With Ranveer Allahbadia in deep water over his controversial statements on the YouTube show India’s Got Latent, we look westward at some of Hollywood’s most controversial moments.

The Jerry Springer Show
If you want to know the genesis of the current 9 PM loud TV panel fights and why shows like Bigg Boss are so popular, just go and watch the documentary Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action, based on The Jerry Springer Show. Arguably the trashiest TV show of all time, which ran for 27 years, it was the filthiest form of a talk show, picking up controversial topics, with highlights including profanity, heckling, physical fights, and nudity. The documentary takes us behind the scenes to speak to those who created the show, many of whom are unrepentant, even though they have destroyed countless lives.

The creative head once publicly said that for the TRPs, he would “execute someone on TV” if he could. It was the height of cultural degradation as the show brought on husbands, wives, mistresses, exes, and created an atmosphere where fights would explode on set. It even famously featured a man who left his family to marry a horse. The show didn’t stop, even after Nancy Campbell Panetts was murdered by her ex-husband the day an episode aired about love triangles involving both of them and his new wife. In fact, The Jerry Springer Show also went on to defeat the prime-time queen of talk shows, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which says a lot about us as an audience. And people would still call Jerry a nice guy.

Punchgate
We owe this moment to the reality show that inspired Bigg Boss in India—Celebrity Big Brother. In 2018, when Ryan Thomas punched fellow contestant Roxanne Pallett, the programne received 25,327 complaints, which became known as Punchgate. Later on, footage revealed that Pallett had exaggerated the incident, resulting in her removal from the show. Thomas ended up winning.

Getting Trumped

In 2016, during the run-up to the presidential elections, Donald Trump appeared on various talk shows. When he was on The Jimmy Fallon Show, expectations were that Fallon would roast Trump. However, in what came across as a softball interview, Fallon asked Trump if he could ruffle his hair. In 2018, Fallon said that this was his normal interview style, though he later regretted it. Trump wasn’t pleased with this comment and tweeted, “Be a man.”

Seinfeld
One of the most beloved comedy shows of all time, Seinfeld aired one of its last episodes in 1998 titled “The Puerto Rican Day.” The characters are stuck in traffic due to the yearly Puerto Rican Day Parade. During this time, Kramer sets fire to a Puerto Rican flag and stomps on it. The episode received major backlash, including a response from the president of the National Puerto Rican Coalition, which led to an apology from NBC and the episode being banned for several years.