*** CAUTION: This Article Contains Descriptive Content of A Disturbing Nature to Some Readers. Parental Guidance is Suggested. ***
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And then, there's what has been happening at ViacomCBS -- and though the integration of MTV and CBS' parent companies has been seamless, things haven't always been smooth sailing. Last year, just about everyone in the reality world united to show vent anger at what they saw on Big Brother All-Stars, which led to CBS making a pledge to cast more persons of color on their reality shows. And this winter, an Los Angeles Times investigation blew the whistle on the Eye network's local news operations over hostile working conditions and snaky behavior also involving race as well as sexism, and led to the ouster to two of its top executives and a pending merger of its TV station group and the network news organization, itself also having had its share of controversy in the past two decades.
MTV is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year with The Challenge All-Stars and a reunion of the first Real World cast headlining the new offerings on Paramount+ to go along with the current slate on the linear channel itself. But earlier this month, a notable development came up that didn't involve the upcoming launches of The Hills or Siesta Key, or the season finale of Double Agents, but something that may have lasting consequences. And here, one member of the only cast that never got to celebrate a moment like others had on the show they did finally decided to take a stand and end her silence on something that has never come to light until now during this time of reckoning in this world of ours.
The romantic reality television genre is a ubiquitous one in it being on just about every TV channel including MTV, but this has been a watershed time for the granddaddy of all shows in this genre. This 2020-21 season would've been huge for Bachelor Nation with the casting of two Bachelorettes for the price of one, followed by just the second person of color to be the lead star of one of its shows. But the controversy surrounding Matt James' season of The Bachelor -- led by host Chris Harrison getting rung up for his defense of a controversial contestant -- have further plagued a staple of our Monday nights.
It was just four years ago that the spinoff series that traditionally comes on after The Bachelorette, Bachelor in Paradise, found itself in the heart of controversy years before its parent series was put into the hot seat. While filming of Season 4 of BIP took place in Mexico in summer 2017, news of sexual assault allegations surrounding suitors Corinne Olympios and DeMario Jackson instantly made waves and led to not only them leaving the beach but also production to be temporarily halted. That and this year's mess have cast a dark cloud over Bachelor Nation before it returns in over a month from now.
To Challenge fans, this was the season that introduced us to several season competitor and now multiple finalist Kam Williams... same for Derrick Henry who, despite his bad luck as a challenger would become a staple of other romantic reality shows. And this was where we got our first look at Taylor Selfridge, girlfriend of Kam's Double Agents finals partner, Cory Wharton after they met on the first season of the U.S. version of Ex On The Beach. And four others from their cast have also appeared on EOTB along with The Challenge, and that doesn't count Gus Symrios of Floribama Shore, who made his MTV debut posing as a decoy in the annual visit of the exes to the AYTO house.
While those three and a few others represent the legacy of Season 5, as it has been for every one of its eight seasons the biggest moment came in the last matchup ceremony: them falling in the 10th round and losing -- the only cast to not win the jackpot at stake for lighting all the light beams for getting correctly matched up with their respective perfect matches. But unfortunately - and four years after the season aired, this month saw the revelation of a new story that's emerged that, in the long term, might be more remembered than the final result in the Dominican Republic or the success of fellow alumni who shed tears of frustration at losing $800,000 on national television.
In the case of Season 5, the love story of the Caribbean belonged to two Midwesterners: just after getting to spend time in LA filming a Rachel Levin YouTube video with Season 1 alum Ashleigh Morghan, Akron, OH native Gianna Hammer came to AYTO looking for love. When she and the cast met up on the beach in front of host Ryan Devlin, she would get matched up to Indiana native Hayden Weaver, a hardcore basketball fan in the state where the game is considered a religion. But when they went into the Truth Booth as the house's first choice to see if they were a perfect match, the science and the lasers were not on their side. And just as other notable couples in the show's history did before and after, they stayed loyal to each other even as he turned his attention to Brazilian Carolina Durate, who would eventually become his perfect match and later would get engaged to Cam Bruckman from Season 4.
