A Brief History of Threesomes on Reality TV

Reality TV isn't known for being the classiest or the most well-adjusted, but therein lies the beauty of it: It's guaranteed entertainment if the network assembles a group of the biggest trainwrecks they can find and sticks them all in a house together for a couple of months. There will be fights, there will be drunken breakdowns, there will be rampant hook-ups, and, of course, there will be threesomes.

Recently, rumors began swirling that Love & Hip-Hop Atlanta stars Mimi Faust and Joseline Hernandez don't actually hate each other as much as the show would have us believe, and often participate in threesomes with their shared boyfriend, Stevie J. Though the rumors were (fortunately or unfortunately, depends what you're into) denied, it did get us thinking—what shows have actually featured the elusive threeway on screen?

Featuring any risqué scenes, let alone a threesome, is still a taboo for both scripted and unscripted television, moreso in the U.S., due to strict FCC laws and parent watchdog groups. Some shows have managed to get away with it despite this, though.

In an effort to chronicle the evolution of the threesome on reality television, we put together a list of the most memorable threesomes ever shown on reality television, complete with accompanying pictures and video. It's safe for work, don't worry, but we can't say the same about your eyes and/or mental status. Proceed with caution, things are about to get weird.

Written by Tanya Ghahremani (@tanyaghahremani)

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Granted, we don’t actually see this threesome on screen—we just see a bunch of hilarious, totally ‘90s shots of a frosted window to the bathroom—but it’s still important to note. Melissa and Mike may have vehemently denied it ever took place back in the day, but now, 17 years after the show aired, it’s been confirmed that it really did happen. That means, we all saw the first threesome on reality television years ago, and we didn’t even know it. INCEPTION.

But no, really, this is an important scene for both the show and reality television as a whole. This is the series that paved the way for other classics like Jersey Shore, which, as this list points out, had its fair share of threesomes during its six-season run. Had The Real World not pushed the envelope back in the day, we may have never been introduced to Snooki and co. What sad lives we’d be living if that had been the case.

Also, Dan’s expressions when listening to the threesome through the bathroom window—priceless. That sort of exasperation and disgust can’t be feigned.

While the 1996 Miami season bears the distinction of having the first threesome on reality television, the show’s 2002 Las Vegas threesome is the first that we actually see on screen. Unfortunately, a clip of this doesn’t seem to be on YouTube, so you’ll have to be content with just this little rundown of what went on in the scene:

All the roommates get very drunk on their third night in Las Vegas, and proceed to get into the Jacuzzi. Trishelle, Steven, and Brynn all get out of the hot tub at one point, and end up in the same bed together getting freaky, while other roommates look on from another room. It’s hard to watch, even moreso when you take into account that Trishelle deeply regrets it the next morning. Basically, it’s a classic Real World scene. Sort of makes the Jersey Shore kids seem unoriginal, doesn’t it? Their antics that took place in Seaside seven years later can likely be attributed to this very episode.

The fact that it was the first televised threesome in Real World history isn’t even the most shocking thing about this, though; it’s actually that it took until 2002 for a threesome between the cast to actually be shown on screen.

This scene kind of plays out the way the beginning of an adult film would: Abram walks into the bathroom where Veronica is fixing her hair in the mirror and talking to Rachel, who is taking a bubble bath in the Jacuzzi-style tub that MTV undoubtedly bestowed upon them for this very reason. Abram, who has lost a recent challenge and is fated to be eliminated from the show, gets way with hugging Veronica and squeezing her ass before proclaiming that he’s going to get in the tub with Rachel. He strips and gets in as Veronica watches, then she decides to yank off her slip and get in with them. There is probably a porn out there exactly like this.

What follows, though, isn’t quite as pornographic (well, it depends what you’re into). A bunch of the roommates walk in to see them going at it in the tub, and proceed to laugh and cheer them on. Awkward doesn’t even begin to cover it.

The three eventually move over to the shower next to the tub, and we see a lot of shots of the steamy glass door as the three of them seal the deal for all of the world to see. MTV likes to keep things classy.

After the threesomes that took place in Miami and Las Vegas became straight up legends, The Real World started hiring a lot more of the type of people we’re now used to seeing on modern reality television: trainwrecks.

