few years ago. One day, The Jerry Springer Show called him. I always tell him that you know your life is fucked up when Springer calls YOU, but anyway… The true story: His then-wife’s trans ex-boyfriend wanted her back. So Springer calls him, and they start the process of booking the show. A few days later, the ex drops out. Since they’ve already booked the show, the producer said, ‘Is there anything else you’d like to talk about? Anything? ANYTHING?’ insinuating that they should just make some shit up. They came up with a story where he was cheating on his wife with his male friend, but then she was also cheating on him with her girlfriend. But wait! Both of the paramours were also cheating — with each other!”
“They flew out to Stamford for the taping.
Before the show, the lawyer came in and gave them ‘the speech’ — no cursing. No throwing shit. No acting like jackasses.
Then, the producer came in and said to ignore all the shit that guy had just said. ‘I want you to break chairs. I want you to throw shit. Curse all you want. Just don’t get blood on the stage.’
They went out and acted out their made-up story.
His wife’s ‘lover’ danced on the pole. He and his ‘boyfriend’ ripped their shirts off and tried to ‘beat each other’s asses.’ At the questions and answers section, somebody in the audience called him a ‘werewolf-looking motherfucker.’ Everyone in the audience jumped up and did a weird dance when they found out he was from Tennessee.
Then they flew back. The show aired a couple months later. I couldn’t be seen out in public with him without people recognizing him and asking if I was his new lover. Shit got old quickly.”
21. “I worked with a guy who was on Maury for an ‘Are You My Father’ episode. He was not the father. He knew he wasn’t before going in, but thought the test results would be enough to quiet the family. Even after it was revealed he wasn’t the father, the family still didn’t believe it. They based this solely on the fact that the child looked like him. He didn’t jump around or anything. I think he just said, ‘I told you so!'”
22. “My stepdad was on it, but not for my mom or me! After they broke up, he slept with a woman he did a shit ton of drugs with, and a poor baby was the result of one of their benders. My mother said that that baby had looked EXACTLY like him, but he refused to acknowledge that despite regularly visiting the kid??? Anyway, my mom told me she had recorded them on Maury while I was in college. The producers comped their flights and paid them both, like, $1,500 on top of it, so my mom thinks they just wanted to go for the money. It wasn’t as dramatic since it was all virtual due to COVID.”
“But the asshole did use my mom’s fertility issues as ‘proof’ on national television, saying that since his last relationship led to zero kids after 14 years, he couldn’t possibly have any more kids. Yeah…to the surprise of only his dumbass self, he WAS the father!”
23. “A girl I knew growing up was on Sally [editor’s note: an ’80s and ’90s daytime talk show with Sally Jessy Raphael] for being a little shithead thief, and was caught on camera stealing from the green room. She continued to steal from people, including her mother; she’d stolen priceless family heirlooms. She turned out to be a horrible friend who robbed me, too, so I whooped her ass in a bar parking lot years ago. Last I knew, she was on the run in Alaska for food stamp fraud and cashing someone else’s payroll checks. Her mom knows she’s a klepto and has since written her out of her life.”
“Imagine if she got the support and red of being paraded on TV for maximum humiliation?”
“She was in therapy for the majority of her teens and 20s. Sally sent her to boot camp, afaik. It was pretty sad all around, because we were fierce friends at first. I didn’t want to believe the rumors about her robbing people at knifepoint. I felt really dumb when something small went missing, and it turned out to be her. After I took it back, she literally broke windows to get into my house and steal it again. It’s a long story, but the police did nothing; she egged me on one night after I hadn’t seen her for months, and our fight just went down.”
24. “I have a buddy that went on Sally. It was all about childhood sexual stuff. He was told he would be anonymous, and he was behind a screen so they couldn’t see his face just a silhouette but could hear his voice. Sooo…it aired, and before it was over, his mother’s phone rang from the other person’s mother, reaming her out for these horrible accusations against her son. So that didn’t go as planned, I guess. This was also, like, the ’90s, and I think he was in his late 20s when he went on the show.”
25. “A close friend had a baby at around 19 with some scrub. Kicked him to the curb by 21. Being a single mom at 21 is a bitch, so she went on Maury about 10 times for the ‘Are you the daddy?’ episodes. I was the eighth guy tested. We were all in on it, of course. That audience is something else. They really believe that shit and will form a snap judgment about you the second you come from backstage. My friend ended up making something like $10K between the show and people who saw the show giving her free shit out of pity or something. She thought it was funny as shit, but eventually she moved out west, partially to lose the reputation of being the girl who took 12 guys on Maury and never found out who the daddy was.”
