Tori Spelling's Reality Show Ends With Producers Fabricating Tweets

By Tracie Egan Morrissey  |  June 4, 2014 | 6:20pm
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After getting off to a bumpy start, True Tori never managed to fully convince people of its authenticity. So perhaps it’s fitting that last night’s “reunion” episode rang just as false as the rest of the season, with a little bit of staged drama, fake viewer-submitted questions from nonexistent Twitter accounts and Dean McDermott singing an original song based on his cheating scandal.

First of all, it was weird to refer to last night’s episode as a “reunion,” with host Brooke Anderson (fittingly, an Entertainment Tonight correspondent) announcing that Tori and Dean would “reunite” in their living room to discuss everything that’s happened. Wasn’t that the entire premise of the actual show? And these people live together. Are they reuniting for the first time since 20 minutes ago?

They did address the “rumor” that the show was fake, which they denied. But then the reunion trudged on with its bizarre tone similar to that of Caesar Flickerman interviewing the tributes of the Hunger Games. When dark subject matter is highly-produced to maximize its entertainment value it lends the situation a surreality that’s at once off-putting and engaging.

In a one-on-one with Tori, Brooke established that, later in the show, they would be asking Dean if he ever cheated with any other women beside the elusive Emily Goodhand. But after a few commercial breaks, Tori walks into her own living room to have an impromptu chat with Brooke to tell her that she just isn’t ready to ambush Dean like that. It’s supposed to feel like a behind-the-scenes, insider peek at how the reunion was being made, but it just felt like a scene.

Later, Brooke read four different viewer-submitted questions, supposedly sent in from people’s Twitter accounts.

The first was credited on the screen as being from @2RedSoxGirl16, a user that doesn’t exist. But since the “2” and the “@” button are the same, I figured that might be a typo. I was right! @RedSoxGirl16 is real. Except that the only time she ever tweeted was to ask Tori and Dean a question.

Interestingly, of the 20 people whom RedSoxGirl16 follows on Twitter, one of them is Ryan Sommer—a veteran of reality television production (he’s worked on several Kardashian shows) who has been tweeting up a storm about True Tori for the past month. His Twitter handle is @RySommer, which brings us to the next viewer-submitted question.

This one was supposedly submitted by Elaine Rona, with the Twitter handle @2RySommer. That account doesn’t exist, but it’s very similar to Ryan’s handle.

The next question was submitted by @NicoleyBlais, which is a real account, but its only two tweets are questions for Tori and Dean.

The fourth question was submitted by someone named Lisa Valentine with the handle @Lisav1234. That account does exist, but its credited to a woman named Lisa Vargas who only tweeted twice, both over a year ago.

How sloppy is that? When you have the press breathing down your neck about faking aspects of your life and your TV show, why wouldn’t you be more careful? At least lie better. Were the real questions that horrible that they couldn’t be asked?

The show then turned in a completely different direction, showing Tori and Dean in their backyard with some guy playing the guitar while Dean sang a very Goo Goo Dolls-esque song about his affair and his marriage that includes the lyric: “Broken trust for a dance with lust.” Tori looked on, giving reaction shots.

And this is why these people are unbelievable.

 
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