Gianna & Hayden stayed together for over a year after that heartbreak in the Caribbean, where during their time together they became just the second couple in the AYTO family to become parents: they announced their entry into parenthood on Valentine's Day 2018. That summer, they welcomed their first kid August Luck, and Gianna & Hayden continue to share joint custody of the soon-to-be three-year old boy even after their breakup months after he was born. And they cited the struggles that come with most every couple and any that falls in love on national television as reasons for them not making their relationship work long-term.
What we've been able to see on AYTO are many things, including MTV applying their reality formula of big drama, youthful hotties and everything else to the standard reality dating genre of seeing people hooking up and enduring heartbreak. We've seen many getaway challenges, trips to the room of lasers which have brought down would-be perfect matches, plenty of action in the Boom Boom Room, and tense matchup ceremonies where the dreams of $1 million hinge on those lit light beams.
But that's only just part of the story: there's a whole different world that exists outside of the 100 episodes of the entire series, and one that's only experienced by those on set and by the 163 alumni who've been on its eight seasons, along with original host Ryan Devlin and predecessor Terrence J. It's in that ladder part of what goes on off camera that came to light when, on her TikTok account, Gianna posted a 10-part expose of her AYTO experience that have collectively received nearly 2 million views.
It was in that series of videos that she publicly disclosed for the first time that she had been sexually assaulted and got drugged by a male cast member while she and her cast filmed in the Caribbean in the fall of 2016. But citing the damaging impact it would have on the accuser, Gianna chose not to out the person who assaulted her or any of those on the production team (and we will follow likewise in also not identifying the ones who are at fault). But the viral nature of these allegations was enough for online news site The Daily Beast to gain an exclusive interview with Gianna to discuss this harrowing experience in full detail - one that she has kept to herself for five years, save for occasional posts in fan threads on Reddit and on Twitter.
In that Daily Beast article and in the videos above, the contestant who she alleges committed that sexual assault did not get kicked off the show following that incident, and where she believes that AYTO's production company, Lighthearted Entertainment, urged her to let that person stay in the Dominican Republic. Along with that, a solution was put in place that the man in question would have to sleep on the couch away from the rooms where the housemates sleep in every night, and that alcohol would not available to him or her for the rest of the season. And when she flew back home, Gianna says that neither MTV or Lighthearted contacted her about the assault, leaving her both "disrespected" and with a bad taste in mouth, despite finding her soulmate and eventually a co-parent to her first kid.
She says in the DB article, "Wow, that was really f___ed up. They should have never let me in an unsafe position. I'm definitely a changed person after it all."
Gianna can only remember just that much of that rough night midway through the season, and when she woke up the next morning she was feeling that hangover where she seemed to have lost her place by the time she walked into a mostly empty kitchen. A trio of producers were waiting for her to ask her if she had a recollection of the previous night -- which she had no memory of, and after being given a pill by them they brought her up to date about what they knew that she didn't. There, she had gotten into bed with that man as he was told to not to, and that her fellow contestants had to pull her out of bed before going under covers.
After they brought her up to speed on what had happened to her while she was blacked out, producers asked Gianna if she wanted to kick the man who had committed that sexual assault out of the house and deprive him of love and money. When that question came up, she had a state of shock before reluctantly deciding to have the man stay in the house and isolate him from the rest of the house, while also following through on their plan to cut off alcohol to him and to Hammer. And in addition, as is custom for such bad behavior such as this, she also made sure to sign with her signature that this incident be never brought up and that it would also be left on the cutting room floor... same went for the rest of her AYTO castmates.
Along with Gianna, The Daily Beast story was also supplemented by accounts by some of her fellow castmates where, they too, also added light to Gianna's rough night including Hayden himself, and they agree with her that production should be to blame for not intervening on her behalf. But given how things went down on the night that changed her, it made the rest of her time in paradise more than uncomfortable and as she puts it, a "downhill" ride for her when that male castmate stayed and when she saw Hayden eventually rejoice in the Truth Booth with Carolina when they became match #2.
