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‘Alaskan Bush People’ Might Be Fake, But Should It Be Canceled?

By Toni Matthews
Published on: 07:51 PST, May 19, 2016

Well, the cat is out of the bag — again. Sort of. Allegedly, Alaskan Bush People was recently exposed as trying pass a paid actress off as a love interest.

From Blasting News, “Noah used his time alone to have a little date with a girl he met while the family spent several months in the lower 48 states. From the moment Karryna Kauffman arrives, it’s clear she has no actual interest in Noah. To give her some credit, Noah doesn’t help himself at all while the “date” is in progress.”

Why does Karryna seem to have no interest in Noah despite coming all the way up to the Alaskan wilderness to see him? Non-fans (and outright haters) of Alaskan Bush People have a theory. To put it bluntly, Kauffman is an actress hired by the show runners to help make a repetitive series more interesting to viewers.

As much as I’d like to say there’s no basis for such claims, it’s been done before. Do you remember a VH1 series called Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School? That show featured a slew of “rejects” from the popular Flavor Flav version of The Bachelor. One of them was an actress named Leilene Ondrade. In addition to other reality television shows, like Criss Angel: Mindfreak, she had limited exposure in movies. In fact, appearing on a reality TV series is great exposure for an unknown or struggling actor.

The more popular the series, the more desirable an appearance becomes. So the idea of an unknown actress popping up on Alaskan Bush People isn’t all that surprising. I’m just amazed it took about five seasons for it to happen. If it did happen. Does Kauffman being an actress automatically make her the Discovery Channel series a scripted one?

According to Alaskan Bush People star Noah, as quoted by Radar Online, “Hopeless romantic Noah, 23, goes on a date with a woman he claims to have met on the beach while visiting the lower 48 states— a stunning brunette named Karryna.”

Interestingly, a trip to her IMDb page shows that it hasn’t been updated since 2012. That’s about the time the Alaskan Bush People guest star stopped updating her Twitter account as well. If this was an intentional acting job, why isn’t she credited for the appearance? Even if she’s not playing a character, it’s not unusual for people showing up on TV shows and in movies or documentaries as themselves to be credited as “self.”

The fact that she wasn’t credited for an appearance on Alaskan Bush People suggests that maybe, maybe, she wasn’t there as an actress. Maybe she happened to be an actress who met a guy on a beach who happened to be a reality TV star, and she was genuinely interested in attempting to keep in touch — only to find out in the context of their reality TV show that it wasn’t a situation that she enjoyed, and Noah wasn’t the man she thought he was.

If so, it’s a storyline that will go nowhere because Kauffman just isn’t as interested as she thought she’d be in Brown once she found herself in the middle of nowhere.

There is the slightest sliver of possibility, however small, that this was just a hilarious misunderstanding that will ultimately go nowhere. But then, does Alaskan Bush People deserve the benefit of the doubt?

In the first episode of the new season, patriarch Billy Brown actually said the words “one wave at a time,” a blatant reference to a book of his of the same name. It’s this book that’s ultimately responsible for the existence of Alaskan Bush People. It’s a book that we’ve seen the Brown children advertising on the internet.

And with this knowledge in mind, it’s a bit strange that this one scenario would be treated as the long-sought proof that Alaskan Bush People is fake. It’s equally odd that there are calls to cancel the show because it might be scripted after all. If the show were to be canceled, shouldn’t it have been due to recent criminal scandals? Shouldn’t it have been canceled out of respect for Billy Brown’s health issues?

Demanding a show be yanked because a woman who appeared may or may not have done so as a scripted love interest is a bit bizarre. It also suggests that some people haven’t made peace with the reality of “reality TV.”

Pretty much all of it, from Alaskan Bush People to The Voice is either outright fake or heavily edited to give impressions that aren’t necessarily 100 percent true. At this point, it’s not necessarily wise to watch any series that falls into this genre with the belief that what you’re seeing is real and that the people are who they say they are.

You’re better off tuning in to be entertained — or not tuning in at all.

Do you think that Alaskan Bush People should be canceled? Do you believe the show is real or fake? Share your thoughts on these topics below!

[Image via Discovery Channel, Karryna Kauffman’s Twitter account]

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