Man tricked by Truman Show-like reality series reveals psychological impact it had on him
Here is what happened to the man who became the unwitting star of a TV show advertised in a Craigslist ad.
In 2023, a new mockumentary series launched on Amazon. Titled Jury Duty, the series depicted the day-to-day life of being a juror in a US criminal trial.
However, there was a catch: everyone on the show was an actor except for one man.
The innovative series was a runaway success, being renewed for a second run, Jury Duty: Company Retreat, and a new star.
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Company Retreat is currently airing on the streamer, with new episodes dropping on 27 March and 3 April, so there's plenty of time to catch up.
But what happened to the show's first star?
Introduced to us as Juror #6, Ronald Gladden was a former solar contractor who'd responded to an advert which he believed was a documentary exploring the behind-the-scenes process of a civil jury trial.
The other actors and producers on the show kept the stunt up for the next two weeks until Judge Rosen (played by Alan Barinholtz) announced that everyone in the room with Gladden was, in fact, an actor.
"What," was Gladden's reaction, with the 33-year-old managing to do little more than muster up a stunned laugh in response to the news.
Finding out that the last two weeks of your life had been a complete lie, specifically designed for entertainment purposes, is something few of us could comprehend, with several viewers expressing concern for his well-being after the cameras stopped rolling.
After the experience, which he described as 'sensory overload' in an interview with TODAY, Gladden returned to his normal life and couldn't tell anyone about the experience until the show premiered.
So how did he feel after finding out he'd spent two weeks of his life living out the real-life plot of The Truman Show?
It would appear he experienced an emotion most of us would after being hoodwinked into starring in a sitcom: paranoia.
"I just kept making this weird eye contact with people and then they would instantly divert their gaze, and it kept happening everywhere I went," he explained in an interview with TV Guide.
"I [would] catch myself looking over my shoulder and I was just feeling paranoid, because I just thought that they were still filming me," he continued.
"Ultimately I was just kind of freaking out in the sense that I thought, 'I'm still being followed'."
Fortunately for Gladden, he was able to lean on actor and costar James Marsden, who was on hand to reassure him that he was not about to get ambushed by a secret camera crew.
"We talked on the phone for like 30-45 minutes and he just helped me accept reality, accept fate," Gladden said of his costar. "He reassured me there were no cameras following me around and he really helped me start working through those emotions."
Fortunately for Gladden, he's since been able to look back fondly on the entire experience and has kept in touch with several cast members, including Marsden.
He's even been able to embrace the fame, appearing in an advert alongside Ryan Reynolds and reunited with the Jury Duty cast for an episode of Celebrity Family Feud.
Jury Duty: Company Retreat is available to stream on Prime Video.
Topics: TV and Film, TV, Entertainment, Amazon Prime
Brenna Cooper