American women duped into thinking they were dating Prince Harry for 2014 reality show reveal tactics producers used to 'brainwash' them – claiming they were monitored 24/7 and banned from speaking to each other

American women who were duped into believing they were dating Prince Harry in unsetting TV show say producers fed them false information to ‘skew reality’.

I Wanna Marry Harry was a Fox reality show that aired for one season in May 2014, which followed 12 American women who believed they were competing for a chance for date Prince Harry. Instead, however, it was a lookalike named Matthew Hicks. 

Now, 10 years later the former contestants have spoken out in the podcast The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace and claimed they were monitored  24/7 with cameras in bedrooms and ordered not to speak to each other off camera. 

Speaking in the podcast The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace the winner of the series Kimberly Birch and other contestants Meghan Jones and Chelsea Brookshire lifted the lid on the controversial reality TV series. 

The contestants underwent psychological evaluation with a psychologist before being flown from the US and taken to Englefield House, an Elizabethan country home in Berkshire.  

American women who were duped into believing they were dating Prince Harry in unsetting TV show I Wanna Marry Harry say producers fed them false information to ‘skew reality’. The show which aired in 2014 saw 12 women compete for Harry’s heart in a format similar to The Bachelor 

While contestants on the show weren’t told that the suitor they were fighting for was Prince Harry at first, they were all made to believe it was him thanks to Matthew’s strikingly similar looks to the Duke of Sussex and production crews ‘breadcrumbing’ fabricated stories. 

The women all said they were told they were joining a show called ‘Dream Date’ and knew little else when they were whisked off to England, where they spent three days isolated in hotel rooms without any access to the outside world, not even books. 

At the time of the show’s premiere, Prince Harry was years away from meeting his wife, Meghan Markle. He still had his bad-boy reputation and was — most importantly — single as he had just ended his relationship with Cressida Bonas. 

Speaking to journalist Scott Bryan on the podcast Kimberly said: ‘They started off really subtly, they had Kelly discover a newspaper article on a coffee table about Prince Harry, I don’t remember what it said but I remember her telling the rest of us, and one of the staff came and took it away from her.’

Meghan added: ‘I remember the production kind of laying these Easter Eggs for us to find, I tried to figure out what their agenda was.’ 

Kimberly explained: ‘There was a night were we had security outside of our rooms and one of the security guards told a producer ”we have to get him back to the palace, there is a situation there with the royal family”, so whatever was heard, it suggested something that you weren’t supposed to hear.

Meghan added: ‘Production came out and said ”stop filming, stop filming, this is very serious”, so without camera’s on, they gathered all of us girls and producers in Kim and I’s room and they told us, ”Your safety is at the utmost importance to us, we are dealing with someone who is a high target individual”, I thought that was their most impactful trick. 

Meghan explained that production kept ‘close tabs’ on them, claiming they were being monitored 24 hours a day, saying they had cameras in their bedrooms and they were ‘mic’d up all day’

Meghan is the lifestyle blogger behind the website The Meghan Jones, she revealed that her reality TV fame led to her getting a morning radio show and a morning TV show

Kimberly, who won the show, said the show thought her a lot about ‘brainwashing’ because her reality was constantly being skewed

Kimberly went on to get her master’s degree in drama therapy – and she actually did her thesis on ‘brainwashing’ on the show

‘I didn’t think they would do anything off camera that would be that shady, so I thought they were actually being realistic.’

Meghan explained that production kept ‘close tabs’ on them, claiming they were being monitored 24 hours a day, saying they had cameras in their bedrooms and they were ‘mic’d up all day’. 

She added: They really kept tabs on us, you couldn’t just get hungry in the middle of the day, go to the kitchen and grab an apple, even getting water. For a couple of days of filming I started stealing the digestives they had at breakfast and putting them in my bra, I would take them to my room and hid them in my sock drawer.’

Many of the girls mentioned that they were not allowed to speak to each other unless cameras were rolling, it was called ‘put on ice.’

