From 2010 to 2015, a series called “My Strange Addiction” inspired shock and awe among TV audiences. Categorized by IMDb, the ultimate authority on all things show business, as both documentary and biography, as well as reality, it has since been exposed as based in places other than reality.

For example, a 2018 article by Mariel Loveland blew the whistle quite thoroughly, exposing degrees of fakery ranging from exaggeration to outright fiction. Plus, it was purveyed by The Learning Channel, which implied at least a certain degree of truthfulness.

Even at the time, the show’s premise was challenged. The audience was shown habits, preferences, obsessions, compulsions, eccentric but harmless lifestyle choices, and attention-getting parlor tricks. The featured behaviors could be categorized in many ways, but very few of them would actually fall under the heading of clinical addiction.

The producers have reaped criticism for insincerity about procuring help for the individuals with truly significant problems. They have also been accused of setting a bad example for people who might start imitating dangerous stunts that would not have otherwise occurred to them.

The show featured people who admitted to ingesting sand, paint, rubber, drywall, cat fur, glass, plastic, rocks, and a dead husband’s cremains; and to snorting baby powder, gasoline, and other hazardous substances multiple times per day. Folks laid claim to behavioral addictions: intimate relationships with an inflatable rubber animal, or with a car; extreme skin tanning; growing grotesquely long toenails; being stung by bees.

A male told the world of his addiction to being a mermaid. Perhaps the most normal and least harmful admission among them came from a woman with extremely long hair.

Some of the people whose stories were told with alleged journalistic impartiality later admitted to improper degrees of involvement ranging from suggestibility to outright collusion. Or as Loveland phrased it,

Some cast members have publicly suggested that their episodes were fabricated, while others apparently did TLC’s dirty work and ramped up the drama for the cameras.

One example of going too far was the episode about a woman in Brooklyn, NY who established a thriving career as a taxidermist. While the extremely urban location might be unexpected, the profession is a legitimate one that requires consummate skill and dedication. In other words, that particular choice seems to have been an outstanding case of “Nothing to see here, please move on.” It was far from being, as the publicity claimed, “addicted to dead animals.”

The alleged suntan addict boasts an extensive career as an online creator and influencer, but appears to have abandoned extreme tanning after having benefitted financially, and in terms of publicity, from the “My Strange Addiction” exposure. Strangely, even she has complained of having been manipulated.

Carrie, billed as a urine addict, was actually pursuing the goal of saving her own life with a therapy that, while controversial, has been long accepted in some parts of the world. Loveland did the research on drinking one’s own urine to cure cancer. She wrote,

Urine therapy is a controversial, alternative cancer treatment… [U]rine therapy dates back centuries and has been cited in early Chinese and Egyptian medical texts.

The writer also quoted something Carrie said for publication:

If I knew what was going to be done to the footage I gave, I would not have agreed to do it… The show made it look like my daughters did not believe in me or urine therapy. This was a blatant misuse of the truth and we were all disappointed about that.

She also told the press later how one of the show’s producers had suggested that basic urine drinking was not weird enough to titillate their show’s viewers, so they needed to come up with something more spectacular. Currently, Carrie has more than 5,000 YouTube subscribers and her more recent thoughts about urine therapy can be found there under the name 4eyes2sea, in segments recorded as recently as six months ago.

Strangely, a few participants were actually told they would be featured in some other series, not “My Strange Addiction,” and then a switch was made. In the intervening years, journalists have retrieved some damning information from the participants’ “Ask Me Anything” posts on the popular website Reddit.

Swift also mentioned several other “My Strange Addiction” stars, and here are some examples:

[T]he alleged puppet addict is simply a comedian who uses ventriloquism in her act.

[Ayanna] Williams […] was depicted as a crazed nail addict willing to risk her health to keep her talons… Williams claimed that’s a stretch. She said her nails don’t stop her from doing what she wants to do, and if they did, she’d just cut them off, cold turkey.

According to a Reddit post from someone named Lauren who claimed to be featured in an episode called “Fur Suit Fetish,” her entire story was almost completely fabricated.

Riley Kylo, a transgender girl who describes, in extreme detail, why she loves peeing in a diaper […] is certainly media savvy and no stranger to putting on a show for the cameras… This adult baby is actually a successful porn star.

Written by Pat Hartman. First published April 11, 2025.

Sources:

“Reasons Why My Strange Addiction Is Totally Fake,” NickiSwift.com, July 16, 2018.

“The Truth About My Strange Addiction,” TheList.com, May 26, 2021.

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