Is ‘Property Brothers’ Staged? Drew Scott Tells All In Upcoming Autobiography

Is the popular HGTV series Property Brothers staged, or as some might put it, fake? If you ask Drew Scott, there are several scenes in the reality show where he does some acting, or where scenes may need to be repeated, but that’s the way it is in just about every other show in the genre.

According to a report from Radar Online that cited an advance copy of Drew and Jonathan Scott’s upcoming book, It Takes Two: Our Story, the 39-year-old twin brothers had to act out certain scenes from the series, with Drew mentioning an example where he had to recreate the same emotions when the director called for another take.

“While shooting, Jonathan made an ‘alarming discovery’ that a tile he had planned to use for a wall ‘couldn’t be cut to fit without crumbling.’ Suddenly, a loud bang was heard in one of the upstairs rooms. The director yelled ‘cut!'” and they were told to redo the scene.”

As Drew recalled in this example of why parts of Property Brothers are supposedly staged, he had to “relive (his) tile trauma” and act just as surprised and disappointed as he was in the earlier take. He claims he also had to recreate the feeling of relief, or the “light-bulb moment,” as he called it, when he was able to come up with a solution to the earlier problem.

Drew Scott added that he, Jonathan, and the Property Brothers production team are able to determine why “random mishaps” occurred based on background noises, such as a ladder getting knocked over in the aforementioned example.

“Was I acting? Yes, of course I was,” he admitted.

“Television is visual: at it’s best when it’s showing instead of telling. The goal is to engage and entertain an audience, not put them to sleep while we stand around and literally watch paint dry.”

Accusations of Property Brothers being staged are nothing new, despite Drew Scott’s apparent admissions. Closer Weekly wrote in July that there are certain aspects of the show that might be fake, such as couples acting shocked when Jonathan and Drew tell them the cost of their dream house, even if they know beforehand that it’s out of their price range. The house-hunting and negotiation scenes were also described as “mostly” fake, as couples who take part in Property Brothers need to already own a home, or be close to buying one.

Additionally, past participants have claimed that Property Brothers stages the renovation process, only renovating four rooms, and only allowing couples to choose between fixing up the kitchen or the bathroom, but “never both.” On the plus side, the above report noted that participants are supposedly allowed to keep the staging furniture.

Drew Scott also had some words of advice in his book for those who insist that Property Brothers isn’t fake or staged – there are many variables in play that could compromise the “reality” of reality shows, and people who believe reality TV is 100 percent real aren’t “living in the real world.”

“The truth is, anyone who suggests that reality TV doesn’t sometimes require readjustments isn’t living in the real world — where real weather, real noise, real accidents, and real-life screwups affect what would otherwise have been our perfect, authentic, real-time shot. Out of those three desirables, real-time is the only one we can’t recover once it’s lost.”

Drew and Jonathan Scott’s autobiography, It Takes Two: Our Story, is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, September 5, according to Amazon.

[Featured Image by Matthew Eisman/Getty Images]