31 Lamest Reality TV Back Stories

Talent will get you nowhere in a reality TV talent show.

It’s not even about how you look.

It’s all about the back story.

Have a great back story and you’re halfway there to the shopping centre showcase tour of your life.

Being blind. Fantastic.

Losing your cousins in a house fire. Brilliant.

Going to war in Iraq, surviving an improvised bomb explosion, coming home to find the explosion made you impotent and then miracle upon miracles, you get your wife pregnant and then I want to do this power ballad for my miracle baby. Incredible*.

But some back stories don’t cut it. I was inspired to write all this when I saw a kid on The Voice who couldn’t sing. Her back story was that her grandmother died a few years ago. And last year there was another girl whose back story was that she used to have a big nose. No really. She used to have a big nose.

So coming up after the break, exclusive to Boxcutters, here’s The 31 Lamest Reality TV Talent Show Back Stories I Could Think Of.

(Note: I’ll happily take three points of your first recording advance if you want to use one of these back stories for your own TV appearance)

  1. I lost my mum two years ago. (We were shopping. I sent her an SMS. We reunited outside the Donut King).
  2. It took seven tries to get my licence.
  3. My grandmother wasn’t very nice.
  4. My mobile phone has a broken screen.
  5. I failed vege maths.
  6. I repeated year 10.
  7. I’m gay. No you don’t get it. I’m really really really gay.
  8. I barrack for Melbourne.
  9. Me and Guy Sebastian went to the same church. Him to pray. Me to fix the plumbing.
  10. I’ve got a bad back.
  11. I can speak another language.
  12. My dad’s been on worker’s comp for several years.
  13. I’m deaf.
  14. I can’t read fast enough to keep up with the subtitles on SBS.
  15. Nobody buys in on my twitter hashtags.
  16. I have a cousin who almost made it into Bardot.
  17. I was a virgin.
  18. Sometimes I wake up at 3am for no reason and can’t get to sleep again until at least 3:45am.
  19. I was teased at school.
  20. Red Symonds once pushed his trolley in front of me at the supermarket.
  21. I was the bully at school.
  22. My brother is in the house band.
  23. I’m lactose intolerant.
  24. I want to raise awareness.
  25. This is my one big chance to bring Klezmer music to the mainstream.
  26. My great grandfather fought in a war.
  27. I had an operation once.
  28. In 1996 I read 17 books and raised $37 for the MS Read a Thon.
  29. I read books.
  30. My mum. I’m doing it for my mum, despite her constant nagging.
  31. I want to be famous.

*This was a real back story on American Idol but it turned out to be a lie. Yes, the guy did go to Iraq but there was no explosion. Instead he was sent home after a stint in a field hospital after overdosing on acne medication. If he did tell the truth, this would have been the lamest but greatest back story of them all.

14 Comments

  1. Glenn Peters says:

    Make up your own lame back story and share it in the comments everybody.

  2. Adam Liddiard says:

    There’s a prickle in my sock

  3. Adam Liddiard says:

    I ran out of toilet fresh wipes.

  4. Adam Liddiard says:

    I can’t find the prickle…
    But when I put the sock back on, I can still feel it.

  5. MurrayNE says:

    I was once bitten by a mosquito. Twice.

  6. MurrayNE says:

    Someone once mistook me for a guy called Terry.

  7. MurrayNE says:

    I always forget where I left my sunglasses.

  8. MurrayNE says:

    I’m going to die. Eventually.

  9. MurrayNE says:

    When I was nine, I sneezed and noone said, “bless you”.

  10. MurrayNE says:

    My phone is more than two years old.

    I once liked a girl who didn’t think of me “that” way.

    As a teen, I got pimples.

    I’m indecisive.

    I eat all of my vegetables.

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