Recently, there have been more and more scandals being unearthed about the shows on the Discovery Channel. Discovery Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet are owned by Discovery Communications, and the parent company is probably used to pretty much every type of scandal by now. Sometimes, these types of scandals can cause a show to be cancelled, but we’re curious about why the Discovery Channel attracts this kind of scandal. Keep reading to find out about some of the most controversial things that have happened in the history of the Discovery Channel.
Bear Grylls Was Let Go
We can’t really think of anything that Bear Grylls is unable to do. It turns out that he wasn’t willing to work on anything on Discovery Channel that wasn’t Man Vs. Wild though. Maybe because he felt like he had already made his mark on the network.
The network asked him to work on two upcoming projects, but Grylls wasn’t happy to. But instead of allowing him to keep working on the TV show that made him famous, the network fired him after the sixth season.
Not So Alaskan, Alaskan Bush People
Alaskan Bush People is a show that has seen its fair share of controversy throughout its lifetime! The biggest scandal might be that the family on the show isn’t actually Alaskan. Not only that, but their old home isn’t so far off the grid as you’d think – it’s only 10 miles away from the center of town!
The family was written up for giving false statements about their residency when they applied for their hunting and fishing licenses. Before they moved to Alaska in 2012, they had lived in Texas and Colorado.
The Alaskan Bush People Have Been Convicted for Fraud
It seems like the family members of Alaskan Bush People continue to lie about the time they’ve spent in Alaska. In 2015, the Brown family admitted lying about their address to get more money from the government. Both Billy and Bam Bam plead guilty to second-degree falsification.
They had both claimed to be from south-east Alaska, and the full-time residents of this area are given a lot of money from the Alaskan Permanent Fund Division to stay in the state. Billy was granted $7,956 and Bam Bam was given $1,174; both were sentenced to a month in jail for their falsehoods.
Controversies Led to the Cancellation of American Guns
The Discovery Channel wanted to cash in on viewers’ obsession with firearms by creating a show all about a gun shop. The show was called American Guns and it focused on the Wyatt Family, which owns Gunsmoke Guns in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
The final episode was aired in 2012, despite the show having good ratings. However, the cancellation of the show was because of the increase in gun-related incidents like the shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School. The network wanted to be safe rather than sorry.
The Shop Was Robbed After the Show Was Canceled
Just after the show was canceled, Gunsmoke Guns was robbed from a hole in the ceiling. Police couldn’t tell if it was the work of one person or a group of people, but whoever robbed the shop left with twelve handguns and three rifles.
News reports said that the robbery was just a really unfortunate thing to happen, but if you keep reading you’ll find out that another bad thing happened to them a couple of weeks later…although the second wasn’t so much bad luck as bad decision making.
Richard Didn’t Have a Gun License
We’ve found out since the show aired that Richard Wyatt wasn’t in possession of a permit to sell firearms. In 2012, he lost his Federal Firearms License because he violated federal regulations and laws. However, he continued to sell guns through a license someone else owned.
Wyatt was accused of changing the address of another store to Gunsmoke’s address, and so when someone wanted to buy a gun at Gunsmoke they had to go to another store to fill out all the necessary paperwork there. This might seem like an obvious loophole, but in 2016 he was indicted for doing this.
Richard Didn’t Report a Personal Income Of $1.1 Million
Nine days after Gunsmoke Guns was robbed, the IRS conducted a raid for tax evasion. They had started their investigation in 2010 when an agent working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives discovered that Wyatt may have been in possession of six fully automatic firearms without the right permits.
Not only that, but Wyatt hadn’t reported $1.1 million in personal income between the years 2009 and 2012. He was also charged for filing a false tax return and was found guilty of 10 felonies.
Criminals Used Gunsmoke Guns
If the previous scandals weren’t enough, American Guns also helped in the sale of a stolen gun. In the last episode of the first season, a guy named Wylie Newton tried to sell a $20,000 antique Colt.
