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As you can guess, MTV isn't about to let things be that spontaneous. It may not be scripted, but it's tightly controlled, to the point that the first day feels like checking in to prison. When Pat arrived in Cancun, "they took me to a separate hotel," and then, "they went through all of my stuff," mostly to ensure he wasn't packing any contraband sponsorship. "They took away like two pieces of clothing because it had brands on it, they said, 'We'll give this back to you at the end.'"

Viacom Media Networks

We're not saying MTV tranquilized this guy to get that American Eagle shirt off of him,

but we are saying MTV doesn't mess around.

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In other aspects, the search was a little more lax. "They told me, 'Bring all your stuff down here, we wanna make sure you don't have any illegal drugs or anything' but they didn't come into my room, so if I had illegal drugs, I would have just left them in my room." At this point, of course, their psychologists had presumably calculated exactly how likely he was to do drugs and whether he'd be smart enough to hide them.

Pat's "arrival" at the airport actually took place the next day (they had him go stand off in the corner and then walk out into the view of the camera, as if he'd just stepped off the plane). That's the sort of fill-in-the-gaps shots producers do have the housemates stage from time to time (other "dramatically reenacted" events recalled by cast members include having everyone pretend to shut off the lights and go to bed just so they can get it on tape). They've also been known to hire actors as background characters to help push the plot along. In one instance, during the filming of the New York season, they paid a man to follow a female cast member and hit on her. This might be the only time getting paid to do something made it less creepy.