23 Years Ago, a Reality TV Show Host Was Stabbed on Air

Cheaters was one of the most insane shows to come out of the 2000s. The entire premise was to catch people in the act potentially cheating on their partners. It captivated audiences enough to garner millions of viewers, but one moment in particular put the show on the map.

In 2002 Joey Greco took over as host of the show after Tommy Habeeb’s departure. Greco’s arrival needed to make a big splash, and it definitely did that in a moment they went horribly wrong.

The episode was following the same format as usual, stalking a man to try and catch him cheating on his suspecting partner. The crew find him and a woman out on a boat together, just off the dock. The “cheater” and Greco get into a heated—and violent—altercation, leading to Greco getting stabbed. He’s bleeding out on national television, and the moment left viewers in utter shock at what they witnessed.

Greco was wheeled off to the hospital and the perpetrator was taken away in cuffs. Despite all of that playing out on television, there were no arrests made according to local police.

The infamous cheaters moment was allegedly staged

In 2010, Inside Edition reported that the whole altercation was faked for television. Allegedly, a woman by the name of Cassandra Terrazas said she was paid $350 to portray the “other woman” on the show. The ambulance was rented, the dock belonged to a member of the Cheaters crew, and the blood was fake.

However, that’s only one side of the story—when asked, the Cheaters crew has largely dodged the question. Inside Edition was able to get a statement from Executive Producer Bobby Goldstein, who neither confirmed nor denied the situation happened. “But let me say this, if it was all poppycock, it sure did good in the ratings.”

So I guess we’ll never really know what happened, which can either be a positive or a negative. Reality television is meant to be entertainment. A lot of it is scripted, but much like professional wrestling, you can suspend your disbelief for the duration of the episode. The biggest question is: did the altercation deter anybody from cheating? Surely a few.