Reality strikes

•Shinjini Sengupta (June 2008): This 16-year-old’s plight rattled the nation. After being chided by judges on ETV Bangla for her less-than-perfect performance during an episode of Dhoom Macha Le in May this year, the Kolkata schoolgirl was incapacitated by an ‘attack’ — deemed as psychosomatic by some — that left her limbs and vocal chords paralysed. After the incident, Sengupta lost her speech and could not move her limbs.

•Cheryl Kosewicz (July 2007): This American attorney committed suicide after posting a note on MySpace blaming her role in the Channel Ten reality show Pirate Masters as contributing to her deep depression. Incidentally, her boyfriend Ryan killed himself about two months before she ended her life. “Truthfully, I’ve lost the strong Cheryl and I’m just floating around lost,” she wrote in a June 28 comment on the MySpace page of fellow contestant Nessa Nemir. She later added, “And this frik’n show doesn’t help because it was such a contention between Ryan and I and plus it’s not getting good reviews.” Kosewicz was the fourth contestant to be eliminated in the show, which was filmed in Dominica and pitted 16 contestants against each other to find hidden treasure.

•Simon Foster (April, 2008): After his marriage ended following an appearance on the British Channel 4 show Wife Swap — where two women exchange lives for two weeks — this 40-year-old father was found dead of a drug overdose. His bisexual wife, perhaps bolstered by her public ‘outing’ had moved out of her house to be near her girlfriend, while he became homeless after losing his job as a van driver.

•Najai Turpin (February, 2008) The 23-year-old boxer shot himself after losing a match on the Sylvester Stallone-fronted programme, The Contender. As the caretaker of his two younger siblings and child, Najai viewed the show as a way of escaping poverty and fighting, in his words, “my way out of the ghetto”. Aired on AXN in India, the programme, in over 15 episodes, chronicles the “hopes, triumphs and defeats” of the boxers, but on Valentine’s Day, three weeks before the show’s debut, Turpin shot himself in the head. His friends say Turpin felt lonely and isolated after the show because it took him away from his loved ones.

•Anthony Ogadje (2007): A Nigerian reality television programme, Gulder Ultimate Search 4, was suspended after a contestant drowned in preparation for the show. The programme sets a variety of physical challenges for participants and Ogadje died during one of them and was thought to have drowned, show organisers said. “All attempts to revive him by the attendant medical team and the life-guards, including his fellow contestants, failed,” said sponsors Nigerian Breweries.

•Kellie McGee (2005): Distraught Kellie McGee killed herself after her sister, Deleese Williams’ appearance on US TV show Extreme Makeover was cancelled. Deleese claims that sister Kellie was tricked into saying cruel remarks about her on camera before the scheduled operation to change her teeth, eyes and breasts. She claimed that when the show was cancelled Kellie was left so upset by the comments she had made that she took her own life.

•Nancy Campbell-Panitz (2002): The 52-year-old woman was beaten to death by her ex-husband Ralf Panitz after an episode of the famously volatile Jerry Springer Show in which he revealed he had married another woman. The show created “a mood that led to murder”, according to the victim’s son, Jeffrey Campbell. Makers of the programme said they could not be held responsible for the death, and they were “an easy and convenient target”. Ralf Panitz, 42, was convicted of second-degree murder in 2002. He had taken part in the filming of the show in May 2000 with Nancy Campbell-Panitz.