Nick Lachey Says He Will Never Do A Reality Show Like ‘Newlyweds’ Again

Nick Lachey has done a 180 degree turn when it comes to reality TV. While the 98 Degrees singer is currently competing alongside his wife, Vanessa, on a reality show—ABC’s Dancing With the Stars—Lachey now says he draws the line there and will never be seen on another reality show that involves his family. In an interview with the Daily Beast, Lachey joked about starring in MTV’s Newlyweds, one of the pioneering reality shows in the early 2000s with his first wife, Jessica Simpson, saying he doesn’t want to be blamed for today’s “onslaught of reality television.”

Nick told the Daily Beast that the way Newlyweds was shot was much different than the way reality shows are shot today.

“In those days, it was much more fly on the wall, live your life, and we’ll document it all,” Nick explained. “And now you get a lot more scripted, a lot more—I don’t want to say it’s manipulated, but its less of a true reality than it was back in The Osbournes days.”

Nick added that while he’s living the “reality side” of things as a contestant on Dancing With the Stars, he would never consider doing a personal reality show again like he did in the early years of his marriage to Jessica Simpson.

“No. No, no, no,” Nick said.

“I’ve done Dancing with the Stars and other things, Lachey’s Bar, other things that fall into the reality TV genre. But no, I would never do another show where it involved in our lives, and especially now with kids.”

Lachey explained that the decision to do a reality show as something he made as an adult, but he would never do it now that he is responsible for three young lives. Lachey and his wife have three young children under the age of five.

“If nothing else, I would never do it because of them,” Lachey said.

“So I can safely say—well, I said I would never do Dancing with the Stars and apparently I lied because I’m doing it, but I can say unequivocally I would never, ever do a show like that again.”

Not only will Nick Lachey never do another reality show again, but he has no interest in re-watching his old one. Lachey said once was enough for his four-year marriage to Simpson and he admitted he has never gone back and watched old episodes of the MTV reality show, which ran for three seasons, from 2003 to 2005. The show followed the early days of Nick and Jessica’s marriage and played on the “dumb blonde” stereotype which was exaggerated after Simpson questioned if she was eating chicken or fish when she opened a can of Chicken of the Sea tuna.

“I haven’t, and I’m sure you can imagine why,” Nick said of rewatching Newlyweds episodes. “That was a chapter in my life that was…well, I lived it, and I’m not in a hurry to go back and live it again. I couldn’t be happier with where my life has taken me, and I don’t see any reason to ever look back. So I’ve never watched it since.”

Take a look at a classic scene from Nick Lachey’s first reality show, Newlyweds, below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h72aXVP8o

You can see Nick Lachey on his latest reality TV stint on Dancing With the Stars, Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

[Featured Image by Jason Merritt/Getty Images]