| Season Number: | 19 |
| Image Alt: | 1.14 |
| Starring: |
|
| Num Episodes: | 24 |
| Network: | MTV |
| Prev Season: | The Real World: Denver |
| Next Season: | The Real World: Hollywood |
The Real World: Sydney is the nineteenth season of MTV's reality television series The Real World, which focuses on a group of diverse strangers living together for several months in a different city each season, as cameras follow their lives and interpersonal relationships. It is the only season to be filmed in Australia.
The season featured a total of eight cast members over the course of the season, as one cast member was replaced after she voluntarily left the show. It is the third of four seasons of The Real World to be filmed entirely outside of the United States after in 1995, in 2003, and before in 2009.
Production lasted from February to May 26, 2007[1] and premiered on August 8 of that year, consisting of 24 episodes.
Most seasons of The Real World, beginning with the fifth season, have included the assignment of a season-long group job or task to the housemates, continued participation in which has been mandatory to remain part of the cast since the Back to New York season. The Sydney cast was assigned to work for Contiki Tours, a vacation travel package planning company, creating a Sydney tour package.
The cast was housed in the contemporary 20000square feet, three-story former OneSport World Building at 19 Darling Walk[2] at the southern end of Darling Harbour, a large recreational and pedestrian district on the western edge of the Sydney central business district. OneSport Darling Harbour was a sports-themed venue for hosting a variety of different events, and could accommodate up to 1,100 people. It closed at some point prior to June 2006, when it was leased to the Real World production, which held the lease until June 2007. The building and the rest of the Darling Walk Complex were demolished in late 2008, to be replaced by a $500 million development that included the Commonwealth Bank's global headquarters buildings, retail space, and a new park.[3] [4]
Cast members were first photographed and identified by the media while participating in a Contiki tour at the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park in Cairns, Queensland.[5]
On August 1, 2007, the New York Daily News reported that according to MTV, Persian-American cast member Parisa Montazaran is the show's first Muslim.[1] However, Tami Roman of the 1993 Los Angeles season is a Muslim,[6] as is Mohammed Bilal of the 1994 San Francisco season.[7]
| Cast member | Age | Hometown | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cohutta Lee Grindstaff[8] | 23[9] | Blue Ridge, Georgia | |
| The son of a welder,[10] Cohutta is a self-employed contractor who builds log homes for a living. Cohutta's name, which is Cherokee for "mountains that hold up the sky", is derived from the Cohutta Mountain Range in Georgia. He attended Dalton State College and North Georgia Technical College,[11] and is close to his family, which includes his parents, as well as his younger sister and grandfather.[12] He enjoys mountain hiking, horseback riding, and playing the guitar, and is looking for someone with whom he can start a family.[13] He took part in The Real World partially due to pressure from friends, and as part of his goal to see as much as possible before settling down with a wife and children.[14] [15] He has done very little traveling away from home, and characterizes his home town and family as being "slower", because they take the time to sit down to eat together and enjoy the moment. Consequently, he feels out of place whenever he visits a city. He eventually begins a relationship with KellyAnne. Cohutta subsequently appeared on the Challenge. | |||
| Dunbar Merrill Flinn | 22 | Natchez, Mississippi | |
| Dunbar's family lost everything after a money-laundering scandal, and Dunbar was forced to negotiate his own financial situation, and take responsibility for his life. He has two brothers, aged 27 and 19.[16] He enrolled in the military in order to pay for his education at the University of Mississippi, where he belonged to a fraternity. He is committed to his girlfriend Julie back home. MTV.com describes him as "well-spoken, opinionated on political issues, literature and poetry, arrogant, and hot-headed."[17] In the premiere, he claims to be more proud of being Southern than of being an American. In Act 2 of Episode 7, he says that his father used to beat him and his older brother, and that he had himself emancipated at age 15. In Episode 8, he reveals that his grandfather tried several times to molest him when he was a child. While attending private school at age 16–17, he was forced to take anger management classes in order to stay at the school. At one point he cheats on Julie with the cast member who replaced Shauvon, Ashli. After the series, he graduated from college and became a real estate broker.[18] | |||
