What Hell's Kitchen Viewers Don't See About Contestant's Off-Camera Living Situation

Summary

• Hell's Kitchen contestants face long hours, poor living conditions, and isolation during filming.
• Producers often manipulate situations and create drama for the show, leading to rigged elements.
• After the competition, Hell's Kitchen contestants undergo psychiatric evaluations and decompression before returning to society.

Long hours, poor living conditions and a lack of communication are common complaints for reality TV show contestants, and this is no different with Gordon Ramsay's cooking competition Hell's Kitchen.

Behind the scenes of this hit reality show, which started in 2005, are complaints of long filming hours, a lack of time to eat and feeling cut off from the real world.

According to former Hell's Kitchen contestant, Jen Yemola, "They locked me in a hotel room for three or four days" before production started. The Pennsylvania pastry chef who finished third in the third season of Hell's Kitchen explained, "They took all my books, my CDs, my phone, any newspapers. I was allowed to leave the room only with an escort. It was like I was in prison."

What Hell's Kitchen Contestants Endure Off-Camera

When filming Hell’s Kitchen, contestants are awakened around 6AM and taken to the kitchen for the challenge. An inner source revealed to the NY Times in an exposé of reality TV working conditions that the losing team had to work on prep for the night’s dinner from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dinner service often lasted until 11 p.m., when afterward the contestants had to clean the kitchen, before deliberating on who should be nominated for elimination.

The interviews with Gordon Ramsay, where the contestants would be sent home and then record exit confessionals and interviews, could last into the early hours.

Elsie Ramos, a contestant on the 2005 season of Hell’s Kitchen, admits that through the four weeks of shooting the first season, "I don’t think I ever slept more than five hours a night.”

While all the guests and judges eat, behind the scenes of Hell's Kitchen, the contestants struggle to find the time to eat themselves. “They give you about an hour to run up to your own kitchen in the dorm at night,” Season 6 contestant Seth Levin told The Post. “You can throw a sandwich together real quick, eat it and get back down for dinner service.

“They kind of want to drain you and make you crazy. And they do a good job of it!”

Phones, computers, television and tablets are taken away from Hell's Kitchen contestants before filming starts. This is common place on reality TV and often makes contestants feel isolated from their families and the general world. They can't even watch the news and know any world events are happening.

"Not having the comforts of home is really the hardest part of being on the show. If you have a rough day, you can't just call up your best friend and talk s***, or go out for a jog to clear your head," Season 15's Art Malone explained.

“There was one time that one of us got a hold of a newspaper, and it was like all hell broke loose. They came over and ripped it out of our hand!”

Even when a contestant is eliminated, they must wait until the whole season finishes filming before they can make contact with the outside world. This is to avoid spoilers and help the contestant unwind after the stresses of the cooking competition.

Hell's Kitchen Contestants Need Therapy After Their Time On The Show

When a contestant leaves Hell's Kitchen, they are immediately taken for a psychiatric evaluation before going to a house where they are pampered. A psych team makes sure they are okay after weeks of long days, intense challenges and grilling by Chef Ramsay.

“The experience can be quite draining, so [the producers] want to make sure you don’t want to kill yourself — or someone else,” an on-set source revealed to the New York Post. “After that, they send you to this beautiful house where you can get anything you want: back rubs, nails done, hair cut."

"It is kind of like decompression before you go back into society.”

Is Hell's Kitchen Real Or Rigged?

Although Hell's Kitchen wants to be known as a cooking competition, it thrives on drama like any other reality TV show. What audiences may be unaware of is that much of the drama and competitive behavior is set up by the producers.

Season six contestant Tek Moore claims that parts of the show are rigged. Moore told the NY Post that producers would sneak into the kitchen and try to undermine the competing chefs. They claim that producers replaced basic ingredients and filmed the frustrated chefs making silly mistakes.

Jen Yemola, who competed in season three of Hell's Kitchen, also told the NY Post that she was caught off-guard at how fake her experience on Hell's Kitchen was. She claims the house was filled with double-sided filters and that Gordan Ramsay was guided by producers via an earpiece.

The Hell's Kiitchen and dining room are a Californian soundstage and not a real restaurant. You can sign up to attend via the TV show's website, “But they make you sign something that says you are not guaranteed to eat anything."

“Each diner is going to be filmed. They also have a ground crew inside the dining room while service is going on that goes table to table and has people asking questions about the food.”

According to a Reddit AMA with former contestant Kevin Cottle, the only people who visit and get to eat in Hell's Kitchen are the crew's friends and family.

But the actual service is real with no do-overs, although there are back-up staff in-case something goes really wrong and the diners don't get fed. “The producers have a plan of what they want to do — the destinations, the characters..."

"But basically, Ramsay is a bees’ nest, and they throw it in a room, shake it up and see who gets stung.”