10 TV Shows That Ruined People's Lives

10 TV Shows That Ruined People’s Lives

Welcome to WatchMojoUK, and today we’re looking at shows in which both the stars and participants were never the same afterwards.

“This Morning” (1988-)

Why HAS ITV’s flagship daytime magazine show suddenly started destroying everybody who comes into contact with it? Your guess is as good as ours, but it’s certainly negatively affected many people who were on it. There were the people who hated working with Phillip Schofield, there was Schofield himself who clearly let telly power go to his head, and there was Holly Willoughby, whose position in the public eye led to a kidnapping and murder plot. It’s Willoughby more than the others we’re talking about, as we can’t imagine the toll it takes on a person to find out that a man was trying to hire someone to kill them. It was no wonder that as soon as this story broke, Willoughby stepped down.

“Strictly Come Dancing” (2004-)

The BBC’s biggest hit has been ruining lives for years. First, we have the infamous “Strictly Curse”, in which celebrities and professional dancers find themselves falling into each other’s arms time and time again. Seann Walsh and Katya Jones certainly felt the brunt of the public’s ire when they were snapped kissing by the tabloids, with Walsh’s career ending up in the toilet and Jones’ marriage ending. But recently, it’s come under fire for a different reason: alleged misconduct at the hands of the overcompetitive, professional dancers. Amanda Abbington blew the whistle on mistreatment on the show, and it’s so far led to both Giovanni Pernice and Graziano di Prima stepping down while the BBC implements chaperones going forward.

“Top Gear” (2002-22)

After his horror crash in 2006, Richard Hammond was left with serious injuries and spent time in a medically induced coma. He thankfully recovered, but this wasn’t going to be the last near-death experience for a “Top Gear” presenter. Cricketer Freddie Flintoff, who joined the presenting team in 2019 along with Paddy McGuinness, had two horror crashes, the latter of which ended the show in 2022. The details have never come out, but only recently has Flintoff returned to television, with a new series of “Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams”. He made it clear that he was still haunted by the accident and the injuries he sustained.

“Come Dine with Me” (2005-)

You may not think of “Come Dine with Me” as particularly life-changing in either a good or a bad way; after all, all they’re doing is eating dinner, and the prize is only a grand. But one man in particular was more affected than most: Peter Marsh, the show’s most notorious contestant. While Marsh’s “sore loser” rant went viral, he has consistently claimed that he was misrepresented, and has kept a very low profile since. But if you watch the episode, you’ll see that while he’s certainly not the nicest bloke in the world, Jane arguably deserved every word he said to her. She was needling him all week but came out smelling of roses.

“Gladiators” (1992-2000)

Another show in which its stars suffered many near-fatal injuries was “Gladiators”, which even today in its BBC reboot is seriously hurting the athletes who participate. There was Diane Youdale’s horror fall from the Pyramid that led to her leaving the show when she almost broke her back. There was Michael Ahearne interfering with ongoing court cases for violent offences. And there was Jefferson King getting kicked off the show for taking illicit substances, which led to a decades-long struggle with addiction and numerous prison stints. The lack of proper health and safety combined with the meteoric rise to fame of its otherwise unknown stars made “Gladiators” a powder keg of behind-the-scenes scandals.

“The Late, Late Breakfast Show” (1982-86)

You couldn’t avoid Noel Edmonds on primetime TV in the 1990s, while today you’ll usually only run into him when watching old repeats of “Deal or No Deal”. Like “Gladiators”, “The Late, Late Breakfast Show” saw many participants injured over the years while trying to perform daring stunts for television. Again, health and safety was majorly lacking, but nobody heeded the warning signs of other serious injuries, including a live car accident. In 1986, a member of the public, Michael Lush, died during a stunt rehearsal when it turned out his bungee rope had a broken carabiner. It failed when he jumped from a crane, and the BBC was found to be at fault.

“Jim’ll Fix It” (1975-94)

We dread to think how many lives were irreparably damaged through “Jim’ll Fix It” bringing vulnerable, often ill children into contact with Jimmy Savile. Similar things could be said about “Clunk-Click” and “Top of the Pops” when he was presenting it, but “Jim’ll Fix It’s” unique premise gave Savile clear access to many of his hundreds upon hundreds of victims. And even though he often wasn’t involved personally in the “fixes”, this show more than any other gave him the credibility he needed to commit the many crimes we now know was perpetrating throughout his entire career. It’s very disturbing to look back on all of these shows now.

“Love Island” (2015-)

It’s remarkable that, after everything that’s happened, ITV is keeping “Love Island” going. With four different deaths now connected to the show, including its former host Caroline Flack, calls for “Love Island” to get axed for good have never been louder. The way it catapults people into the public eye is unprecedented, and many former contestants have spoken out about the impact the show has had on their mental health, particularly from not knowing how to handle online trolling. There have been a lot of campaigns to get people to think before they post online and an improvement in the show’s aftercare, but many still think it should leave screens entirely. 

“There’s Something About Miriam” (2004)

Even in 2004, someone should have realised that this show shouldn’t exist. It took transgender model Miriam Rivera and found six potential suitors to woo her. But the show didn’t tell the men that she was trans, leading to a big reveal at the end. When trans people find themselves at the receiving end of thousands of hate crimes each year in Britain, this premise was putting Miriam in clear danger. As well as that, the idea that trans women “trick” men into being with them is a harmful stereotype. But the story gets worse; the men on the show were mortified and Miriam’s career ended. In 2019, Miriam is believed to have taken her own life – though her husband maintains that she was murdered.

“The Jeremy Kyle Show” (2005-19)

While other shows ruined lives by making mistakes, “The Jeremy Kyle Show” did so by design, and it did it for fourteen years. Speaking after the 2019 cancellation, ex-producers said that they were told to target vulnerable individuals for casting, promising them paternity tests and stints in rehab in exchange for degrading themselves on television. It was sickening to watch even at the height of its popularity, with many people calling it out publicly for how it exploited the working classes it was claiming to help. When Steve Dymond took his own life, ITV did its best to try and scrub the show from existence. But we all remember, and Kyle himself still hasn’t so much as apologised.

Let us know which TV shows you think should never have been made.