On Paramount+, the cast of the groundbreaking The Real World: Los Angeles reunites tomorrow, in The Real World Homecoming: Los Angeles.
Former reality-show stars Beth Anthony, Beth Stolarczyk, David Edwards, Glen Naessens, Irene Berrera-Kearns, Jon Brennan and Tami Roman are under the same roof of the same iconic Venice beach house from their series, which aired in 1993.
The Real World was groundbreaking for the time, and its Los Angeles season was only the long-running show’s second: It pioneered such reality-show staples as the “confessional,” rotating house guests, and more.
ABC Audio caught up with Jon and Irene to see what happened when people stopped being polite, and started getting real…again.
“It did start something different and new,” Irene said of the show. “And I think we have that bond that not too many people can say that they have.”
The cast have kept in touch over the years, she explained, but, “We don’t see each other very often, so when I did walk through the door and first saw [Jon], I mean, it was like I came back home.”
Jon recalled, “It’s definitely a crazy experience, and you walk down that sidewalk in 1993, and you get ready to walk into this house and there’s a camera pointed at you. None of us are movie stars or TV stars, so this is a really strange thing to happen to a young person. And, you know, you’re up for an adventure, so you just roll with it.”
He continued, “When we were doing it, we had no idea. We had the first season in New York to compare it to. But that was really it, and some of us hadn’t even seen that! And so it was uncharted territory.”
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