26. “I knew a girl who went on Maury. She and two friends made up a lesbian love triangle story. She said they kept her in a little, hot room. People would come in and go over who she was angry with, kind of giving her words to use. They said it over and over to her, and kept telling her how awful the other two girls were and what horrible things they were saying about her. They gave her coffee all day. After hours of this, filming started, and she said that she halfway believed their story and that she was legitimately pissed off at her two friends. They got paid to be there. Her experience makes me think most of the guests were just play-acting.”
27. “I was a guest on Carnie. A friend of mine’s then-girlfriend was a producer for it. She’d heard through my buddy that I had reconnected with a girl I used to have a crush on (let’s call her Yolanda) and was wondering if I’d agree to be flown to New York, picked up in a limo, and put up in a hotel in exchange for telling her as much on national television. Of course I said yes.”
“We did a pre-interview on the phone, and my buddy’s girlfriend, the producer, ran through the questions. I answered with humor and charm; I was to repeat this basic banter on the air. No problem. As we were ending the conversation, she said, ‘After you’re introduced, Carnie will say, “So, you must have sex with Yolanda,” and you will say, “Yes, I must have sex with Yolanda,” and then we’ll do all those other questions I just asked you. Okay? Gotta go.’
Except I never said I must have sex with anybody. Would I have sex with Yolanda? Sure, if she was up for it. Did I have to? Was it absolutely imperative that this happen? Of course not. Besides, it made me sound desperate.
The day of, I still wasn’t comfortable with the language. There I was on stage in front of a live studio audience, and the executive producer came out and went over what was going to happen, using the exact same phrase. As I searched for a tactful way to bring up my concerns moments before taping, the executive looked at my friend’s girlfriend like she was about to get fired and said, ‘You’ve gone over this, right?’ When she hesitated, the boss looked at me instead and, in the most stern, ‘don’t fuck with my broadcast’ voice, said: ‘You’ve gone over it now.’ She marched off stage.
The next thing I heard was Carnie say, ‘So, you must have sex with Yolanda?’
Time stood still. I looked out at the sea of faces. Regular American folk, suddenly and inexplicably riveted by my tawdry, speculative sex life. If I replied, ‘Eh, I’m in if she is?’ what would they do? Would they stop rolling and scold me in front of this full house of strangers? What would Carnie Wilson do if I threw her under the bus?
I would never find out. Because that was the moment that I discovered how spineless I am. I didn’t just say the words. I said them like it was the most important thing I would ever do. ‘Yes…’ I proclaimed, ‘Yes, I must have sex with Yolanda!’
And that night I did. Twice. It was just so-so.”
28. “I had a close friend who said she got onto The Jerry Springer Show for the free trip. She and her friends worked at a strip club, and she concocted a story about how they were fighting over the same man. She said that the producers didn’t feel their outfits were trashy enough, so they wheeled out a whole rack of stripper outfits for them to select from.”
29. “My ex-boyfriend was on The Jerry Springer Show in 1995 or 1996. In the episode, he confronted some teen racists. It was a couple of seasons before things got really wild on the show; there weren’t any fistfights that happened. My ex got some fan mail forwarded from the show later. He still has it saved somewhere.”
“He got on it because he was an audience member for a previous show that featured a teen KKK member. He asked a question; the producers liked him and asked if he would come back on as a guest. He was not paid and was already from the Chicago area where they filmed the show. All he got compensation-wise was lunch. I’ve seen his episode; it consisted of him debating with the other teens on the show. He said that the people really seemed to believe what they were saying. One of the teenagers he met while waiting to go on was a neo-Nazi kid who was not all there. Total dummy.”
30. “My sister was on The Jerry Springer Show! She was not paid, but they paid for her plane ticket, all of her dinners, and any of the excursions she went on while she was in New York. She was on the show as a woman who had slept with her pregnant best friend’s husband. I’m sure it varies from story to story, but the conflict in hers was fake. She’s never slept with her friend’s husband, but everything else was accurate. Her friend was really having a hard time with her husband, and he was being a jerk, but not to the extent of actually sleeping with someone else. The actual physical conflict on stage was for show, but the problems addressed were real (just taken to an extreme).”
“She said Jerry is very nice. Basically, for her, it was a huge vacation.”
