Former TruTV star Bobby Janiec has broken his silence on rumours that explosive reality series Hardcore Pawn was “staged” and “fake”. It finished airing in 2015 but is being watched all over again by a new generation of viewers as short clips continue to go viral after being shared on TikTok.
Hardcore Pawn was a reality series documenting the wild world of American Jewelry and Loan, located on Detroit’s iconic eight-mile.
The show followed the store’s third-generation pawnbroker and businessman owner Les Gold, along with his two kids Seth and Ashley.
Filled with arguments and chaos, Hardcore Pawn was one of the first major reality programmes in the US and ran for six years on TV.
It was almost forgotten until about three weeks ago when crazy clips from the out-there show began resurfacing on social media.
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TikTok has allowed a new generation of viewers to enjoy the programme, along with all of its truly unbelievable moments.
Millions of viewers have tuned into the show via the video-sharing site, watching in multiple parts on their mobile phones.
YouTube also has full episodes of the outrageous reality show, with even more viewers getting their Hardcore Pawn fix.
Former stars of the show have kept relatively tight-lipped since it finished airing, but ex-employee Bobby is now speaking out.
He worked in Les’ store until 2016, one year after camera crews finished filming the show.
Comments all over TikTok and YouTube have suggested that Hardcore Pawn was “staged”, but Bobby insists it “wasn’t all fake”.
He admitted: “Were there storylines created? Of course, it’s reality TV, there’s always storylines created.”
Despite that, he told his TikTok viewers: “Most of those customers that you saw coming in were real-life customers coming in to do business with us.”
He added: “They were stopped by the camera crew and they would say ‘hey do you wanna try and sell items to these guys on the show?’.
“Now if someone started popping off in line, that was real, cameras would run over there and start filming it. So you put a camera on somebody, they’re going to go nuts.
“I would sometimes see the camera crew hyping up some of the customers, maybe ‘act a fool’ and that’s when it started to get real.
“You can watch these clips now and be like ‘there is no way’, it just doesn’t feel right.”
Bobby admitted: “I even agree, but at the end of the day I guess I would say it is a great mix of reality and reality TV.
“Real things did happen at that store, it’s a real business.
“Les and Seth still own it, they have multiple stores open. So, it wasn’t all fake, but it wasn’t all real either. It was just a mix.”
Hardcore Pawn episodes are streaming on YouTube.