It was discovered that the gun was stolen from the New Mexico Museum. Wylie was very close to getting away with it…except for the fact that he went on a TV show to try to sell it, and when someone who knew about the robbery watched the episode, they alerted the authorities.
Stephanie Hayden and Kris Ford Also Ran Afoul of the Law
The Gunsmoke Guns family seems to have a lot of criminals in it. Unfortunately, they’re not all just trying to find loopholes to keep selling guns. After her dad was arrested, Stephanie Hayden Ford and her husband Kris were arrested for cruelty to children.
They had allegedly hit their nine-year-old son with a belt, causing him to have a lot of bruises. Kris was the one who allegedly beat the boy, but Stephanie was arrested for being present at the time of the beating and not stopping it.
Cody Lundin Was Allegedly Threatened By His Co-host on Survival
Dual Survival, which is a reality TV show about survival, was subject to scandal when Cody Lundin sued the entire Discovery network. The lawsuit said that Joe Teti, the show’s co-host, threatened to kill Lundin while they were shooting. What’s more is that Lundin said that the producers of the show told him to act like he was going crazy while on set.
The truth was that Teti was waving an ice ax at Lundin and threatening to bury him beneath a Norwegian mountain. Then, Lundin was threatened again while they were shooting the show in Hawaii and Teti told him he would impale him with a spear. Lundin also claimed that Teti showed him pictures of the people he allegedly killed while he was in the CIA.
The Contestants On Naked and Afraid Are Given Help
Contestants on Naked And Afraid revealed that the show was pretty much fake, which caused the show to suffer. The premise of the show is that a pair of survivors are put together to live off nature for 21 days. Obviously, getting help from the crew would defeat the purpose of the whole thing.
However, The Daily Mail revealed that a female contestant on the show was given rice, bread and baby food to eat after she got sick after eating a turtle. She was also given an IV drip to prevent dehydration. All of these steps were needed to make sure she survived, but the show should have come forward and said it was true.
Another Contestant Said Naked and Afraid is Scripted
During the third season, Honora Bowen and Matt Struzel competed on Naked and Afraid in Brazil. Struzel finished the three weeks, but Bowen had to quit when she started to suffer from heat exhaustion. After she left, she wrote a blog about her experiences which revealed a number of interesting facts.
Bowen said that she was told by producers to start a fight with Struzel to make the show a bit more interesting. She said that she was coached about what to say about her background and her dad. The truth is that she had a bladder issue, not heat exhaustion, and lied about having a condition to quit the show.
Count’s Kustoms’ Customers Were Not Happy
In 2012, Counting Cars went on air. It was a spin-off of Pawn Stars, and focused on the buying, selling and customizing of unique cars at an auto shop called Count’s Kustoms.
Danny Koker was the car expert on Pawn Stars, which is why he got his own spin-off show. On TV, people who went to his shop seemed happy, but many of their customers weren’t. The auto shop’s location was a bit sketchy, and all the merchandise was overpriced.
There Are Missing Pieces
Frank Fritz and Mike Wolfe are the stars of American Pickers, a show where the men look for items that are thrown away but are actually really valuable. But it’s not just Frank and Mike doing the hard work – they also get help from their store manager, Danielle.
In fact, the truth is that the majority of the things they find aren’t put on screen because the producers look through all the collections and then pick out the best things. It makes sense because not every trip is going to have a big winner and treasure find, but it seems like lying.
All the Items Are Picked in Advance
Pawn Stars and American Pickers are both shows on the same network, so they follow the same format and rules. Rick Harrison looked like he was friends with everyone, but he never actually found any of the items featured on the show.
What really happened was that the producers went through everything around them and picked out the most valuable items. They then planted these conveniently on set. By doing this, the show could be shot more quickly without searching around.
The Restorations Are Not Up to Scratch
Yet another spin-off of Pawn Stars is the show American Restorations. This show follows a team of people who try to restore old and antique items to their former glory. If you’ve ever watched the show, you’ll see the end products of their hard work.
