In a 2020 episode of the reality TV series Marriage Boot Camp, “Hard Shock Life,” couples are given shock bracelets to administer painful jolts of electricity to each other over perceived communication slights. During one scene, the rapper Vado shocks his partner, Tahiry Jose, three times—once for raising her voice at him, once for walking away from him, and once while she talks to another couple. By the third shock, Jose has had enough. She pelts Vado with apples. In response, Vado and the other couples on the show chastise Jose for her “anger management,” calling her “crazy.”

Later, while seated with the other couples on a massive gray couch for an evaluation session, Jose says that Vado entices her to become a person she doesn’t want to be anymore. Vado responds by leaping up and grabbing her by the throat, beginning to strangle her. Other men have to pull him off and drag him away.

Vado was removed from the house shortly after, but the incident and everything leading up to it still aired, and he continued to appear in future episodes to reflect on what had happened. In the YouTube comments and even video titles about these episodes, viewers blame Jose for Vado’s violence and say she needs to be “held accountable” as much as Vado does. Meanwhile, none of this is even mentioned on Vado’s Wikipedia page about his career.

This is far from the only example of violence against women—and men—depicted on reality TV. It’s one of many that answers a common question posed this week about Taylor Frankie Paul, the Bachelorette contestant whose season was abruptly cancelled after a 2023 video surfaced of her throwing barstools at her ex, with one reportedly hitting her young child in the process: What if the roles were reversed? What if Paul was a man? The question is often framed as a “gotcha,” as if men are routinely held accountable for domestic violence. The reality is that women are already blamed for abuse, even when they’re the victim. But the question also deflects from a larger point. The reality TV industry isn’t casting people in abusive relationships by accident. Exploiting abuse onscreen is a pillar of this genre, typically through a misogynistic lens that endangers women and children most of all.