Breaking Amish

[patsymae]

"As for the DUI girl, seriously, are we supposed to suspend all disbelief and accept that she's a total novice in the English world?"

For a novice, she sure put together a killer outfit on her first shopping trip! And when Rebecca took of her bonnet, her hair had very well done layers and highlights.

[Rowan]

I didn't cancel it from my DVR and I admit I'm watching it now. Yeesh, I can't believe even TLC thought they could get away with this.

Love that Jeremiah's tattoo had the names of three people important to him or whatever - certainly his kids. :doh:

[2xx1xy1JD]

I agree with the bolded. I loved watching Buy Me because the drama was more interesting to me than watching spoiled people complain about paint colors and finishes on HH.

Agreed. The "3 houses and live happily ever after" formula is boring and unrealistic.

"Buy Me" had me traumatized into thinking that my house would stay on the market for months.

[Messy]

I watched the show and will probably continue watching. Not that I expect to learn anything from it. I watch purely for the pleasure of seeing how totally fake it can get.

I read a blog written by a former Amish woman that gives a much more accurate picture of the Amish. She shares her memories of growing up and leaving. It might not be to everyone's taste since she is still conservative Christian.

www.ajoyfulchaos.blogspot .com

[Spider Burps]

xamishatheist.com/2012/09/14/update-on-breaking-amish-the-scandal

This person also has a decent summary of how fake it is. One commenter is claiming the show was filmed years ago. Anyone still have the show on their DVR and can pause in the times square shot? That should show an idea of when it was filmed.

I don't know if this helps, but I saw the I <3 Philly ads in Penn Station (that were in the background of the show) last winter--I want to say around February.

[BlondeAgent007]

Wow. Tlc has really delivered one below the belt this time. I can't believe how much they tried to deceive the audience about the backgrounds and experiences of the cast.

This show is like Real World: Amish Style. MTV doesn't pick the most 'real' kids they can find. They find obnoxious, sexually liberal, borderline/full blown alcoholics to film making poor choices, fighting with each other, hooking up, and backstabbing each other. I guess the difference is that TLC is trying really hard to make it look like this is their first rodeo, when clearly it is not. Real World doesn't set up the audience under those false pretenses.

[caito]

If they do come out and admit it's fake, I wonder how they'll fare with viewers and ad people or whatever. Like will people just throw up their hands and go "OH WELL!" and wait for the next show? Hmmmm.

[lilwriter85]

I DVR'd episodes of this show and I watched them today in between football and other stuff. . I didn't know anything about the Breaking Amish scandal until it was mentioned on Twitter earlier tonight. When I watched the first two episodes, a lot of things seemed staged. I read the articles and I will check out the FB pages Menno Not Fundy posted. I agree with Messy, I will continue watching the show to see how fake it can get.

I laughed when Sabrina went a Puerto Rican restaurant and the two young women there, start immediately "helping" her. That was totally staged and I bet TLC recruited that restraurant and those two girls to "help" Sabrina. We all know TLC paid for Rebecca's new dentures. I call BS on the dentist doing pro-bono work. Yes, some dentists do pro bono work once in awhile, but I get the feeling that the dentist and the dental lab were secretly compensated. TLC has staged a lot of stuff for their other shows, but this pretty much takes the cake. Hiding certain details about one couples having a child is pretty big.

[BlondeAgent007]

Watched tonight's episode. No matter how staged this show is, Rebecca's lack of teeth is very real. Ouch!

[lilwriter85]

Watched tonight's episode. No matter how staged this show is, Rebecca's lack of teeth is very real. Ouch!

I agree. i feel bad for her to be that young and to have lost of all her natural teeth. I agree with another poster, she might be a candidate for dental implants. I know a few people in the dental field and implants can be pricey. TLC and other networks usually don't pay reality show participants that well during the first season. I don't see this show lasting more than one season due to the scandal and the details that have emerged. The chances of Rebecca getting dental implants aren't too high.

[Jessica]

She could do a combination of implants and partials. I have an implant and my mom has partials. They make implants that are several teeth attached to each other and I think it might be cheaper to do it that way than doing multiple individual teeth. She could do one on top and one on bottom, then do the partials for the teeth that go back behind the incisers. The partials are basically like a retainer that clips onto your inciser, with teeth attached. The partials are much cheaper than the implants.

Poor thing. :(

[Jessica]

I know a few people in the dental field and implants can be pricey.

