It may be sour grapes or disgustingly real. Two former MTV Spiltsvilla contestants open up to MiD DAY in a tell-all of the grime behind the shine of reality TV
It may be sour grapes or disgustingly real. Two former MTV Spiltsvilla contestants open up to MiD DAY in a tell-all of the grime behind the shine of reality TV
Sex, lies and videotapes are passe. Self-propagated MMSes, an alleged murder accused for a participant, and underage drinking to incite indecent behaviour on screen are in.
This, is the truth behind the making of MTV's popular Splitsvilla 2 series, or so say those who've been there, done that.
"Some of the top crew members, including the director, had slept in the same room as top contender Joanna Magee. Others, too, engaged in sexual favours, especially towards the end," revealed ex-contestant Nalini Negi.
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"Joanna, by the way, is a notorious sl'' in Chandigarh and has a police complaint for murder lodged against her," added co-contestant Varun Jhamb.
"It is not surprising, then, that she entered this season of the show without proper auditioning."
A case of sour grapes? Maybe, maybe not.u00a0
Take the show's winner, Sakshi Pradhan, for instance, who is known to have "made her own sex MMSes and circulated it for publicity" when the series was still under production. "Everyone knew about it, and enjoyed it," Varun told MiD DAY.
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Apart from the others, Sakshi, is well aware of the videos, and joked about it without getting offended. There are three such recordings, one with a runtime of eight minutes.
Shrugs Saskshi, "I know the tattoos and face look just like mine, but it isn't me, trust me, and if everyone thinks it is, I'm cool with it."
We tried to get in touch with Raghu Ram, the creator of Roadies and Splitsvilla, but his phone was switched off.
We also tried to contact MTV's corporate communication office, which said that the show Splitsvilla was outsourced to the production team of Colosseum and nobody from the team was available for comment.
The three also agree they had been given easy access to unlimited alcohol, so that it triggered uncontrolled, obscene behaviour and uncalled for intimacy. "Barring Joanna, we were all underage, and did not know what we were up to, when drunk.
The cameras, however, rolled on to grab the juiciest bits," Nalini recalled. The channel had been issued a show-cause notice in this regard, and ran an apology on-screen for the next few days of telecast.
The wrap-up party was a free-for-all, if these contestants are to be believed, where a very prominent face of the channel had "oral sex with two female contestants who wanted to be a part of future shows".
And there's more. Free gifts that were given out during the show were allegedly taken back once the deal ended, and the participants were "shabbily treated, except a privileged few, and everyone knows why," smiled Varun. Predictably, the contenders also confessed that many of the tasks, fights and pairs were scripted.
There was no love, only lust and greed.
