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Credit: Ryan Hartford/startraksphoto.com
The Swanwhich started for two seasons and a total of 18 episodes in 2004, is widely regarded as one of the most controversial reality shows.
This was largely due to the focus on plastic surgery as a cosmetic tool, the pageant-style ending of each program that pitted women against each other and “failed” home, and growing concerns about medical ethics and psychological harm to contestants.
As fans will recall, one of the main plastic surgeons featured on the show was Real Housewives of Orange County husband Terry Dubrow.
Today, a documentary on Hulu titled The Swan: Behind the Mirror was released, and Terry was notably absent.
At the end of the film, a message appears on the screen saying that Terry, 68, “refused to be interviewed for this film.”
Erin Lee Carrwho directed the film, spoke to Variety about why Terry didn’t take part.
Specifically, she revealed that Terry “wanted an amount of money that wouldn’t make sense to pay an expert reporter.”
Erin said it was “under $100,000 for one interview” that would be included in the documentary.
Dr. Terry Dubrow on The Swan
Although he is not in the film, Terry spoke about him recently The Swan on the We Need to Talk to Paul C. Brunson podcast, confirming that the show was going for a third season.
“We’re casting the third season, and because reality TV was really pushing the envelope at the time, we were going to do some crazy casting. We were going to have triplets,” he said. “And since there were two surgeons, I was going to work on two, [Haworth] we were going to work on one, and we were going to see how different they looked.”
Once Peter Liguori took over as Chairman of Entertainment at Fox, he decided to cancel it The Swan.
In 2024, on a special for Vice TV, Terry also talked about the show.
“This was the beginning of a new era in both reality television and plastic surgery,” he said of why he decided to do the show. “While it was exciting, exciting and fun, it was exhausting.”
“I think in the two weeks of daily surgery that we did, we did something like 200 plastic surgeries on these patients,” he said. “That was more than [what] a regular plastic surgeon would do in a whole year!”