| Isaac Stout | 21 | Cleveland, Ohio | |
| Isaac is from Cleveland, Ohio and a business major at the University of Arizona.[19] As he explains in the season premiere, he has a history of juvenile delinquency, having been put on probation for robbing 15 houses and shooting off fireworks through someone's window. Given the choice between nine months in jail and a "treatment center", he chose the latter, in order to reevaluate his direction in life. In addition to being an artist and musician, he is also an entertainer, taking place in freestyle dancing battles, doing stand-up comedy, and MCing events.[20] He is Jewish.[21] In Episode 16, he reveals that he used to take a lot of LSD, from which he still suffers from occasional hallucinations of birds, and that when he sees a black bird, he interprets it as a premonition that someone close to him has died. He claims such a premonition in the same episode, before learning of his grandfather's death. Despite his fear of commitment,[22] he enters into a relationship with an Irish woman named Noirin during the season. | |||
| KellyAnne Judd | 20 | Georgetown, Texas | |
| KellyAnne stayed out of most of the drama on Real World Sydney but claims that if she feels someone is walking all over her she will fight back fiercely. A self-described tease,[23] for her audition video, she stripped down to a T-shirt and panties, on the back of which she had written, "Make it Hott: Pick Me | " she comes off as a very confident girl. She is of mixed heritage that includes Italian, Polish and Irish. She was diagnosed with ADD at a young age, and as a result of being prescribed natural medicine, is considering a career in that field.[24] She has a sister named Kalan.[25] Her father works for the state. She blames him for her parents' divorce, on account of the extramarital affair he had for a year, and the resulting pregnancy. She ended her three-year relationship with her ex-boyfriend Sutton before coming to Sydney,[26] and she initially is flirtatious with Dunbar, but eventually enters into a relationship with Cohutta. | ||
| Parisa Montazaran | 21 | Commack, New York | |
| The daughter of Iranian immigrants,[27] Parisa is a Muslim that grew up in Commack, Long Island.[28] [29] She is a graduate of New York University with a degree in International Relation Studies.[30] Montazaran told the New York Daily News that the experience of living with cameras was an "exaggerated existence", which amounted to "partying seven days a week", but that she did nothing during her stay that would embarrass her or her family, though she did call home one night when she drank too much. An aspiring singer, Parisa says in the premiere that she recently graduated from college early in order to concentrate on her music. She repeatedly comes into conflict with Trisha and Dunbar. | |||
| Shauvon Torres | 24 | Sacramento, California | |
| Shauvon is a 24-year-old journalism major at the California State University, Sacramento, and as she says in the premiere, wants to be a news reporter. She has her own dating and relationships column called "Sexcapades". She insists that she is not the blonde bimbo that people may think she looks like. She recently ended her engagement to her fiancé, David, who told her to choose between a career and marriage and children. She is openly bisexual.[31] She later reconciles with him, and moves out in Episode 14 in order to return home. | |||
| Trisha Cummings | 19 | Fresno, California | |
| In the premiere, Trisha says that she and her friends are the stereotypical "hot preppy girl" clique. She was raised as a devout Christian by her adoptive parents.[32] Her parents gave her a promise ring when she was twelve, as a symbol that she would retain her virginity until marriage, but as her boyfriend Jarod states in her home video, they have not upheld that resolution. From early in the season, and repeatedly during it, she comes into conflict with Parisa. In Episode 18, she is sent home for shoving Parisa to the floor during a heated argument. | |||
| Ashli Robson[33] | 19 | Huntington Beach, California | |
| Ashli is a 19-year-old from Huntington Beach, California who moves into the house in Episode 15 as a replacement for Shauvon. She explains when moving in that she is currently single, but "ready to mingle". When she moves in, it is apparent to her, Trisha and Parisa that she and Trisha are very much alike and have similar interests. She is attracted to Dunbar even though he has a girlfriend back home and at one point the two decide to step over the boundaries, only to develop an antagonistic relationship with him, much as Parisa did. | |||