31. “My wife and I were on Ricki Lake back in 1993. We were dating back then; we are married now. We told a lie to get on the show. Here is a link to a video. Basically, they separate you into private rooms, then they have producers come in and stir shit up. ‘She said this about you.’ ‘He said this about you.’ We went in there laughing but got on stage pissed off because of the lies the producers told. We are still married and still in love.”
“What shit did they say she said?”
“I don’t remember them all, but the one that has stuck with me is ‘She just called you a pussy in the other room. She thinks you have no backbone, and that is why you need your cousin to defend you.’ That struck me hard, and I was pretty pissed off hearing that. I did not know the producers were lying. I believed every word they said, as did she. You can see at the start of the video how pissed she looks. We still laugh about this, and our daughter thinks this is the greatest thing.”
32. “My dad and stepmom were on Dr. Phil. They are totally embarrassed that they actually did it. Basically, over 20 years ago, my dad had an affair while with my mom, and after they divorced, my dad and stepmom got married. That was over 20 years ago. Apparently, my stepmom was feeling guilty about being the ‘other woman’ and thought Dr. Phil could help. Somewhere along the line, she emailed the show, and eventually she got a telephone call. At first, she refused to be on the show, but after talking to my dad and some of the family, they decided to go on the show.”
“They then told the larger family the official story of their relationship and the affair. We all kinda knew what happened, but this was the first time I was directly told.
The arrangements were made, and my dad and stepmom flew to California for the show. They spent a day filming random stuff of them together, my stepmom reading her letter to the show, and a photo montage of their time together.
The day of the show, they did all the hair, makeup, and wardrobe stuff. Apparently, my dad’s sport coat was too much like the color Dr. Phil wore, so they had to find my dad another coat. It was supposed to be just my stepmom and Dr. Phil on stage, with my dad in the audience. My stepmom demanded that my dad be by her side for support. They went through their sequence, chatted, cried, got some random advice, and went back into the audience.
All in all, I think it was an OK experience; no real breakthrough advice, but it wasn’t traumatizing.”
33. “Some guy I grew up with got dragged onto Maury by his family for an ‘intervention.’ The guy was a nasty piece of work, but it was a sad, sorry spectacle. His parents and brother basically just used the opportunity to tell America how much they fucking hated his guts, wanted him to die, thought he was a piece of shit who should’ve never been born, etc. The brother came within inches of throwing punches. The guy even broke down crying. My friends made a tape and laughed and laughed because they all hated the guy. (He was by no means the worst person I ever knew, but he couldn’t be trusted and was best avoided.) But to quote a certain movie line, ‘I thought this was going to be funny, but it’s just sad.'”
34. “My family was on a TV show in Britain where they tried to mend the relationship between my father and my brother. I was only, like, 9 years old, so I wasn’t too involved, but it’s quite uncomfortable knowing that people knew that my dad didn’t have a good relationship with my brother, and it made me think people looked down on my family for it. I’m sad to say their relationship has gotten worse since the show.”
35. “I moved next door to someone whose claim to fame was being on Cheaters. They caught his fiancé having an affair, and he ended it. He said he had to share the footage on Facebook so people would see it, or it would have gone unnoticed. I don’t think there was any real fallout from it. He said he liked knowing that his ex-fiancé’s father knew his daughter was a cheater, and he had heard it affected their relationship…but this is him telling me all this. I can’t say what’s true outside of the episode.”
36. “My uncle was on The Jerry Springer Show. He is a big biker dude and was in a ‘love triangle.’ It was pretty funny considering he’s a pretty normal person, and I wouldn’t consider him a hillbilly or anything of the sort. The two women in the love triangle went at it with the hair pulling and punching while he watched and laughed. It was pretty funny. I think he got paid $100 for appearing. Another funny thing is that every year around Father’s Day, my cousin changes his profile picture to a screenshot of his dad from the show in his biker get-up with the Springer logo in the corner. Classic.”
37. “A former classmate of mine was on Dr. Phil. She went because her parents couldn’t control her. Typical teenage stuff: drinking, smoking weed, partying, fucking random dudes, doing illegal activities…all of that, except turned up to 11. When her parents tried to control her, she lashed out. But the show didn’t really show the fact that her parents were extremely strict about even minor infractions (like getting an 80 on a test instead of a 93+) and would do things like threaten to call the police if she wouldn’t unlock her door, so she lashed out by doing ‘rebellious’ teenager things. I guess it was the only way she could cope with the stress. She got sent to one of those teen work camps or whatever they are for a few months, came back in time for senior year, then dropped out after Christmas.”