However, eagle-eyed fans started to notice some mistakes. In the episode called ‘Secret Fan’, one viewer saw that the wheels on the restored go-kart were all put on crooked. This then made the go-kart wobble. Given how much they charge to restore items, it’s probably a better idea to go elsewhere for restoration services.
The Pawns Stars Rarely Go to Their Store
Chumlee, Corey, Rick, and The Old Man are the stars of Pawn Stars. Before they agreed to do the Discovery Channel show, they regularly worked in the store. Now, since the show has taken off, they seem to spend even less time in the store than ever before.
Since the show has become popular, they hardly ever go to the store because the camera crew gets in the way of their customers and sales. So nowadays, the Pawn Stars only go to their store to shoot the show.
American Pickers is Staged
Most of the collection in American Pickers have been planted on set, so checking to see if there’s anything else less-than-honest they did is worthwhile. The pickers have also found collections and sold the focal points of the collections. They also staged the negotiations for anything they did sell.
This doesn’t come as a huge surprise given that it’s pretty impossible that the seller would fight with Frank and Mike every time. What really happens is that the target price is agreed upon before Frank and Mike get to the location.
No One Actually Got Eaten Alive
We’re all too familiar with advertising that is misleading, but this type of misinformation is a serious offense that the Federal Trade Commission has specific guidelines about. When Eaten Alive, the Discovery Channel special, aired, viewers were enraged when Paul Rosolie came to face a 20-foot anaconda.
For months in the lead up to the show, Discovery claimed that he would be eaten alive. The team rescued him a couple of hours later, but the snake did swallow his entire head, and nearly broke his arm. Understandably, the network got in a lot of trouble for this.
PETA Was Angry About Eaten Alive
Online, a lot of people were angry because they claimed that the Discovery Channel was misleading them with its advertising. This then drew the attention of PETA, who came forward to say they were concerned about the show.
PETA was particularly concerned with the way Rosolie was allowed to put on an oxygen-supplying helmet and carbon-fiber suit on to torment the anaconda with. PETA said that the snake would have died if it ate a man alive. They released a statement to say that they were ashamed of a so-called ‘wildlife expert’ for tormenting the snake and ashamed of Discovery for encouraging him to do it.
Mama June Dated a Convicted Sex Offender
TLC is owned by Discovery, and the company saw a major controversy with people associated with its show, Honey Boo Boo. The show was suddenly canceled without any warning and viewers were left wondering what happened…which was that Mama June had started dating a convicted sex offender.
Mark McDaniel was jailed for 10 years for molesting June’s daughter, Anna ‘Chickadee’ Cardwell. McDaniel was found guilty for repeatedly sexually abusing Cardwell while they were in the same bed, and only after they broke up did he apologize.
Mama June Was Sued By Her Daughter for Withholding Money
Despite being taken off the air, the show still hit the headlines when Chickadee sued TLC and Mama June for holding back $201,000 profit from the show from her. Chickadee said that her two-year-old daughter Kaitlyn was also owed close to $100,000.
TMZ has reported that the family was paid $22,500 for each episode, which was supposed to be split among the children. Mama June has claimed that the money was directly deposited in her kids’ accounts, but it wouldn’t seem that way.
The Legal Woes of the Swamp People
Swamp People is a show about the daily life of people who work as alligator hunters in Louisiana. This sounds like a crazy premise for a show, but their off-screen lives are full of even more wild adventures.
The show’s stars, Nick Payne, Jay Paul, and Chase Landry all have their own legal battles. However, Joe Lafont, the trapper, has had the most serious legal battle to fight, with a history of domestic abuse that started in 2012 and happened again in 2013 and 2015.
Random Changes
All TV shows are at risk of changing, and reality TV shows are especially so. It’s incredibly rare for a TV show to continue to air with no changes for its entire run. However, after the sixth season of Swamp People, there were huge changes.