Age at the time of filming.[9]
| Episodes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | |
| Cohutta | colspan="24" | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dunbar | colspan="24" | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Isaac | colspan="24" | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| KellyAnne | colspan="24" | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Parisa | colspan="24" | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ashli | colspan="9" | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Trisha | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shauvon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Notes
All eight cast members reunited for Escape from Oz: The Real World Sydney Reunion. Hosted by Lyndsey Rodrigues, the show was filmed in New York, and premiered January 9, 2008. The cast members discussed their lives both during and since the filming of the show. Dunbar stated that he and Julie were still together, and had moved in together, though there was still occasional tension as a result of his infidelity with Ashli. The cast also discussed his temper flare-ups with Parisa and Ashli. Cohutta and KellyAnne revealed that they were still together, and that KellyAnne visited North Georgia, where she met Cohutta's father. (Their romance ended by the time they appeared on .)[34] Isaac stated that his now-long-distance relationship with Noirin was "complicated", that they were talking, and that its future was ambiguous. Shauvon revealed that she and David were no longer together. She and the others also discussed the "Grilled Cheese Incident". Trisha and Parisa discussed their love triangle with Alex, and the shoving incident, both asserting that there were no remaining ill feelings between them. Trisha also explained the incident with the Asian McDonald's employee by saying that she mis-worded her initial explanation of the incident, but that it was not motivated by racism. She also insisted that her refusal to go to the gay pride parade was not motivated by homophobia, as she supports gay rights, but felt a conflict between the amount of partying she had been doing and her religious upbringing, and decided not to go out partying again, regardless of what the celebration was for.[35]
At the 2008 The Real World Awards Bash, KellyAnne was nominated in the "Hottest Female" category and Isaac in the "Hottest Male" one, KellyAnne and Cohutta were also in the running for "Favorite Love Story", as well as Dunbar for "Best Phonecall Gone Bad", and both Shauvon and Trisha for "Gone Baby Gone", with the latter also receiving a nomination for the "Roommate you Love to Hate" award.[36] [37]
On November 5, 2008, it was revealed on the Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Island reunion special that KellyAnne Judd was dating Wes Bergmann of at the time.[38] In an extra clip of the reunion for , which aired December 16, 2009, Wes and KellyAnne revealed that they were no longer together, but were attempting to resolve the status of their relationship.[39]
In 2009, Isaac and Noirin eventually broke up. In 2010, they both appeared on the tenth series of the British version Big Brother.[40] [41] Norin entered on Day 1, while Isacc entered on Day 54. Noirin was evicted by the Viewer's Vote on Day 56, with Isaac choosing to leave shortly after.
Cohutta Grindstaff and Isaac Stout opened and co-own a concert venue, The Bad Manor, in Athens, Georgia. It opened May 8, 2010, and it is located in downtown Athens at 346 E. Broad St.[42] On June 10, 2023, Grindstaff welcomed his first daughter.[43]
Parisa Montazaran's debut album, Intelegance, which mixes hip-hop and dance beats with influences from her Persian heritage, was released November 24, 2008.[38]
In 2012, Dunbar published a paperback titled Crazy Sh*t Republicans Say.[44]
| The Island, The Ruins, Free Agents, Battle of the Bloodlines | The Challenge: All Stars (season 2) | ||
| Dunbar Flinn Merrill | The Island, The Duel II, The Ruins, Cutthroat, Battle of the Exes, Rivals II | ||
| Isaac Stout | The Duel II, Free Agents | ||
| KellyAnne Judd | The Island, The Ruins, Battle of the Bloodlines, Rivals III, Battle of the Eras | The Challenge: All Stars (season 1), The Challenge: All Stars (season 3), | |
| Parisa Montazaran | |||
| Shauvon Torres | The Duel II, The Ruins, Cutthroat | ||
| Trisha Cummings | |||
| Ashli Robson | The Island |
Note: KellyAnne, Dunbar, Ashli, and Isaac were originally cast for , and flew out to Turkey to participate. However, they were removed prior to the start of the first challenge due to Stout supposedly not passing his medical test, which turned out to be a false negative, and they were replaced by the Fresh Meat team.[45] [46] [47] [48]