10 Horrifying Reality TV Shows You Won’t Believe Exist
9. Toddlers & Tiaras (TLC, 2008 - Present)
This show is full of emotionally abusive parents but (like I Want A Famous Face) the show itself is not actively harming anybody featured in it and is simply showcasing the jaw-dropping insanity of the child beauty pageant world. Hence its low spot on the list despite the content being pretty shocking. Welcome to a world where the desires and emotional welfare of children take a backseat to terrifying stage mothers attempting to either live vicariously through their children or trying to make some cash off of them by adorning with gaudy bling-encrusted clothes and making them sing and dance for a panel of judges.
It's a little bit like the child performers on Britain's Got Talent in that respect but Toddlers & Tiaras induces far more despair. Stage mothers have a reputation for being truly horrible people and Toddlers & Tiaras feels like it's gone to great lengths to gather the very worst of them together like some kind of surreal internment camp for unfit parents. For example, the show at one point reveals that five year-old Alana Thompson's (who now inexplicably has her own spin-off show "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo") mother June gives her a combination of Red Bull and Mountain Dew nicknamed "Go-Go Juice" as a means to give her 'energy' (in reality, a crippling sugar and caffeine high) before each pageant.
As well as that particular brand of bad parenting, there is also blatant favouritism shown by some parents towards one child over another if one is successful in these pageants while the other fails to do as well or has no interest. Which can completely flip flop depending on how well each child performs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo9Fz-iyW8A But the most disturbing thing ever featured on Toddlers &Tiaras is a five year old named Carley who is already so supremely screwed up that she is developing a split personality called Darla who enjoys performing in pageants in order to cope with the emotional stress of performing. Something which her insane harpy of a mother wholeheartedly endorses, at point saying to her that "I'd better be talking to Darla right now" and "Carley had better be in the car".
There's also the rather unsettling practice of children as young as one year old being stuffed into pimped out dresses and swimsuits, and given beauty treatments that are wholly inappropriate for children of that age. Call me closed-minded if you will but I believe that no five year old should have a spray tan or be forced to wear so much makeup she looks like she's made of porcelain. Not to mention one child who went out on stage wearing a replica of Julia Roberts' prostitute outfit from Pretty Woman. The whole show is absolutely horrifying and its only real worth would be as evidence in a court case against the parents. Which, sadly, has yet to materialise.