5 Feet of Fury

Must read: Mark L. Walberg on what really goes down on trashy reality shows

It’s weird hearing the host of the American Antiques Roadshow on PBS say the world “bullshit.”

Walberg takes you behind the scenes of his previous (trashier) jobs, like Joe Millionaire, Moment of Truth and Temptation Island:

I said, “I’m not asking you to cry. I’m not getting paid by the tear. I’m just asking you, how do you feel? How do you honestly feel when you see another man’s arms around your girlfriend?” I posed it that way, and he still wouldn’t give me a legit answer.

So I said, “Look: You can either tell me how you feel right now, or not tell me and we’ll just shoot you crying on the beach in an hour.” And he was like, “Ha, well, we don’t cry!”

And then an hour later, he’s crying on the beach and we shot it. (…)

In the first episode we ever did, I asked a contestant the question, “Do you really care about global warming?” And she goes, “No, I really don’t.”

And the audience does this big boo and hiss, and I’m supposed to go to break at this point. Now, I have a choice as a host to either say to the guest, “How could you not care about the environment?” or reprimand the audience for booing.

And I didn’t do any of that. I let it die down, and I said, “Okay, well, that’s the correct answer and good for you. But hold on, before we go to break, audience: raise your hand if you drive an SUV.”

Eighty percent of the audience raised their hand and I said, “We’ll be right back.”

And I felt like that’s all we needed to say, right?