Yes, that's the downside. I think mine was $4500 (that includes the surgery).

[DarkAnts]

I have always felt sorry for young people with teeth problems. My sister made bad decisions as a teen. She was addicted to some heavy drugs. Her consequences were bad teeth and Hep C. She is now a recovering drug addiction (sober for 7 years now) and the Hep C is in remission (after interferon treatment). She still have bad teeth. She is finally considering dentures this year now that her insurance will cover 70% of the cost for them. I am just going to give her cash for Christmas and tell her to put it towards the denture fund. She has worked so hard to get where she is. I am so proud of her. I want to do something nice for her. I wont be able to contribute much but I hope my gift helps.

A smile in our society is important. Its also important for self esteem.

[crassy]

I have always felt sorry for young people with teeth problems. My sister made bad decisions as a teen. She was addicted to some heavy drugs. Her consequences were bad teeth and Hep C. She is now a recovering drug addiction (sober for 7 years now) and the Hep C is in remission (after interferon treatment). She still have bad teeth. She is finally considering dentures this year now that her insurance will cover 70% of the cost for them. I am just going to give her cash for Christmas and tell her to put it towards the denture fund. She has worked so hard to get where she is. I am so proud of her. I want to do something nice for her. I wont be able to contribute much but I hope my gift helps.

A smile in our society is important. Its also important for self esteem.

I recently returned from my husband's hometown in buttfucknowhere, Australia...a place with no fluoride in the water. The ramifications of not having fluoride is abundantly clear. We went out with his friends (all in their late 20s and early 30s) and not one of them have all of their teeth, and the ones they do have are either chipped, black, or loose. It was horrible to see so many people with dental issues when it could easily be avoided with proper dental care. I've even noticed that the three years I lived in a house here using bore water, that my teeth are not as awesome as they once were.

[Annette]

Weighing in on the teeth issue. I have 6 missing adult teeth and 3 bridges, not due to anything lacking in my childhood diet or hygiene. They are congenitally missing, I just never had them to begin with. And I am not inbred that I know of! :lol: The rest of my family has full mouths of healthy teeth.

[Annette]

Weighing in on the teeth issue. I have 6 missing adult teeth and 3 bridges, not due to anything lacking in my childhood diet or hygiene. They are congenitally missing, I just never had them to begin with. And I am not inbred that I know of! :lol: The rest of my family has full mouths of healthy teeth.

Unfortunately, I am not a candidate for implants due to the angles of roots of my other teeth, which was pretty upsetting for me. Perfectly good teeth had to be shaved down for the bridges to be placed. What with already having psychological teeth issues, I cried bitter tears over that.

ETA: Well, I meant to edit, not quote. Pardon me!

[lilwriter85]

On the twop thread for Breaking Amish, a couple of people posted about hearing that Amish pull teeth out as punishments and there seems to be a theory that Rebecca lost of some of her teeth that way. From the picture of her with the baby and Abe, her teeth looked like they were in bad shape.

[Buzzard]

Abe and Rebecca and their supposed child:

If anything, they look a little younger here than they do on the show. Maybe it's her bottom teeth that are missing, because only one or two uppers are missing here, and they appear to be her natural teeth.

Following the links, there's also a mugshot of Abe from 2008 for a second drunk and disorderly arrest. He is sporting a more Amish style haircut in it.

As for the DUI girl, seriously, are we supposed to suspend all disbelief and accept that she's a total novice in the English world? Take her out of the clothes and no one would even ever imagine she'd been Amish.

It was VERY clear from last nights episode that she had NO teeth. This picture shows teeth that are not the dentures. That leaves a few options -

TLC went back and taped the dental episode after the fact (leaving open the BS about the first date)

TLC had her teeth pulled at some point so that they COULD give her a correct set of dentures

The relationship is completely staged and they are just pretending to be strangers for a storyline

[lilwriter85]

I don't think we will ever get the full story on the teeth. But I think it is pretty much confirmed that Abe and Rebecca are pretending to be strangers for the show. It is funny that TLC thought they could pull off a lot of this crap. I guess they never realized that some of the family members or friends of the cast could go public. They probably didn't expect Jeremiah's ex wife to go public. The friends, acquaintances, and relatives have provided good evidence against the cast.

