What you need to know
How far are you willing to go to be on TV?
Ricki Lake, a former guest on the popular ’90s talk show, has opened up about how he lied to get on the show.
In the final episode of ABC News Studios’ three-part documentary on the rise of daytime talk shows in the ’90s, “Dirty Talk: When Daytime Talk Shows Ruled TV,” which aired on Wednesday, January 28, 1995 Ricki Lake guest Sarah Bunting described the crazy stories she and her friends concocted to get on national television.
“I didn’t really want to be on the show. I wasn’t a big fan of the show. My friends thought it was funny to make up outlandish stories on episodes of ‘I Have a Secret to Tell You,'” Bunting said.
In the fictional story, Bunting’s friend Kimberly entrusts her with taking her sick dog to the vet and putting it to sleep. Instead of taking the dog to the vet herself, Bunting gave the dog to her boyfriend, who ran it over with his car and dumped it in a lake, then used the cash to take Bunting out to a nice dinner.
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“What you might not realize when you’re watching these (shows) is that the audience is on top of you. They’re about four feet apart,” Bunting said. “When I’m telling this story, people are crying and everyone’s there. So I thought, if I get caught now, I’m going to be attacked and torn apart, so I have to sell this.”
She continued: “It’s hard to believe how little scrutiny there was.”
According to the documentary, Ricki Lake had a reputation for broadcasting false stories over the years.
Ricki Lake producer Garth Anshel said, “We tried to keep them from doing that (fabricating stories), but as the guests came up with the game, things like that happened more and more often.” “There’s no doubt some part of society wants their 15 minutes of fame. How else can you explain a blatant lie?”
“Rikki Lake had a fact-checking department, but it’s very difficult to fact-check personal stories. People will definitely get through,” said Hal Sherwin, another producer on the show.
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Dirty Talk: When Daytime Talk Shows Ruled TV details the rise of “trash TV” talk shows in the ’90s. The talk show featured hosts competing in stories with the most ridiculous guests, and sometimes violence broke out.
In addition to Wilkos, fellow hosts Maury Povich, Montel Williams, Sally Jessie Raphael and Leeza Gibbons also appear in the documentary, which looks back at the popular TV show’s cultural impact and legacy.
The first episode detailed how the daytime format exploded in the ’90s, where sex and conflict were key to the show’s appeal. The second episode explores why viewers tuned in and why the guests agreed to reveal everything on air. We were also told of a shocking incident in which one guest murdered another guest after recording. And in the third and final episode, he detailed how The Jerry Springer Show took the genre to a “new level of sensationalism.”
All episodes of Dirty Talk: When Daytime Talk Shows Ruled TV are currently streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
