Liz Lee says having a reality show as a teenager wasn’t quite what everyone thought it was.
In a series of TikTok videos over the last weeks, the artist, now 34, has opened up about filming MTV’s My Life as Liz. Responding to a commenter who told her to “Let it go,” she opened up about why it’s important to share her truth about that period of her life, which she considered “a trauma.”
“You don’t tell people who experience trauma, ‘Let it go.’ In fact, I didn’t talk about this for most of my life because I felt humiliated by it and I didn’t want it to define me,” Lee shared.
“And I’m just now starting to talk about it and sort of own it, in the past couple of years. It was bizarre. It was a bizarre life experience. I was exploited as a teenager. Like, I was turned down for prom on national television. I was doxed on 4chan. My nudes leaked from when I was underage. That does something to somebody when they’re in their developmental years of early adulthood.”
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In a later video, Lee answered questions about her rivals on the show and what the story was between them off-camera.
Lee explained, “This was actually fairly real,” referring to the fact that she previously admitted the show went from being “staged” to “scripted” over its two seasons.
“We really didn’t like each other. In fact, after we got the pilot, they started casting from the student body. When the rest of the season got greenlit, they did an open call, and they did these auditions in an auditorium. This was at my real school, and there was a line down the hallway. I remember seeing [Cori Cooper] in the line and going into the auditorium where they were holding the auditions and writing in marker on one of the producers’ hands, her name. And I said, ‘Don’t cast this person, this person hurt me. I really don’t like this person.’ “
Lee recalled her classmate’s older sister getting involved in the tension between them and admitted, “I remember being really scared.”
The former reality star emphasized that while the two didn’t get along, “I don’t hold any ill will towards her.
“Because I’m sure she suffered, and that’s why she was the way that she was. She’s a mom, and I don’t support bullying of her. I think she dealt with a lot in the aftermath of the show. I don’t know why she was open to being the bully. I don’t really know a lot about her. I just know that she scared me, and I felt really dysregulated when I was in proximity to her.”
Later on, Lee thanked the many who reached out and commented after she explained the darker sides of her reality TV experience.
“Thank you guys for being so nice, because when I was a teenager, people said some pretty mean things on the internet. Knowing that the show impacted anybody positively makes me feel really good because I have been so embarrassed about it my whole life — about the way that I looked and the way that I dressed, the things that I said. So you guys are being sweet to me, and I really appreciate it.”
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