The Swan: Inside Reality TV's Most Brutal Makeover Show (with Director Erin Lee Carr)

*SUBSCRIBE to the Back Row newsletter for more coverage like this: backrow.net/subscribe. Go Premium and save three months on an annual subscription.*

Referenced in this episode:

Facelift confessions, part 1: backrow.net/p/facelift-confessions-part-1-the-…

Facelift confessions, part 2: backrow.net/p/facelift-confessions-part-2-expe…

In 2004, Fox turned plastic surgery into primetime entertainment. The Swan reality show gave contestants about $200,000 worth of surgery each, put them on crash diets, banned mirrors for three months, and then put them in a beauty pageant. Nine million people watched. Erin Lee Carr, director of 'Mommy Dead and Dearest' and 'Britney vs Spears,' goes back to the women 20 years later in her hit Hulu documentary, The Swan: Behind the Mirror — and tells Amy what the documentary couldn't.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

04:45 Getting the Swans to talk again

10:00 "I almost died for reality television"

19:30 How much choice did they have? "1%"

22:45 Starvation diets and spoonfuls of peanut butter

26:00 The nude photos Dr. Haworth kept

28:50 The $5 million contract

36:50 "Would you do it again?"

40:00 A classic Anna Wintour story

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices