Naked and Afraid is a reality show that puts two completely naked people together and throws them into the wild to survive on their own. Like many reality shows, we only see what the producers want us to see.
What they don't want you to know is that some contestants have stolen food from the crew and local residents. One contestant claimed to have stolen chocolate, salt and Campari from a fishing hut!
Would you be up for the task? Surviving on your own in the wilderness (completely NAKED) is no easy feat.
Contestant Stacey Lee Osorio: "I think everybody who wants to do this challenge feels that they have some kind of natural intuitiveness when it comes to the outdoors. They think they can communicate with nature and trust that it's going to take care of them. So, doing this challenge is kind of like putting that theory to the test."
Naked and Afraid has claimed that its contestants are not offered prize money, and that the only reward is pride and bragging rights. In reality contestants are offered a cash incentive if they complete the 21-day challenge. Sounds like prize money to me!
During the filming in Costa Rica, a producer was bit by an extremely venomous fer-de-lance snake. In order to save his life and his foot, doctors hacked off a 5x12 inch piece of flesh! In a way, it's probably best for safety and medical reasons that the show isn't completely real and wild.
Contestant Alyssa Ballestero: "A baby bird egg. We thought they were mature, so we boiled them thinking it was going to be this nice, delicious hard-boiled egg. Turns out, it was a baby bird...and I had to eat it anyway. That was rough. It was more sad than gross."
Stacey Lee Osorio: "Some three-day-old carcass. It was a leopard’s kill and it made us sick. But we needed sustenance, so we had to eat off of it for days."
Stacey Lee Osorio: "Massage a bowel movement right out of my anus with my hands."
Wow! I'm actually pretty glad they don't show these things on TV. Not getting what we want can be a true favor in disguise.
Besides the crew members following them around, Honora Bowen from Season 3 revealed that there was a town a few miles from their filming location. She could even hear the local DJ playing club music. They would even run into locals on the beach!!
Executive Producer Denise Contis told the Wall Street Journal that "There is no manipulation, no element of scripted reality."
However, Honora wrote in her blog post: "On a daily basis, the producer asked my partner and I to talk about growing tensions that he could observe."
She also adds: "The locust that my partner gave me was after I had gone hunting for locusts for days, and it fell on a cameraman who gave the locust to my partner and told him to give it to me. This same cameraman was also constantly feeding us ideas to make things more interesting."
Honora said she found the production company's medic tent, so she went through it and found some Emergen-C (which she took). She revealed that in her blog, and because of it, she was threatened with a lawsuit.
During the premiereepisode, Kim Shelton got severe food poisoning. She is seen vomiting for three days, with a quick recovery on the fourth day. How did she get better? She was actually fed bread, rice, and baby food by the producers. Medics also gave her saline to help rehydrate her.
Also, during the season premiere, Shane Lewis broke three toes before a challenge, but the show made it seem like he had hurt it during filming. He said the show made him look "pathetic" because he was in pain and no one knew why.