Another contestant Chelsea said: ‘We would just sit in a room completely silent and that was annoying as hell to me.’

To make sure the silences were enforced, the women said producers would sit with them to make sure nothing was said.

Meghan added: ‘They were like the evil stepsisters in Cinderella, they were so mean, like calling them b****’s would be a compliment. Honestly, they were on an authority trip. It was not a pleasant experience, filming.’

The show hired security to escort Matthew, who was pretending to be Prince Harry, around 

The show even went as far as staging paparazzi following them and security threats to make the women believe they were dating Prince Harry

Matthew and Paul Leonard, who played the butler Kingsley on the show and called Matthew ‘Sir’ throughout the series 

Kimberly said the show taught her a lot about ‘brainwashing’ because her reality was constantly being skewed. 

She added: ‘Your not trusting yourself anymore and it’s like this group consciousness of believing what everyone else is believing and that makes you feel sane. Because if your the only one standing out, saying; “This isn’t what’s actually going on” you feel like you’re the one going crazy, so you go along with it. ‘

Meghan agree saying: ‘If everyday you are being fed a sh** burger, and everyone around you is saying: “It’s ground beef, it’s ground beef, it’s ground beef”, you start wondering, “Is this sh** burger really ground beef?”.’

One of the contestants, Kelly, fell hard for the man she thought was Prince Harry, so much that even the imposter Matthew started to feel uneasy about the lie. 

Matt said he only agreed to do the show if he didn’t have to flat-out lie to the women. He was told to act like himself, not a royal, but that didn’t stop others from nudging the women’s speculation along. 

The show even went as far as staging paparazzi chases and security threats to make the women believe they were dating Prince Harry.

Viewers watched on as the women went on a series of lavish dates with the man whom they believed to be the Prince.

Meghan said: ‘Matt was sweet, very genuine guy, I feel bad for him after this experience too, I think he thought ”I’ll just date a few American girls, dye my hair kinda red and go back to my hometown and tell my mates about it”. I don’t think he ever thought production would be as shady. 

‘So I feel bad for him too, but he was the sweetest, nicest, kindest guy, I have nothing but nice thing to say about Matt.’ 

Matt, who is now a father and working as a school teacher, also spoke to the podcast about his time on the show, saying it was the most ‘nerve racking’ thing he ever had to do. 

Matt revealed he felt ‘quite isolated on the show’ because the production crew were told to not get too over familiar with him incase they called him by his real name by mistake. 

Even though Matt didn’t feel comfortable with the deception, producers appeared to have other ideas and half way through the series, when one of the girls got suspicious, the production crew revealed to the women that Matt was indeed Prince Harry.

The women all said they were told they were joining a show called ‘Dream Date’ and knew little else when they were whisked off to England, where they spent three days isolated in hotel rooms without any access to the outside world, not even books

While contestants on the show weren’t told that the suitor they were fighting for was Prince Harry at first, they were all made to believe it was him thanks to Matthew’s strikingly similar looks to the Duke of Sussex and production crews ‘breadcrumbing’ fabricated stories

Speaking in the podcast The Bachelor of Buckingham Palace the winner of the series Kimberly Birch (left) and Meghan Jones (right) lifted the lid on the controversial reality TV series

The show was ultimately pulled from the air after only four episodes due to low ratings. The rest premiered on Fox’s website

Kimberly posed on the steps of Englefield House, an Elizabethan country home in Berkshire, in 2014 

Meghan who made it to the final of the reality TV show posed for promotional pictures in Berkshire, in 2014

Viewers watched on as the women went on a series of lavish dates with the man whom they believed to be the Prince

Matt said: ‘At the time I had no idea they were going to do that. I was a bit miffed and felt quite stressed, I didn’t appreciate the way they done it without telling me, but then again I signed up for this, I knew it might happen at some point.

‘I only had one option really and that was to just deal with it, so I just carried on the same way really and played it like it didn’t happen.’

