Harry Jowsey says Netflix wasn’t married to ethical editing on his reality competition series Let’s Marry Harry.
The show, in which 20 women vied for the opportunity to become Mrs. Harry Jowsey, got a little loose with the audio, its titular star said on his Instagram Reels.
A fan posed the following to Jowsey: “Was it a coincidence that u had sex only with the finalists, or was there some editing/filtering?”
“OK, I will happily clear this up because I feel like it needs to be. So, early on, when you see Dannelle [Davidson] and I go into the closet on her birthday, we were just strictly making out. And you can go on her page, I’m pretty sure she posted something about it, or posted a story about it. But we were just making out. I don’t know where they pulled that audio from or who that was in that audio, but it certainly was not us,” Jowsey answered. “Again, it’s a TV show. Like, every three days is one episode. So, of course they’re gonna put the craziest stuff in there. They needed a big cliffhanger on the end of that episode to keep you hooked, to keep you watching. Again, the greatness of TV, to make something seem a little more exaggerated than they actually are. So, yeah, we were literally just kissing in the closet in the early episodes. Anyway, I hope that clears it up a little bit.”
Netflix did not respond to The Hollywood Reporter‘s requests for comment on the matter.
In the scene, which takes place at the end of episode two, Jowsey and Davidson kiss a bit on the bed before entering a closet where Jowsey knows there to be no cameras. They were still mic’d up, of course. Viewers can clearly hear kissing sounds, which give way to something… a bit hotter and heavier sounding.
Jowsey’s accusation is reminiscent of another dating competition series’ own audio controversy. Back in 2003, Fox basically kicked off this whole genre with Joe Millionaire, a show in which the women contestants were led to believe the eligible bachelor, real name Evan Marriott, was a very rich man. He was not: Marriott was a hot, dumb construction worker.
At one point in the series, Marriott and contestant Sarah Kozer snuck off into the woods for a bit of privacy. With no video available, producers laid suggestive subtitles over suggestive audio of Kozer.
The subtitles read, in part: “Umh. (smack) Umh. (slurp) Huh Huh Ha He.” There were multiple slurps and a gulp at the end. The suggestion was that Kozer was giving Marriott oral sex in the woods. Kozer says they were just kissing.
“I don’t think that I have ever been so furious at anything in my entire life,” Kozersaid later in an interview.
There are different versions of when and where the Kozer audio came from. Series creator Liz Bronstein maintains that it was real audio of Kozer in the moment with interpretive subtitling.