reality tv

Sex on camera, hidden identities... This is the reality of reality TV.

When it comes to watching reality TV, it's hard to decipher what is real from what is not. 

Apparently, it's just as hard to figure out what's real and what's fake for the people who are literally on reality TV as it is for us viewers.

Especially for Alisha Aitken-Radburn, who was cast as a villain in The Bachelor season 6. She was tasked, along with a few dozen other young women, with winning the heart of the Honey Badger, aka Nick Cummins.

Watch Alisha Aitken-Radburn talk about what goes on behind the scenes of reality TV. Post continues after video.


Video via Mamamia.

In a candid interview with Mia Freedman on Mamamia's podcast No Filtershe shared some insights into the 'reality' of reality TV.

Here are six things we learned about her time on The Bachelor in 2018 and just how much goes on behind the scenes to bring us a very specific version of reality.

You're undercover from day one.

To avoid paparazzi, Alisha – along with every other Bachie contestant from seasons past – was required to travel incognito.

"I think I must have had about three or four weeks before they bought me a flight to Sydney from Canberra and I was on the plane," she explained on No Filter"So you land at Sydney Airport and they pop you in a white van. They give you black hoodies. You're told to bring sunglasses.

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"[Me and other girls] are in a van and we weren't allowed to talk to each other," she continued, Mia noting it "sounds like a hostage situation".

Contestants are completely cut off from the rest of the world.

After they're whisked away in secret, the women are required to hide out in apartments until the time comes to meet the bachelor.

Their mobile phones are taken from them and they're not supposed to consume any type of media content at all before they make their way to the mansion.

"You're there for three days, just you and one other girl in a room together. That's called 'The Sequester' and that is [where] they take your phone," Alisha shared. 

"But we did have a clock radio in our room... I remember being able to listen to the radio [although I wasn't supposed to because] this is a really important part of the process. It's moving you from the reality of the real world to the reality of the Bachelor universe."

Alisha adds that removing the contestants from the internet and social media and hiding them away makes them behave strangely on camera. 

"People often wonder, 'How are these people acting in these particular ways?' And it's just a completely different environment," she explains. "You don't have your support network."

Alisha Aitken-Radburn was on The Bachelor season 6 in 2018. Image: Ten.

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You're not supposed to know who the bachelor is. 

For all the girls who compete on The Bachelor, the man whose heart they're vying for is supposed to be a surprise. 

And while it is for the most part, Alisha says she actually knew Nick was going to be the season 6 suitor.

"For my season, I actually knew that it was the Honey Badger [because] the morning that I was flying to Sydney, I went to Woolies and there was a copy of the Daily Telegraph," she explained. "And I saw on the front, there was a guy holding a rose. And I was like, 'Oh my gosh, that's a Bachie rose.'"

The producers manipulate contestants. 

For Alisha, having a good relationship with the producers on The Bachelor was a strength – or so she thought.

But once she got to watch the series at home, it became clear she had been painted as the villain of the season, alongside two of her closest friends on the show, Cat Henesey-Smith and Romy Poulier.

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Alisha with Cat and Romy. Image: Ten.

However, she understands that, at the end of the day, they had a job to do: make damn good TV. 

"The explainer for my villain edit is that I'm a deeply insecure person," she said on No Filter"And so what my trigger point was that I was sitting in these interviews, and I would say something that was, like, a little bit on the nose, a little bit b***hy [and they would laugh]."

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Another way Alisha says she was encouraged to say unkind things was by not asking a single question about Nick. Instead, they saved romantic questions for the Top 4 alone.

"[They were] not asking me about the Honey Badger at all, because I'm not considered a front runner or a contender," she continued. "So I'm only being asked about the other girls... Other women are spending their whole interviews talking about their blossoming relations."

There are cameras in the room when they have sex.

PSA: If you want to have sex while on a reality TV show, you should probably be prepared for the scene to be shown to the whole country.

For Alisha, she truly believed sex scenes wouldn't be shown. She was wrong.

"I'd had a conversation with an executive producer and I'd basically gotten assurance that they don't actually use that content if you're like fully having sex in a bed," she claimed.

"That was a lie because they did use that footage on the season where Abbie Chatfield was featured. They used clips that deeply, deeply insinuated that she was like, maybe giving a hand job. That was the implication.

"But I took that reassurance and I had sex with the camera in the room. And I don't know why I was so confident about [it not being shown]."

Listen to the full episode of No Filter, where Alisha Aitken-Radburn chats with Mia Freedman about her villain edit.


Feature Image: Ten/Mamamia.

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