‘Celebrity Wife Swap,” the voyeuristic ABC reality show that offers a peek at the home lives of semi-famous celebs, is back for a new season of controversy and culture shock.
In Tuesday’s Season Three premiere — airing at 10 p.m. — the partners of actor Daniel Baldwin and music legend Jermaine Jackson (of the Jackson 5) swap homes (but not bedrooms) for one week.
A look inside the Jackson home reveals lots of baggage — literally — due to the dozens of suitcases used to transport the many racks of clothes the fashion-minded Jackson has accumulated over the years.
Baldwin — who did the swap with his former girlfriend Isabella Hofmann (his “Homicide: Life on the Street” co-star), the mother of his 17-year-old son — is outed as a great cook but a slob around the house.
Producers look for families with different values — like the 8,000-square-foot, staffed house that Jackson shares with his wife of seven years, Halima, versus Hofmann’s modest Hollywood Hills home, where she does all of the cooking and cleaning herself.
“I was prepared for something that was going to be more argumentative — I was ready for Roseanne to come. And I was hoping that it would be that so it would be more interesting,” says Baldwin, who did the show as a way for his autistic son, Atticus, to get more comfortable with change. “But it was pretty smooth sailing.”
The same can’t be said for Jackson, who refused to cooperate with one of Hofmann’s household rules and briefly shut down production — and cut off contact with producers after filming wrapped.
Upcoming episodes will see swaps between TV personality Robin Leach (“Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”) and actor Eric Roberts; actresses Tichina Arnold and Kelly Packard; former pro boxer Laila Ali and singer/songwriter Angie Stone; model/actress Angie Everheart and Food Network stars Pat and Gina Neely; and race car driver Hélio Castroneves and Anna Nicole Smith’s former partner, Larry Birkhead.
Baldwin says he didn’t change any of his behavior as a result of the show, but some swaps have a more lasting impact after the cameras stop rolling. Birkhead, who is raising daughter Dannielynn by himself, learned some organizational tips from Castroneves’ strict wife, while she in turn learned to loosen up.
“The show really puts a mirror up to people in a way I think surprises them,” says executive producer Bruce Toms.
“Most people come out of it grateful for the opportunity to look at some things in their lives that they haven’t been looking at, or just to confirm that our values are what work for us and I’m not going to change them.”
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