7 Reality Shows That Produced Celebrity Editions
The Apprentice
It’s hard not to remember a season of the NBC reality series that wasn’t a celebrity edition, but for the first 6 seasons (and Season 10), the contestants on “The Ultimate Job Interview” were average folks.
Once NBC created The Celebrity Apprentice and star Donald Trump brought in celebs to raise money for charity, it proved a ratings winner.
After Trump became president, Arnold Schwarzenegger took over the reins as host of The New Celebrity Apprentice for one season, but the show has since been canceled.
The first celebs to appear on The Celebrity Apprentice in 2008 were: (back row L-R) Marilu Henner, Piers Morgan, Nelly Galan, Trace Adkins, Gene Simmons, Carol Alt, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Jennie Finch, Lennox Lewis, Tito Ortiz, Vinnie Pastore, (bottom row L-R) Omarosa, Stephen Baldwin, Donald Trump, Tiffany Fallon, Nadia Comaneci
The Mole
The ABC reality series where contestants try to sniff out a traitorous mole from their midst aired for two seasons, before two celebrity editions in 2003 & 2004—Celebrity Mole: Hawaii and Celebrity Mole: Yucatan—tried to revitalize the struggling series.
And unlike other celebrity editions of most TV shows, the contestants on The Celebrity Mole were playing for their own pocketbooks.
Here, the cast of Celebrity Mole: Hawaii strikes a pose. (From left) Corbin Bernsen, Erik von Detten, Kathy Griffin, Frederique, Kim Coles, Stephen Baldwin and Michael Boatman.
Does Frederique look extra-shifty? She should; she was the season’s devious mole!
Family Feud
In 2015, the beloved game show took a famous twist when ABC turned its latest revamp into Celebrity Family Feud.
In the primetime game show, it’s all-celebs, all the time, and famous families and groups play for favorite charities.
Regular folks still get to play for Fast Money on the syndicated version of the series.
While filming a Celebrity Family Feud battle against former U.S. Olympic swimmers, Olympic Gymnasts Paul and Morgan Hamm, Shannon Miller, Dominique Dawes, and Dominique Moceanu pose with host Steve Harvey.
Big Brother
CBS recently announced that Julie Chen will host a special wintertime edition of Big Brother featuring celebrity houseguests who will compete in Head of Household and Power of Veto competitions, and face brutal live evictions.
“Big Brother has been dominating pop culture throughout its 19 seasons, and it is exciting to grow the franchise with the first-ever celebrity edition in the U.S.,” said executive producers Allison Grodner and Rich Meehan in a statement from CBS.
Cupcake Wars: Celebrity Battles
Season 10 of the bite-sized culinary competition featured celebrities stirring up their best cupcake recipes.
But just because there’s a war, doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of love. Here, host Jonathan Bennett snaps a sweet selfie with celeb-testants Drake Bell, Audrina Patridge, Bob Harper and Heather Morris.
Worst Cooks
This Food series has recruited terrible cooks and turned them into lean, mean, cooking machines since 2010. Under the tutelage of Chefs Ann Burrell and other guest chefs, these bad cooks fight to become the “Best of the Worst.” Season 7, 9 and the most recent Season 11 have featured celebrity casts.
Carmen Electra, Erik Estrada, Vivica A. Fox, Perez Hilton, Nora Dunn, Carson Kressley, Melissa Peterman and Sean Lowe report to culinary bootcamp.
Chopped
Throughout its history, the culinary completion series has hosted famous chefs in tournaments and celebs for one-off episodes. But in Chopped: Tournament Of Stars and Chopped: Star Power, the ante was upped as 16 celebs faced off in groups of four, with the winners of each episode moving on to a finale episode where the prize was $50,000 for charity.
Finalists (L to R) Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, Jonathan Sadowski, Paige VanZant and Lazarus Lynch prepare to wage culinary war in the Chopped: Star Power finale.
With the news that CBS will present a celebrity edition of Big Brother airing winter 2017-2018, we were inspired to remember other reality series that tried celebrity editions, as seen in the gallery above.
While some reality series like Fear Factor and American Ninja Warrior presented singular or limited celebrity episodes, the brave franchises seen here went all out, attempting entire seasons of celebrity fun. (And let’s use the term “celebrity” loosely here in a few cases, as some of the participants were trying to crawl off of the D-list, rather than being members of Hollywood’s elite.)
