Paramount+’s upcoming “Real World” reunion series will bring the entire original cast to the same New York City loft they shared in 1992 — with one major exception.
Eric Nies, one of the MTV reality show’s seven original stars, was forced to stay in a hotel room apart from the other housemates and video call in for the duration of filming, he told the The New York Times. Nies said he couldn’t explain why he wasn’t able to live with the rest of the cast (which, after all, is the entire premise of “The Real World”), saying only that it was “definitely not by my choice.”
The six other original cast members — Becky Blasband, Andre Comeau, Heather B. Gardner, Julie Gentry, Norman Korpi and Kevin Powell — were all reunited in person at the SoHo loft where their original season was set.
As previously reported, “The Real World Homecoming” will premiere March 4 upon the launch of ViacomCBS’s newly rebranded streaming service Paramount+. The cast will revisit memorable moments from the groundbreaking reality series’ first season and discuss how the show transformed their lives.
“Hopefully we’ve reached this level where the slings and arrows and heatedness can mature into a rational conversation and a real discourse,” Blasband told the Times. “Because that’s what we need in this country. We’ve become a combative society, and in that combat, we lose reason.”
However, a trailer for the series, released last week, seems to suggest not so much has changed in the nearly 30 years since “The Real World” first aired. The two-minute clip showed tearful conversations about how much being on the show affected them all personally, as well as at least one heated confrontation that led to a cast member storming off set to the others’ surprise.