By Tracy Swartz
Paul’s fans have long encouraged her to seek help for her mental health — in 2022, she even filmed a TikTok of herself crying in response to a commenter telling her she needs therapy.
Now, those calls have reached a fever pitch. Even her “SLOMW” co-stars have expressed that they want her to get help before filming continues, according to TMZ. A rep for Paul did not respond to a Post request for comment.
The swift and pointed public reaction to Paul’s fall from grace suggests that we’re at a significant turning point in reality TV. Fans and critics are calling on networks to stop prioritizing dramatic ratings over the welfare of cast members visibly in crisis or volatile situations.
Change won’t come easy. Since the early days of reality TV, producers have intentionally leveraged “train wreck” appeal, exploiting participants with obvious mental health troubles for storylines.
And experts warn that those tactics have a real — and potentially dangerous — human cost.
“When producers knowingly cast individuals who may be vulnerable, don’t use independent psychological evaluators, don’t provide sufficient mental health support or manipulate situations to elicit distress, it creates a significant potential for harm,” Christine Chapais, an assistant teaching professor who serves as director of Online MSW Programs at Rutgers School of Social Work, told The Post.
The examples are endless — Ruthie Alcaide struggled with alcoholism on 1999’s “The Real World: Hawaii,” Rob Kardashian dealt with deep depression and low self-confidence on the Kardashian reality shows, Taylor Armstrong of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” suffered verbal and physical abuse that she tried to shield from cameras and “Teen Mom 2” star Jenelle Evans was frequently in tears as she battled her “inner demons.”
More recently, on a pair of docuseries that premiered this year, several alumni of “America’s Next Top Model” shared the emotional distress, anxiety and trauma they experienced during the show and long after the smizes faded,
After Cycle 2 contestant Shandi Sullivan was filmed having sex with a male model while drinking — an incident that was framed as a cheating scandal rather than a safety crisis — cameras continued to roll as she sobbed hysterically while confessing on the phone to her boyfriend. She then left the competition.
“My body still feels that trauma. My skin crawls when I talk about it,” Sullivan, now 43, recently told Rolling Stone. “How do you treat people as cash cow[s] instead of humans? It’s messed up, no matter what year it is.”
Cycle 8’s Dionne Walters said she was forced to pose as a gunshot victim, even though she told producers that her mom had been shot and paralyzed. “I think they wanted to see some type of mental breakdown,” she reflected in “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model.”
And Cycle 4’s Keenyah Hill lamented that her weight and eating habits were made into a “damaging” storyline.
The social media backlash was extensive, with viewers declaring the modeling competition “toxic,” “hostile,” “negligent” and “wrong AF.”
Since “ANTM” premiered in 2003, the stigma around mental health has eased. People have become more open in discussing it — and more compassionate toward others’ experiences.
And while audiences have long craved “the most dramatic season ever,” there’s growing evidence of fatigue with the sensational exploitation of mental health crises and reality TV’s predictable formula.