Indeed,Entertainment Weeklyeven named the show toits list of worst reality TV shows ever produced.
Creator Nely Galan and some of the former Swans dont think so.
I believe that more than ever now.
Credit:20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection - Design: Alex Sandoval
Agency is the key word you have to have your own agency to decide what it is you want.
I’m from Cuba, she explains.
Beauty is a currency.
‘The Swan’ pageant.Robert Voets/Fox/Courtesy Everett Collection
I was like, I feel horrible.
I need a boob job.
I need so many things, she recounts.
Kelly Becker on ‘The Swan’.FOX
There was going to be cosmetic dentistry, plastic surgery.
Adds Alemi: Nely is basically my fairy godmother.
It’s like we were all Cinderellas waiting to be transformed.
Kelly Alemi on ‘The Swan’.FOX
She initially rejected the notion of cheek implants but changed her mind.
I can’t look at my experience and say there was anything that was bad there.
I wasn’t pressured into anything.
‘The Swan’.20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
It really was like a dream.
The pitfalls and fallout of these procedures are well documented.
There are other contestants who have had deeper medical complications or mental health challenges they blame on the show.
Dr. Terry Dubrow on ‘The Swan’.20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
Said pageant is also where Galan says Fox deviated from her original conception of the show.
I thought everybody should go to the pageant, she says.
On Fox in that era, every show had to end with a competition likeAmerican Idol.
A contestant on ‘The Swan’.FOX
But I would not have done that.
I would’ve just sent everybody to the pageant, like a fun thing.
And I go, Because that’s not my intention.
Merline and host Amanda Byram on ‘The Swan’.Carin Baer/Fox/Courtesy Everett Collection
Back then, I regretted it terribly.
And I thought, Why are we doing that?
Women have enough problems in today’s world.
20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
I really wish they would’ve given that a second thought, says Becker.
Because you take this big group of girls, you make them over physically and mentally.
All of us were feeling great about ourselves.
It did cross my mind for a moment Why didn’t I continue on?
I did everything with the program.
I worked really hard in the gym.
I followed my diet, so, why was I not chosen to continue on?
They should have all let us go.
We became super close, and then they pair you up against your friend, she explains.
This is going to be fantastic.
Thats how it was.
It’s basically telling you you’re not good enough.
If you’re doing a sport, you compete with other people, she explains.
You got out of it what you put into it, she says.
And I feel like that’s what I did.
It’s super important for people to understand that everybody has strengths and weaknesses, she notes.
Even the ones that are put together like the Kardashians are not perfect.
I wish people would’ve gotten to understand the real reasons we were there, she reflects.
People threw stones at us and they never even got to the meat of why we were really there.
Its not that we all became these cocky princesses, she quips.
Its something she believes in so passionately that she pursued a doctorate in psychology afterThe Swan.
It’s not fair and it’s tough the way we’re judged.
But I know now that that’s my work that I have to do inside of myself.
I can’t expect the world to make me feel better about me.
I have to do that work myself.
It’s all normalized, she continues.
You have to really do your own work.
But the world isn’t going to change it.
You have to change.
It is your own job with yourself.
Mike Darnell did not immediately respond to EW’s request for comment.