During 2009’s Cancun season, the audience was subjected to yet another dirty/questionable threesome between cast members, this time Jonna, Pat, and Ayiiia. A clip of this unfortunately (or fortunately? Depends what you’re in to) isn’t available online, so here’s the reader’s digest version: In short, Aiiiya harbored a crush on Jonna, but knew that she only way she’d be able to hook up with Jonna is if she let Pat in on the action too. She does despite not being attracted to Pat, and the three of them get freaky.

Later, Aiiiya does regret her decision, but not because she has a boyfriend that she just cheated on—instead, because she didn’t know how her parents would react. We assume not well, so this is actually fair enough.

Granted, these three didn’t go on to have sex, but it was still pretty gross to see Ronnie macking on not one, but two heavily tanned clubgoers before heading home only to sleep with his girlfriend Sammi. After his transgression, Ronnie had these words of wisdom about the situation.

No shit, Sherlock. This scene became a huge turning point for that season and led to a lot of Sammi and Ronnie’s very explosive relationship problems that came up during the entire run of the series. Such significance for such an icky scene.

We’re just as surprised as you that one entry on this list didn’t come from an MTV-created series. But lo and behold: Bad Girls Club did indeed feature a threesome back in 2010, and it was all sorts of scandalous, just like any given episode of The Real World.

Explanation: Lexie and Kendra live up to the name of the show, and get it on in a hot tub with some guy named Marc from Ohio. We always thought the Oxygen network was like Lifetime only more risqué, but we really underestimated it.

You can watch a clip of Lexie explaining what went down, if you can get past the amount of times she says “like” every minute. Which is about 100 times. You’ve been warned.

Before Vinny failed to seal the deal with two Canadian girls, he managed to rope two lesbian women into a threesome during the last episode of season five. Somehow, it worked, and Vinny went on to call it “the coolest thing” he ever did.

“This is the moment when heroes are made. This story's going to be told for generations to come,” he told Pauly after the fact. To be fair, he was kind of right, because here we are talking about it.

In what is undoubtedly the most awkward television threesome—almost threesome, rather—season six of Jersey Shore saw Vinny take a vow of celibacy for the summer in an effort to give off a more mature, responsible, positive vibe. Also, as he explains in this aftershow, it had been a while since a girl who wasn’t a grenade had agreed to go home with him.

His intent to stay celibate, however, goes right out he window when Vinny comes across two Canadian girls he met earlier trying to park their car outside of the shore house. He manages to persuade them to come inside, somehow, only to find that the infamous “smush room” is occupied by Jenni and her boyfriend Roger. So, instead, Vinny proceeds to take them to his little twin bed in the room that he shares with Pauly and Mike, and tries to seal the deal with them in there. No surprise: It doesn’t work. One girl peaces out before things get started, which, as Deena would say, is not a good time. Threesome attempt: Failed.

It took a little debating whether or not this slide belonged on the list, but ultimately, we decided it did, purely for the ‘ick’ factor. If you’ve never seen this UK Jersey Shore-like series, Geordie Shore—read our article comparing the two shows, in which case, you should get on that now—you’ll know that graphic debauchery is nothing new, especially when it comes to Gaz.

Gaz is driven to partaking in a foursome with his fellow cast member Scott and two other girls because his FWB, Charlotte, is in love with him (despite having a boyfriend) and can’t see that he’s a gigantic asshole.

The clip isn’t on YouTube, unfortunately, but all you really need to know is that Charlotte and Gaz are basically the Sammi and Ronnie of this show, and Charlotte gets extremely jealous when she finds out that Gaz is going to have a foursome with two random girls and Scott. Gaz plays it like he doesn’t care, but he repeats the fact that Charlotte has a boyfriend about 10 times when he’s speaking to the cameras later, which leads us to believe that yeah, he cares.

Annoyed yet? Television did not need a Sammi/Ronnie redux.

Yet another threesome involving Gaz the town bicycle (this joke is too easy) in Geordie Shore. This one took place in Cancun and was just about as unsurprising and uncomfortable to watch as any sex scene on Geordie Shore is.

It may be unrelated to this particular threesome, but it's worth noting: A year later, just before the cast was set to film the sixth season in Sydney, Australia, reports broke that producers had actually went around asking local women if they'd be down for having a threesome on camera with Gaz. According to a report in The Sunday Telegraph, Australia’s Next Top Model contestant Madeline Huett claimed she and her friend were approached by “researchers” at a party, and asked if they’d like to have sex with Gaz on screen.

Reality television: now literally just prostitution.