Idea for a reality show

Reality show: Weekend Liar

You are not allowed to say a word of truth for a whole weekend. Your deliberate lying has a special purpose: to raise money to support your favorite charity.

The idea:

In order to be on the show members of the public have to sign a contract that forbids them to say a word of truth for a whole weekend. (The setting of the show is private life of the contestants and for safety reasons won’t interfere with their professional lives, which is the reason why we film them only on their weekends.)
The participants have to compete in lying their ways through the whole weekend without raising any suspicions from their friends and families (who won’t be aware about the contract until the end of the weekend).

For example:

John is 26 years old and lives with his girlfriend Anna. He is known as a hardworking and honest man. Nobody from John’s friends and family knows that John is under obligation of not telling truth. The filming is done with hidden camera.

The weekend of lying can spontaneously be set off something like this:

Anna: John, do we have some eggs for breakfast?
John (knows there are some!): No, none left.

(a bit later)

Anna (looking in the fridge): There are some here! Why are you lying to me; John?
John: I am not lying… (note: this is right answer because he is obviously lying that he is not lying!)

As the day develops so does the challenge to stick to the rules as more lies create even more lies as well more stress on the participant and more fun for the audience.

We always have an option to manipulate the events to make it more challenging, for example to let Anna find a secret love letter to John from Ann’s mother(!) So, when Anna confronts John with the letter, John cannot deny it (otherwise it would be like telling the truth and immediate disqualification), but to play along… in other words to invent lies to get out from the situation.

There will be lots of naturally created funny situations. Like, for example, John is going to the shop to buy some eggs. When asked what is he going to buy he has to say anything… but the eggs. Now John comes back with the eggs. “But John, you said you weren’t going to buy the eggs!”… etc. Everything will get even more confusing.


We can also create special events for John’s weekend to make it even more dramatic. For example we arrange that John and Anna visit Anna’s parents (for the first time). Prior to that we make Anna’s parents suspicious about John’s past (i.e. a friendly call)… just to make sure that John gets lot’s of questions when he meets them.

Motivation and rewards:

Audience (on and offline) has to vote who is the most skillful liar. The winner gets a prize, i.e. long nose made from gold and some cash that he would have to donate to a charity. (He gets to keep the golden nose though!). Lying for money takes a new perspective here.

“Lies For Good” could be an alternative title of the show.