Will Heidi and Spencer stay or go? For the last week, that has been the soap opera rocking NBC's reality show "I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!"
In some ways, the off-screen antics -- which include a weekend hospitalization for "The Hills" star Heidi Montag Pratt, allegations that the pair endured "torture" at the hands of producers, feverish Twitter updates from relatives and her husband Spencer Pratt's reported intention to sue the network -- really are the show. These days, it's hard to separate stunt from content.
In the latest chapter of their odd reality-TV stardom, the Pratts -- or "Speidi," as the couple is increasingly known -- have relentlessly toyed with viewers as they ostentatiously quit, then tried to rejoin, then waged an evident sickout against, the program. NBC says it has nothing to do with the couple's decision-making. But that didn't stop the network from putting out a news release last week trumpeting their attempt to come back. And Paul Telegdy, NBC's new reality programming chief, traveled himself to the set in Costa Rica to attempt to manage the ruckus. An NBC spokeswoman confirmed that Heidi and Spencer would both appear on Monday's two-hour episode. The couple's PR person, in a statement released Monday afternoon, said that "many" of the reports concerning the couple and "Celebrity" are "false and inaccurate, including any reports of 'torture' on the show."
The Speidi affair came on the heels of another heavily publicized stunt, in which the sometimes gay-baiting rapper Eminem stormed out of the MTV Movie Awards after winding up on the unpleasant end of a ribald skit involving Bruno, a flamboyantly gay character played by "Borat" comic Sacha Baron Cohen. Online debate about the incident didn't quiet down until one of the show's writers and later Eminem himself confirmed that the entire incident, including his angry walkout, was carefully rehearsed. (MTV steadfastly refused comment, including for this story.)
Such stunts are, in any case, becoming a familiar TV signpost, as networks and producers battle ongoing audience fragmentation by scraping for memorable "moments" that can thrive as viral video, drive discussion on Twitter and other social-media sites and inevitably end up in the mainstream gossip and entertainment press.
It may be the speed of the process that is most astonishing.