At the end of the show Kimberly won Matt’s heart but he had to break the news that was wasn’t Prince Harry like the girls had been led to believe. 

In a bizarre twist, that none of the contestants or Matt knew about, Kimberley was in with a chance to win $300,000, but only if she still accepted Matthew after he revealed he wasn’t the Prince.

After winning, she split the prize with Matthew, and after a few show-related meetups, they went their separate ways. 

The show was ultimately pulled from the air after only four episodes due to low ratings. The rest premiered on Fox’s website. 

At the time, Kimberly and her fellow cast mates had no animosity toward the show or its producers, despite being dubbed as ‘America’s most gullible women’ by Time magazine and receiving a string of hate online.  

After the fairytale had ended Kimberly said going back to her normal life was ‘a scary time.’ 

She said: ‘When I found out over the radio that it was called I Want to Marry Harry, I pulled over to the side of the road and called my mom and was like ”Oh my god this is going to be terrible”.

‘There were really mean people on social media, so that part was really hard, no one wants to get hate mail.’

Meghan said she might of been ‘naive’ but she didn’t think production were allowed to outright lie to the contestants, saying they felt ‘betrayed and lied to.’

However Kimberly revealed she actually knew she was being lied to after she was driven by a tourist shop which had Prince Harry masks hanging in the window while on her way to a filming location. She realised it didn’t look anything like the man she was dating.

She said: ‘That was a big moment for me, when I actually did see the mask it jolted me right back into reality and I was like ”Oh my god, that is what Prince Harry looks like, this guy is not Prince Harry”.

After winning, Kimberly split the prize money with Matthew, and after a few show-related meetups, they went their separate ways

Matt said he only agreed to do the show if he didn’t have to flat-out lie to the women. He was told to act like himself, not a royal, but that didn’t stop others from nudging the women’s speculation along

Matt, who is now a husband, father and working as a school teacher, also spoke to the podcast about his time on the show, saying it was the most ‘nerve racking’ thing he ever had to do

Series creator Danny Fenton claimed that the real Prince Harry (pictured) watched the show and was disappointed that he hadn’t been asked to be involved (pictured in 2014) 

‘My jaw was to the floor because it was such validation, you know thinking that you are going crazy this whole time and you’re the stupid one and having that moment, I just felt so justified. 

‘When I got back to the estate, they had one of the producers come into my room, and she sat me down and she was very clever, I give her so much credit, she said to me, ”So I hear you saw some mask of Prince Harry’s head with no eyeballs.”

‘So she spun it, as if it was this crazy psychological thing that I witnessed and made it sound as if I wasn’t well. Like saying ”are you ok? Is this getting to you? Are you sleeping well?”.

‘The reality bubble burst right then and there and I thought, “They are grasping at straws now, they know I am onto them”. It felt good to regained that power back.’ 

Kimberly went on to get her master’s degree in drama therapy – and she actually did her thesis on ‘brainwashing’ on the show.  

Meghan, the lifestyle blogger behind the website The Meghan Jones, revealed that her reality TV fame led to her getting a morning radio show and a morning TV show.

Asked the reason why he created the show Danny Fenton, creator of I Wanna Marry Harry, said he had a dream about the concept saying he came up with the title before developing the full show idea. 

He said: ‘I was aware how besotted Americans were with the royal family, and with Harry in particular, so the idea of bringing American women to the UK and putting them in a Castle would be a fairytale dream for them.

‘I was savvy enough to realise that it would be quite hard to book the real Prince Harry, although I think he would of been up for it.’

Danny claimed that the real Prince Harry watched the show and was disappointed that he hadn’t been asked to be involved. 

Danny has gone on to executive-produce dozens of unscripted shows and TV documentaries, including the recent series such as The Interrogation Room Hosted by Vivica A. Fox, Laura Whitmore Investigates and Rob Rinder’s Interrogation Secrets.

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