The moment Miriam Rivera told contestants she was a transgender woman on Sky's ... trends now
This is the moment that Sky's cruel dating show came crashing down as six male contestants were told they'd secretly been dating a transgender woman for weeks.
The 2003 Sky1 British reality series 'There's Something About Miriam' flew the boys out to a luxury four-star villa in Ibiza, with the aim of wooing the stunning Mexican model Miriam Rivera, then only 21, for a £10,000 prize and romantic yacht trip.
Yet the punchline of the show was an incredibly cruel one. After Miriam chose her winner, she told the unsuspecting contestants that she was a transgender woman who had not undergone gender-affirming surgery.
New Channel 4 series Miriam: Death Of A Reality Star explores the consequences of the producers' decision to exploit the boys, and Miriam's identity, for shock value.
The second episode of the show, titled 'The Truth', airs on Tuesday night and shows the moment the producers had been waiting for - when winner Tom Rooke was finally told the truth.
This is the moment Tom Rooke, the winner of the There's Something About Miriam, was told she was actually transgender
Miriam Rivera, then just 21, was only allowed to reveal her identity after the winner was chosen
But the naïve producers had underestimated the sheer anger of the boys when they realised they'd been lied to and the emotional damage it would go on to cause.
After choosing Tom, then 23, as her winner, Miriam told the boys: 'I tried to be honest with all of you as much as I can. Yes, I'm from Mexico, I'm a model and I'm 21.
'But, Tom, I really love spending time with you. I love men and I love being a woman. But I'm not a woman, I was born as a man.'
Her words, which friends believe were scripted by the TV crew, were initially met with laughter from the five other boys and pure shock from Tom.
In the reality show, described as 'the most explosive dating experience of a lifetime', Tom had grown close to Miriam and had even been filmed getting intimate with her and kissing her passionately.
He was left speechless but he couldn't contain his shock as his eyebrows raised in disbelief and he began uncomfortably scratching the back of his head.
Crew member Leo McCrea recalled in the documentary: 'It was so incredibly uncomfortable. It felt like all the air had been sucked out the room.
'And Tom, he was gasping, and looking around at all the deceit.'
The other boys began laughing in the background while Tom was in shock
Tom (pictured) said he felt deceived and although he initially accepted the prize money and yacht trip, he later refused it before the show aired
But as the news set in, the boys grew angry at the deception and launched a lawsuit against the show
Although Tom initially said he'd still go on the yacht trip because 'we're all good friends here,' a behind-the-scenes interview revealed his true thoughts.
Speaking to the camera, he said: 'I'm very shocked, and I wouldn't want to spend a week on a boat with someone I didn't trust and deceived me.
'I was being honest in that house, and he [speaking about Miriam] wasn't. He was lying to everybody and he doesn't have that right.'
After the initial shock, the boys grew angry. Former contestant Toby Green recalled that runner-up Scott Gibson 'went berserk' and soon, things began to 'spiral out of control'.
Scott, a martial arts instructor, began to smash the set up and even chased the director around the pool.
When psychiatrist Dr Gareth Smith spoke to the boys to try to calm them down, they chillingly blamed Miriam instead of the production crew. At one point Dr Smith even recalled one of them saying: 'I'm going to f***ing kill her'.
Tom, who was an actor, was worried about how the show would affect his career, reportedly telling Gareth: 'I can't be a gay actor.'
The producers had employed a series of underhand tactics to deceive the boys, including offering them an indecipherable contract, deliberately avoiding the use of pronouns, and even eliminating contestants if they began to suspect the truth. As a result, the boys were furious.