“I’m pretty sure that she still works at the same grocery store chain. It was a sad situation. I don’t think she deserved to be on Dr. Phil. It must’ve been humiliating, because the whole school made a big deal about it when it aired. I just think that they should’ve gone to a family counselor or something. I hope her family situation has straightened itself out.”
38. “My sister was on Maury, and everything said on it was true. She’d gotten pregnant and was 100% sure who her child’s father was, but the guy said he wasn’t. They went on the show, and it turns out he isn’t the father. It was embarrassing…everyone knows what happened. Honestly, I still don’t know who my nephew’s father is, and he’s 11 now.”
39. “A guy whose son played on my hockey team was on one of those shows with his then-wife. The premise was that he had a wandering eye and was too flirty with other women, and the wife wanted the host to help. It was cringey to watch and did nothing to help my previously held belief that those shows are completely fake. In real life, he embodied everything we saw on that show, and I could believe everything that was done and said as genuine. He and his now-ex were in the middle of a nasty divorce when we met him, and none of us ever even mentioned to him that we knew the show existed because he was intense, to say the least.”
40. “In seventh grade, I was in a class with someone from NYC. We sat next to each other and became good friends. I had an electronic pocket dictionary back then; I remember showing it to her a little bit before she said she was moving back to NYC. I never saw it again after that day, which leads me to believe she must have taken it. About three or four years later, I saw her on an ‘out-of-control teens’ episode of Maury. She actually acted a lot calmer than the rest of the kids on the show. I’m guessing her mom sent her on the show to straighten out the stealing situation, even though that was only one of the things she was accused of doing.”
41. “The vice principal of the high school I graduated from was on Dr. Phil. Some kids made a fake MySpace under her name, and she tried to press charges against them. Dr. Phil yelled at her for not handling it in the school system. The MySpace page was just dumb stuff like pictures of her photoshopped with dildos. The vice principal broke down and cried. The two kids who made the MySpace page felt like hotshit afterwards, especially because they looked like the victims once the episode aired.”
42. “I was at a taping of The Jerry Springer Show. I found one of the girls who was actually on the show on FB, and we talked briefly. She said there were a lot of things she couldn’t say, which I assumed meant there was more staging than the production wants people to know. The story was that her husband cheated and wanted to tell her. The girl he cheated with obviously had to come out as well. The girl said her husband said they were going to the show, but he couldn’t say why. At first she was against it, but it was a free trip to NY/CT, and they are from Alabama. So she agreed. She kind of figured what it was about. They flew the other girl down separately. She also figured that she would be there. People have seen the show, so they know what is really expected of them.”
43. “My old neighbors were on Maury. While the basic story they featured was true, there was a lot of embellishment. The story was that the wife wanted the husband to quit his band and change his appearance. For the show, the wife was given very conservative clothes and appeared much more serious than she ever was in real life. The man was dressed to look like a wild man. In real life, they were both somewhere in the middle. They did some taped segments ahead of time, and although the staff did not tell them what to say, the staff did suggest re-taping portions to make them ‘support the story more’. It was a gentle prompting, and they felt like they had to be dramatic to get on the show. Their trip to the show was paid for, and they thought it was worth it. They never saw Maury until they went out on the stage. The only interaction they had with him was those 15 or so minutes he questioned them.”
“The husband, as expected, agreed to change his ways, and they left the stage. They were escorted from the building and headed home. The wife had to return the clothes she was given to wear on the show. They thought the trip was fun and worth it. I did not know this couple well, but they loved that people who knew them saw the show, and they said they would have done it again in a minute.”
44. “My friend and classmate went on Maury during our high school years (2000–2004). It was for a segment about unruly teens and such. She was loud and obnoxious, and took it up a notch for the show. Still, you never really wanted to mess with her, unless you wanted to start a losing fight against her. It’d been 10 years since I’d seen her, and we recently saw each other at our high school reunion (we were the first graduating class of that school, so it was a big moment). And I can confirm that she’s still the loud, obnoxious woman we all know, has a wonderful husband, and a lot of kids. But you still don’t want to mess with her; she’ll still have enough spunk to kick your ass.”
45. Finally… “I was actually on Maury. This was almost four years ago now. Not much has changed; he’s the daddy, and he knew all along, lol. We’ve had two more kids since then.”
Have you ever known someone who went on one of these shows? Let us know their story in the comments below or
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