If I didn't know about the new details about the cast, I would still view the show as mostly staged. I thought the whole thing about Sabrina going up to people in NYC and asking about Puerto Rican culture and neighborhoods looked really stupid. My boyfriend was watching with me and he laughed at the part. We were looking through twitter after the episode aired and there a tweet from someone who said they felt bad that people weren't nice to Sabrina on the streets and that the New Yorkers are rude. I laughed at that tweet. Yes, some people are rude, but they saw the cameras following Sabrina and they probably didn't want to be on camera. Sabrina asking questions like that would probably annoy some people. As I mentioned before, the part with the two women from the restaurant helping her looked really fake.

[Buzzard]

What do they get for having such a staged show? It wasnt so hard for whatever channel it was to cast "Amish in the City" so why do something thats such an obvious farce?

[SpeshulTaterTot]

I recently returned from my husband's hometown in buttfucknowhere, Australia...a place with no fluoride in the water. The ramifications of not having fluoride is abundantly clear. We went out with his friends (all in their late 20s and early 30s) and not one of them have all of their teeth, and the ones they do have are either chipped, black, or loose. It was horrible to see so many people with dental issues when it could easily be avoided with proper dental care. I've even noticed that the three years I lived in a house here using bore water, that my teeth are not as awesome as they once were.

There's no flouride in the water in Germany, and all my friends in their late 20s and early 30s still have all their teeth. My dad is 62, has all his teeth, and had his first cavity at 59 years old. So it's not necessarly the flouride in the water, but part genetics, and part dental care.

As for this show, it's so staged it's ridiculous. They all curse a bit too much to be Amish. I feel for Rebecca, though.

[lilwriter85]

What do they get for having such a staged show? It wasnt so hard for whatever channel it was to cast "Amish in the City" so why do something thats such an obvious farce?

My theory is that TLC execs heard/saw NatGeo's show Amish:Out of Order and decided they want to capitalize on some of the people interested in Amish related topics. The NatGeo show probably has some staged parts to it, but the participants on that show are pretty honest about when they left the Amish. I believe with Amish in the City, the producers of that show found Amish people who hadn't done rumpspringa. I think TLC wasn't able to find anyone who had recently left or the Amish or was considered leaving, so instead they decided to use people who had been out of the Amish and Mennonites for years and they tried to present the participants as people who recently left the Amish.

[Loveday]

I was just checking the tv guide for tonight, and apparently TLC is going to show 'extended episodes' of the ones already aired. So I guess we get more of the drinking, cursing, and fake first date. :roll:

[sassyNoz47]

This is the first time Ive read this thread. Reb and Abe have a baby?? WOW? Although they DID seem to comfortable with each other. We have a amish town just a few miles away, we go there often to eat the diner and shop. They have a tiny business area and a school that has electricity but the houses do not. They would never ever be on camera I called bullshit on the first episode when so many family members were SEEN on camera.

Then the familes showed up in NYC?? No way! If they leave for this right of passage and come back they are forgiven and life goes on, I don't get this forever shunning they keep talking about. The hair styles clothing are all off from what I see in my area. The Amish families come to our walmart once a month to shop (horse and buggy of course) there is also a amish little boy who has attended school with my daughter. He is special needs and was bused in I was surprised that it was allowed but it was. They also use the doctors here and Ive even seen them at the dentist MANY times... so unlike the story Rebecca told it's really hard for me to believe. This bothered me so much because last time I was at the dentist there was a amish family there and they had about 8 kids with them but 3 were being treated and one of the kids needed alot of work done. They were setting up a appointment to do the work and they told the dad about dental care credit he could get since they have no insurance. The dad explained they didn't use credit and would not only pay in cash but he pulled out $1200 and pre-paid. I just don't get how anyone is buying this show as being true.

[JenniferJuniper]

It was VERY clear from last nights episode that she had NO teeth. This picture shows teeth that are not the dentures. That leaves a few options -

TLC went back and taped the dental episode after the fact (leaving open the BS about the first date)

TLC had her teeth pulled at some point so that they COULD give her a correct set of dentures

The relationship is completely staged and they are just pretending to be strangers for a storyline

Those are not her old dentures, nor are they her new TLC dentures. They appear to be natural teeth.

My guess is that she and Abe had the baby some time before TLC was on the scene and TLC recreated the romance for the show. The teeth in the picture don't look rotted to me, but it's possible she had them pulled due to advanced gum disease. My mother suffered from it very young. (I'd hate to imagine they were pulled as a punishment as some have said is possible. :angry-cussing: )

If things are as they seem, TLC needs to be fully outed for this. We know these shows are staged in large part, but this is over the top.