The change happened when all of a sudden 12 cast members were replaced and the History Channel never explained the reasons for the change. It was only during the premiere episode of season seven that fans found out about the changes.
Not Really in the Wild
Viewers of Mountain Men wanted to watch a show about a group of people who were searching for a more simplistic way of life. But people who watch the show feel a bit conned by the cast of Mountain Men.
That’s because Jason Hawk runs an online store and Nancy and Tom Oar have cable TV! It’s pretty obvious that these people aren’t as off the grid as the show is trying to make out. Although, everyone has to make a living.
Even ‘Random Encounters’ Are Completely Set Up
We’ve learned by now that the History Channel often stages a lot of its events, but even the ‘random’ and casual encounters we see on Pawn Stars aren’t as realistic as you might think. That’s right, the producers stage these, too.
Most sellers on the show are found and then the producers schedule their appearance. This also gives Rick time to learn about the item being sold, allowing him a bit of an easier time when talking to an expert. He’s less likely to say something to get himself in trouble.
Frank Fritz Isn’t a Massive Antiques Fan
A lot of people who watch American Pickers are probably thinking that Frank Fritz and Mike Wolfe are pretty committed to their jobs. But the truth is that they’re not treasure hunters or huge fans of antiques…at least, they weren’t before they went on the show.
Mike loves antiques but Frank has totally different interests. Frank is a lot more passionate about business and collecting things. It makes sense that his business has been such a success if that’s what he’s interested in.
Koker’s Political Views
Whenever Danny Koker, the star of Counting Cars, isn’t in his auto shop, he’s quite vocal about his political stance. When he was on The Morning Show, he basically said that hybrid and low-emission cars were pointless. That’s pretty controversial.
Along with this, Koker was open about his support for Donald Trump during the 2016 Presidential race. He had been asked by the network not to use his show to talk about politics, but he didn’t really seem too bothered about that.
Bad Purchasing Choices
One of the most fun parts of Pawn Stars is when the people are negotiating the price of their objects. Many viewers don’t know that the show is staged, but they get great enjoyment out of the way staff and customers interact with each other. Most often, the staff gets the better deal.
But there are some times when the cast makes bad decisions, and they’ve been open about their bad choices. There was once a time when they lost $10,000 as a result of one of these bad decisions!
Chumlee’s Legal Woes
If you’re a fan of Pawn Stars, then you probably think Chumlee is an essential cast member. Most fans like him because he takes a personal approach to all his customers, but even though he’s a chill guy, he had some trouble with the law in 2016.
The police decided to raid his home, and when they did, they found a number of illegal firearms and drugs. Luckily for him, and the show, he only got probation for the possession of these, which meant he could stay on the show.
The Old Man’s Last Will Was Controversial
When the Old Man – aka Richard Benjamin Harrison – died at 77 in June of 2018, his will was carried out as he requested, with his heirs listed as wife Joanne and three sons Rick (also the executor of the will), Joseph, and Christopher. But the will became extremely controversial when it was publicized that the Old Man had updated the will just one year before he died to cut Christopher out entirely.
Said Harrison in his will, “I would like to express my love and affection for Christopher Keith Harrison, however, for purposes of this Will, I have intentionally and with full knowledge failed to provide for him and his issue.” There was no reason provided for the intentional exclusion – perhaps it remains a family secret.
Maybe the Cause?
Perhaps one of the reasons for the apparent falling out between father and son lay in the Old Man’s ‘tough-love’ approach to parenting. As described by Rick, the Old Man could be very hard on his sons and grandsons. He gave an example one time from when he was 16 and tried to challenge his father: “I tried to act all tough and told him ‘f*** you’ to him,” he said. The Old Man then punched him in the face, saying, “Old enough to talk to me like a man, old enough to get your a** beat like one.”
However, this approach to parenting wasn’t all bad, at least not for Rick. Diagnosed with epilepsy as a child, he said his father never treated him differently because of his ailment, which surely helped to make him a stronger and more resilient person.
