You Can’t Ask That explores reality TV stardom

Pick of the day: You Can’t Ask That, 9pm, ABC.

Kate and Benjamin answer tricky questions in You Can't Ask That.

Pick of the day: You Can’t Ask That, 9pm, ABC.

With the fourth season of the dark comedy UnReal premiering yesterday on Stan, it’s uncanny to say the least that tonight’s episode of You Can’t Ask That also should seek to expose the reality of reality TV.

Here, eight former reality stars including Big Brother’s Sara-Marie Fedele, Australian Idol’s Rob Mills and Mick Donaher from Sylvania Waters face blunt questions such as: “Why the f..k would you go on reality TV?”; “Did you cash in afterwards?”; and “Have you been able to wash off the stink (shame)?”

“I just wanted to have some notoriety and I wanted people to love me,” says Benjamin Norris, a winner of Big Brother.

“I’d won the show and a producer turned around and said, ‘For as many people in Australia that like you, they also hate you.’ ”

Ryan Jones, from last year’s The Bachelorette, explains that he was dehydrated from drinking alcohol on the show, causing him to lick his lips repeatedly, which later was edited to make him look lascivious. He recalls the online reaction: “Australia’s most hated man”, “The most punchable face”, “This guy is a creep”, “This guy is a serial killer”.

Lauren Finelli, who appeared on My Kitchen Rules with her husband two years ago, is eye-wateringly honest about the professional rewards she thought were in the offing.

“I was hoping that being on Australia’s highest rating show would have brought along some opportunities to move into a media career,” she says. “It wasn’t until afterwards you realise how bad you look.”

When UnReal’s Constance Zimmer was in Sydney earlier this year, she told me she’d heard of candidates for various reality series confronting producers during auditions, saying they had watched UnReal and weren’t going to be manipulated.

But two truths seem evident for those willing to see them: there’s a new (reality TV) sucker born every minute, and the (production) house always wins.