WHAT A TWIST

Did ‘MILF Manor’ Really Trick Contestants With Its Effed-Up Premise?

Upon hearing that they would be dating each others’ sons and mothers, the singles at “MILF Manor” seemed surprised. Based on casting calls, their confusion might make sense.

Upon their arrival at MILF Manor—TLC’s latest experiment in reality chaos—both the show’s designated “MILFs” and their sons seemed shocked to discover the show’s actual premise: During their stays at the villa, the women are expected to date each other’s sons, and vice versa. As one mother, Shannan Diggs, put it, “I didn’t see that coming at all.”

A reasonable viewer might wonder how, exactly, that’s possible. Were these women and their sons not cast together? Did they not travel together to Mexico? If this setup comes as a surprise, what did they expect? Maybe the show’s casting calls can help us solve this mystery—because, of course, a Reddit fan page has already dug them up.

Jocelyn Fillman, credited on the show as head of casting for alternative programming, previously posted two casting calls on Facebook for a series that sounds an awful lot like MILF Manor. The first, posted in September 2021, notes that a “major network and studio” are seeking a “beautiful single mom in her 40s or 50s that has a handsome single son in his 20s.”

“Are you a single mom?” the post reads. “Do you keep yourself fit and fabulous and enjoy dating much younger men? Does your 20-something-year-old, opinionated, single son want to help you find love too? Our mother/son duos will go on a fun, dating retreat and help each other find love!”

One might imagine that there are enough context clues at play here for a reasonable person to deduce that the beautiful single moms and their sons might wind up dating each other. Then again, April Jayne—a personal trainer who appears in the series with her son Gabriel—explains during the show’s premiere that she’d expected a slightly different arrangement.

“I knew my son Gabriel was going to be in Mexico with me,” April says. “I thought he was going to be on a separate retreat, but he’s in my dating pool, and I’m going to have to see my son date these moms.”

Interesting! A second casting notice, posted by Fillman last January, came after a “[l]ast minute spot” opened in the cast ahead of filming that February. The note was similar.

“Are you a single mom? Do you keep yourself fit and fabulous and enjoy dating much younger men? A major network is casting a new relationship series about the growing trend of older women finding love with younger men.” Readers were encouraged to reach out if “you are a single mom and have a single son in his 20s that would like to help you find the right guy for you.”

Again: Some people might have puzzled out the show’s premise based on context clues, but it’s also not hard to see how contestants could’ve been caught off guard by the specifics of MILF Manor’s arrangement.

The bigger question from this second post, however, is how that last-minute opening happened. Did a pair of cast members drop out after learning the real premise?

Representatives for TLC and MILF Manor producer Entertainment One (eOne) did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment regarding the show’s casting procedures.

On-screen responses to MILF Manor’s big reveal seem to vary from understandable bafflement to even more understandable discomfort. One of the mothers, Charlene Zucconi DeCicco, says, “I’m feeling very overwhelmed and a little scared. Seeing my son standing in that line made me feel very awkward because they’re my son’s age.”

Evidently, however, the cringe factor was not strong enough to stop this beachside nightmare from happening. Given how these kinds of explosive reality shows have been performing lately, we can probably expect seven more seasons before year’s end.

Laura BradleySenior Entertainment Reporter

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