But when Season 5 of AYTO aired the following winter, Hayden contacted MTV Vice President of Talent and Casting, Lauren Zins, about Gianna's assault and asking if Lighthearted hierarchy had ever reported it to Zin's bosses... but they never got word of whether that was the case. The couple felt reluctant to promote the show even as they became the darlings of their season, but the boss kept pressuring them to take part in the season-ending reunion show to the point that they would eventually fly out to L.A. for that, despite the shame of that incident and a pressuring email reply from Ms. Zins.
When they filmed interview portions of the series retrospective Beyond the Boom Boom Room after the lone season of the AYTO spinoff Second Chances that summer (for which he and Carolina were among the competitors and where he stole her money in a similar fashion to that of Johnny Bananas and Ashley M. on The Challenge), it was when Gianna and Hayden got to see for the first time footage of the night that changed her. And it was when they saw that that he told her, "You were trashed, you were like a different person," and it led them to again tell production to not air the footage of the night of her sexual assault on the special. And when they found that the footage was also shown to other castmates, it left Hayden more than mad and confirmed his belief that Lighthearted was not doing their job.
Beyond the Boom Boom Room, along with cameoing on the Season 6 reunion later in 2017, is the last time Gianna and Hayden had worked with MTV on AYTO. But last year, a ViacomCBS rep in charge of investigations and human relations contacted her last year to bring up the clues she made on social media in reference to the incident, and the rep told her of their intent to investigate her claims to Lighthearted. When they gave her their findings, they let her know that production admitted about the incident and the pill she was given, but claimed that it took place in the bathroom when, in truth, it was in her bed... and it also blacklisted the person in question.
Though her and fellow alums are not buying their claims, Lighthearted has denied the allegations brought forth by Gianna and stated that they are welcoming to an investigation with both its cooperation and complete transparency, while also stating that no other alum of AYTO have reported an incident similar to hers to production in the eight seasons that the show as been on the air. It was after this report that MTV pulled Season 5 from streaming platforms, including Paramount+, Pluto TV and Hulu when selected seasons of the series arrive there this weekend, while production on a Season 9 that was pushed back to this year by the pandemic has now been put on hold.
In bringing this story to light, Gianna felt inspired by what Corinne went though when she decided to stand up for herself in opening up about her BIP incident that happened the same year as her, and in almost the same exact manner of being inebriated, also being sexually assaulted and everyone just standing there not wanting to intervene and stop. The alum of Ben Higgins' Bachelor season also had a similar fate of those from Warner Horizon and ABC keeping Corinne's mouth shut and getting treated badly -- but given The Bachelor's place in the reality dating genre and it airing on free-to-air television and not cable it got much more publicity.
Gianna says that bringing her story to the fore will give others who have been sexually assaulted the peace of mind that they're not alone: "I spent all these years not saying anything while it aired and while it was still fresh in everyone's minds because I was scared. I might as well just come out with it and share my experience. [It's] lifted a lot off my shoulders. I felt like it's not something that I have to carry on my back in secret or feel ashamed that it happened. At the end of the day, I would hope that anybody who is interested in doing reality TV could heart this and just know that it's important to be able to stick up for yourself."
The events of what happened to Gianna that night in the Dominican Republic now bring back into focus the topic of transparency among production companies that produce not only reality shows, but also other non-scripted television programming. The various issues that The Bachelor franchise has had lately -- along with this new one on AYTO -- are only part of the problems that face TV producers both here in America and overseas. That includes the suicide of Love Island UK's Mike Thalassitis and a murder case involving guests of a British talk show hosted by Jeremy Kyle also put into the discussion the mental health aspect of participants of not only reality TV shows, but also guests on talk shows and other non-scripted content which dominate our airwaves.
