Deleese Williams applied to be a contestant on ABC’s Extreme Makeover. In January 2004, the producers of the show sent a film crew to her home town to interview her and her family.
According to the suit, the producers manipulated Williams’ sister, Kellie Williams, into making cruel statements about her sister’s looks.
The producers ended up cancelling her makeover because it would take too long for her jaw to heal from the procedure she wanted. Apparently Kellie was so distraught over the things that she said about her sister that she killed herself (according to the lawsuit).
Oy. Where do we begin?
Firstly, did Kellie think that if the show did air that the things she said wouldn’t end up on the air?
Secondly, I fail to see how ABC (or the producers of the show) are responsible for the woman’s death. No one forced her to kill herself. If she meant what she said, then she’s stupid for saying it publicly. If she said it under coericion (“if you don’t say these things than you sister won’t get her makeover”) then why couldn’t she just privately apologize and explain to her sister. Since the show wasn’t going to air, no one else would have known about it anyway.
Sounds like just a case of a person using a tragic situation to get money from a big company.
I can see it. If the show truly coerced the sister, and forced her to say those things at gunpoint. And then cut out her tongue so that she couldn’t apologise. And then gave her a gun so she could kill herself. And then pulled the trigger. And then crossed the international date line so as to have an alibi for the day before. And then there was this really cool space ship, see, and it was controlled by giant space dinosaurs form Pluto, and then…
Aptly pitted. Yet another “someone somewhere is responsible for this” lawsuit.
I also can’t figure out why the episode not airing is what led to the suicide. If the show had aired, everyone would have seen her say the awful things. Since it hadn’t, no one did. Sounds like the ugly duckling is more upset that she didn’t get her nose job.
I can’t describe how much I hate these stupid shows.
I think this is tragic, for the woman who found out what all her friends really thought of her, and the fact that at the last moment she was denied a dream, a dream she likely couldn’t afford herself; and for the woman who was so distraught over what she had said about her sister that she could no longer face it.
At the same time, I’m not shedding any tears for ABC. They’re viciously predatory, knowing that people’s weaknesses make good television. Would there be such a thing as reality shows otherwise?
Obviously, this particular suit is likely baseless. I do, however, feel that at the point ABC backed out of the deal, they had acquired a moral responsibility to perform the surgery, even if not legal.
Ditto. And we have to blame the TV watching public who get off on hearing about other peoples’ weaknesses and making its exploitation profitable. Which consists, I must assume since they are familiar with the show, the plaintiffs.
No kidding. I think ABC has all sorts of moral culpability for this.
I’ve always wondered how reality TV shows get away with the stuff they do. Even the relatively innocuous ones. Take ‘What Not To Wear’, for example. They follow their potential contestants around for a couple of weeks, and film them, often even within their own homes. Regardless of how cleanly edited that footage is when it makes it on the air, if you filmed me in my home for two weeks, you’d have some damned embarassing tape. Tape I wouldn’t want aired, sure, but tape I wouldn’t want anyone, including an editor seeing. How do they not get sued? Surely not everyone who is offered the chance to be on What Not To Wear actually accepts it.
And when you get into the less tame shows, the one where the claws really come out, the amount of emotional damage they must be doing to people just in the run up must be tremendous. I can easily envision a situation where the family members in this case were encouraged by the TV people to say ever increasingly horriffic things about the woman in order to ensure she seemed pathetic enough to actually need the makeover. To then pull it back afterwards is despicable.
I suspect the contract has an “ABC can choose to bail at any time” clause.
From the picture in Mtgman’s link, I don’t think Deleese is particularly unattractive. She may not be a beauty queen, but she’s not exactly ‘malformed’
Eh. I have no sympathy for any of the parties involved, except maybe the judge who has to preside over this crap.
I agree with the moral aspect of it (but since when did a TV network really have morals? Maybe ethical principles is a better phrase).
I do think that TV holds up a mirror to our society (but not, unfortunately to all facets) and what we see reflected is not pretty at all.
Networks are driven by ratings (I don’ think they are innocent of manipulation by any means)–and if these types of shows get ratings, these are the types of shows we will see. I also do not understand how so many shows can be so mean spirited. WNTW has softened a bit (I watch it infrequently) but still–there is alot of humiliation on that show.
For fuck sake people, we know nothing about the lawsuit. Yet everyone is quick to jump in with claims that the case is without merit. The article was from a wire service. Who here thinks that the reporter had any legal knowledge? These reporters just slosh out the juicy bits because it makes good copy. The legal system has plenty of measures to weed out frivolous cases and ways to punish those who file them. Why are we so quick to judge? Sure maybe the case is bunk, maybe that particular claim is bunk, but the information provided is not enough to base a reasoned conclusion.
We constantly get inundated with verdicts we do not agree with. Who are we to judge? We were not on the jury, we did not hear all the facts. Why are we always so convinced that we know better than those who actually saw the evidence?
We constantly get bombarded with examples of "stupid’ law suits. But most people rarely follow up to see the outcome. Either something about the case that we did not know makes it not so stupid or it was dissmissed as frivolous.
People seem to forget that in the end it is a jury that decides. Why are so many people so eager to rush to judge without the facts?
Sure the case “as described” sounds silly, but I doubt the case is “as described” and if it is I am sure ABC has a few lawyers laying around who can handle the case.
I see your point. But ultimately the party responsible for any suicide is not able to stand trial. Who drove the lady to this kind of despair? A fleeting & unfulfilled promise by a company who offered to pay to change her appearance? Or the family and acquaintances who allowed her self image to degrade so much over the course of her life that she thought she had to have her face changed in order to be “normal” and was crushed when it wouldn’t be paid for by someone who owed her nothing?
ABC didn’t talk shit about her, her own family did! ABC is only guilty of bringing out the worst in a bunch of people of little worth anyway.
Inigo, not that it makes any material difference to what you posted, but the suicide was not the woman who stood to get the surgery, but her sister, who had made disparaging comments about the candidate’s appearance, and regretted having made them.
Typical Inigo. OK then, let’s see here…Still not ABC’s fault, so I’m good there…OK, how to spin this…Um…Thhhhhhhe sister that did herself in thouuuugggghhhht she had weapons of mass destruction aaaaaannnnndd sheeee wouldn’t give 'em up and so she … uh … living with an ugly sister drove her crazy! Yeah, that’s it! And when sister came back, still ugly, she couldn’t take it anymore! Yeah, that’s the ticket.
It would probably require sight of the actual court papers to even begin to make a reasonable determination of the merits of the case and even then it’s only the arguements filtered through the legal advisers that’s seen.
I know from personal experience (ex lawyer (Scotland) ) that even reporters who have no axe to grind can easily misunderstand and thereafter misrepresent court proceedings.
We are probably getting at most 5% of the case and I doubt if that 5% is entirely accurate.
Here’s another link as well, citing pills, alcohol, and cocaine as the overdose drugs taken. Cocaine? I’m sorry, that’s not something the average person would just pick up and overdose on intentionally. I have to speculate that the sister had other problems.
askeptic, I understand what you are saying but I find it hard to accept that we can sue people if our family members commit suicide. Come on! ABC didn’t feed her the alcohol and drugs. She chose that for herself and it’s not the television station’s fault, crass and horrible as they might be.
