Then & now

AFTER 29 YEARS, THE ORIGINAL SEVEN STRANGERS WHO KICKED OFF THE REALITY TV REVOLUTION RETURN TO THE LOFT WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

- 

In 1992 seven strangers, all aspiring artists, moved into a New York City apartment to have their lives taped and reality television as we know it was born. Now the original cast of MTV’s The Real World – Eric Nies, Julie Gentry (nee Oliver), Heather B Gardner, Kevin Powell, Norman Korpi, Andre Comeau, and Rebecca Blasband have returned to that same apartment for The Real World Homecoming: New York. Shooting the reunion series “was trippy”, says Jonathan Murray, who created the show with his production partner, the late Mary-Ellis Bunim. “What’s so cool is they all have their essential essence, the thing that made us choose them for this first social experiment.”

With their reunion comes a rehashing of some of the frank conversations and arguments about issues such as race that became a hallmark of the early days of the long-running series (which has run for a whopping 33 seasons and counting). “We are still talking about the same things,” says Gardner. “While we were there, a Black Trans Lives Matter march went past the loft. To be next to Norman, who came out on television at a time when it was not cute, and Kevin, who had been about Black Lives Matter, it was powerful and crazy.”

Norman Korpi