GEORDIE Shore stars have revealed what the show was really like in its heyday, and says not everything was as it seemed on screen.
The show first hit screens in 2011 as a spin-off of US series Jersey Shore, launching the careers of wild twenty-somethings Charlotte Crosby, Gaz Beadle, Vicky Pattison and more.
From explosive love stories to violent fights and constant boozing, it’s fair to say the Geordie Shore house was nothing short of manic.
But looking back almost two decades later, the cast say not all was as it seemed on-screen.
Gaz, who was known as the house’s “ultimate lad”, says the cast were restricted from talking about anything going on outside of the house.
STRICT RULES
He told The Sun: “We couldn’t talk about normal life. You weren’t allowed to talk about things in the outside world outside of the house.”
Continuing that the cast had to pretend they worked for a boss named Anna Parkin, who often featured on the show via phone calls or voice messages as the cast’s voice.
Anna would be seen giving them tasks or orders, and the cast were thought to be employees of her – a storyline that was built for TV.
Gaz continued: “Back then it was like, you worked for Anna and you weren’t allowed to talk about anything else.”
In 2024, former show star Charlotte even took on Anna’s role of ‘the boss’ in the Australian version of the show.
MONEY WOES
While the Geordie Shore OG’s are household names now, and have made their fortune off the back of the show, the show’s conception didn’t lead to mega-money for the cast.
“We didn’t get paid for season one!” laughed Gaz as he reminisced with pal Sophie Kasaei about the old days of the show.
He said: “We filmed the first season and I remember calling me mam and saying, ‘Can you transfer me £80 I’ve ran out of tops’, I had to run to H&M!”
Sophie interjected: “I remember Charlotte [Crosby] got a credit card, one of those store credit cards because we had been invited to an awards show and had no money.”
Gaz continued: “I remember MTV turned around and said, ‘So, what are you going to do if you become famous?’ and I was like – to me, a famous person was Beckham – so I was like, ‘That’s obviously not going to happen’.
“I filmed the first one and then went back home and went to the job center. I remember they asked If I’d had any job interviews recently and where – I wrote down on the sheet, ‘Yes, MTV’.”
Gaz, who has returned to the show for a new season after eight years off, says that things are very different these days.
With a new documentary-style format, cast are allowed to discuss their outside lives, social media and anything they wish.
This change is what prompted Gaz to finally come back onto the show, he says.
REAL REASON FOR ROWS
“It was difficult before, because we couldn’t talk about anything on the outside or social media or the press, so people would be arguing and we couldn’t give context as to why they’re annoyed at each other.
“But this time around, we can say if someone has said something on Instagram and it’s caused a rift. It’s more like a docu-series which I really like.”
Gaz, who is a far cry from the young lad we saw on the show, said he had some terms before agreeing to come back.
“I had a lot of conversations with producers about coming back because I wanted to make sure it was right for me,” he said.
“And then after the conversations, I was like, ‘look, I’ve not going on there getting smashed every night, because I don’t do that in real life so I’m not gonna do it there.”
In the new season, the show is shot in Portugal as the cast celebrate co-star Chloe Ferry’s 30th birthday.
Describing the series, Gaz and Sophie say filming this time around was “nostalgic” and “refreshing”.
Series 26 of Geordie Shore, which sees the cast in Portugal is now out on Paramount+ and MTV.