Challenge fans know this topic all too well, as there have been two off-camera incidents in a decade's span similar to what Gianna went through: Kenny Santucci and Evan Starkman with Tonya Cooley on The Duel II, and then AYTO Season 3 alum Amanda Garcia during War of the Worlds. These incidents and this one with Gianna -- plus other high-profile ones involving racism and mental health among other things -- have spurred plenty of talk on Twitter in the days after the allegations were made public and sparked Change.org petitions to encourage MTV executives to tell Zins to take a hike and never return to her office after all of these issues supposedly came upon deaf ears. And it was just this month that ViacomCBS announced an industry-wide initiative to address mental health issues on their shows in light of the current global situation.
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| Gianna with son August. |
Tyranny Todd, who later appeared on both Ex On The Beach: Peak of Love and Bravo's 2019 reboot of Blind Date, added on Twitter: "It's crazy to me how they are denying the incident ever happening with @giannahammer but multiple people, including myself, saw this actually happen with our own eyes. So you tryna tell me my eyes didn't see what I KNOW, I saw? Lol yea go to hell Lmfaoo. All she wanted was the truth and they still can't give it to her. I hope she finds peace in this cause Lighthearted Ent is really messed up for how they are handling the situation. #TeamGianna"
And last week, Gianna returned to TikTok to thank everyone for their support of her, including those who have encountered similar stories of them being sexually assaulted in various aspects of life not shown on national television, and also called out MTV and Lighthearted for not taking immediate action as they should have. And she told E! News in their follow-up story that the support she's been getting, "...is basically the one thing that is keeping me together right now. There are a lot of amazing people I met during this experience who have my back and are standing strong with me. I've also heard from a couple of other survivors who have also been a part of sexual assaults on sets of reality TV shows. Those have been especially emotional for me."
A PERSPECTIVE
As someone who was there when it began seven years ago, I have followed Are You The One? as a fan from before it premiered up until now, and who's covered every step of the series on here as a blogger. While Season 5 is known for many things good and bad, what happened off camera and perhaps the dirtiest little secret that happened there in the Dominican Republic may just as well be the single most remembered aspect of the season that lost it all, and with it some respect from the broader reality community because of this new revelation... something that just seems all too familiar in this business.
In offering an objective perspective on this, though I will still remain a fan of AYTO and who anticipates it returning in the midst of this uncertain time, it's certainly heartbreaking to find out that someone who was part of the biggest romance in the Caribbean -- and who along with Hayden have become great parents to August, could go through something as agonizing and traumatizing as this. And to have it happen on a show that I love and this secret being swept under the rug, this makes this even more disheartening, too.
Even as Black Lives Matter continues to dominate much of the buzz right now along with the ongoing pandemic and how it has affected our mental health, we still can't forget that the #MeToo movement stills exists too... and this only opens back up the dialogue about sexual abuse and harassment brought up fifteen years ago on MySpace and exploded into consciousness in the mid-2010's. Gianna's story only adds to the many women around the globe and in all aspects of our society who are standing up for themselves following incidents that she went through on a topic that's no laughing matter.
Just it was for Big Brother casting director Robin Kass, 60 Minutes EP Jeff Fager, CBS This Morning anchor Charlie Rose and station execs David Field and Peter Dunn, the lady who oversees the people who we see on every MTV show may as well be following them out the door in potentially seeing her final reckoning in the coming months because of an incident so common in our society go practically unnoticed under her watch. How something like this be treated so lightly might just as well cost Lauren Zin's job as might others both at the channel and at Lighthearted, among the many effects of this mess.
Whatever the final findings will come out of this, I have no doubt gained greater respect for Gianna for opening up about this brutal reality of ours and putting the people behind the scenes to task for just sitting on this. And there's one thing we do know: the reputation Are You The One? has in molding what we love about MTV Reality with the reality dating genre will be left with a bad scar, and the show that I have followed may never be the same again.
Again, the entire interview with Gianna is located on The Daily Beast... and for an additional light on the subject of this post, back during her season I featured her and Season 1 alum Ashleigh Morghan collaborating on a YouTube video by social influencer Rachel Levin.
- I AM DC
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