14 DAY TRIAL // Here’s one more thing to shatter the illusion that reality television is in any shape or form “real”: a new report claims that the mansion in which VH1’s LeAnn & Eddie show, with LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian, is shot is not even their real house.
Apparently, the Malibu mansion featured on the show and believed to be worth a whopping $5.25 million (€3.91 million) is not their real house even if that’s what viewers are supposed to believe.
The news comes from the latest print issue of Star magazine via CB, with an insider explaining that LeAnn and Eddie chose to move into a rental for the duration of the shoot because they wanted to fool viewers into thinking that they were better off than they actually were.
“That house ups the glamour and makes LeAnn and Eddie look like they’re living the high life,” says the insider. “They want people to think they’re rich, but the truth is, they live in a much older, rustic house and definitely aren’t swimming in money.”
A rep for the couple has already addressed this rumor, but he insists that they had another reason for trying to fool audiences: apparently, they relocated because they didn’t want the production to “disrupt Eddie’s sons by shooting at the real house.” That, after both Eddie and LeAnn went out of their way to convince people that the show would be as “real” as possible, like a slice of their everyday life served up for TV viewing.
Believe it or not, shooting a reality show at a different house than the one in which protagonists live isn’t that uncommon: even the Kardashians did it with their E!-produced Keeping Up with the Kardashians. When they got busted for lying, they just said that they opted for another location for “security reasons.”
They managed to weather the storm but it’s doubtful that LeAnn and Eddie will be able to do the same. They’re not even half as popular as the Kardashians and their foray into reality television hasn’t been successful at all, starting from the long-delayed air date to the disappointing ratings for the premiere episode and the disastrous reviews.
Just earlier today, we’ve reported that they’re also being mocked online for this week’s episode, which centered on two completely made-up storylines, which can be easily verified with a simple Google search: a Twitter photo scandal involving LeAnn and a magazine photoshoot with Eddie.
LeAnn and Eddie said that they had agreed to do the series because they wanted to show the world their truth, they wanted to have their side of the story out there. It’s true, at first they also claimed that it would be like scripted comedy (so, definitely not a reality show), only to do a 180 later and say that this was who they were in real life, no scripts, no tricks, nothing.