‘LOSER’ WALK-OUT:Allen “Buddy” Shuh and Mark Cornelison packed their bags and left the “Biggest Loser” house on Tuesday night’s episode.
‘LOSER’ WALK-OUT: Allen “Buddy” Shuh and Mark Cornelison packed their bags and left the “Biggest Loser” house on Tuesday night’s episode. (
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Now that’s reality.
Two contestants stormed off NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” Tuesday night — just two weeks before the season finale.
And the revolution was televised.
Allen “Buddy” Shuh and Mark Cornelison packed their bags and left the “Biggest Loser” house after balking at the show’s tradition of bringing eliminated contestants back to compete for the $250,000 “Biggest Loser” crown.
Shuh and Cornelison left behind Jeremy Britt, his sister Conda Britt and Kim Nielsen — who stayed after initially agreeing to stage a mass walkout (and after meeting with a “Loser” lawyer, who pointed out the carefully worded stipulations in their signed show contracts).
NBC refused to comment in February when news of the unprecedented “Loser” walkout first broke. Instead, producers let their cameras do the talking — using the first 20 minutes of Tuesday night’s episode to document how the planned exodus evolved from a five-person walkout to a two-man departure.
“Biggest Loser” executive producer Todd Lubin, seen on Tuesday’s episode dealing with the crisis — while wearing a black New York Post T-shirt — says he never considered not showing what happened with Shuh and Cornelison.
“How can you have two people be gone and not tell the viewers? We weren’t going to use a lobby card [to break the news],” he says.
“We’re not into faking anything, and there’s not a lot we want to hide on this show. When the guys quit, it bummed me out, and I was so hurt . . . I didn’t look calm and cool [on the episode] because I cared so much and worried they were thumbing their noses [at the show].
“I was more dramatic than they were,” he says. “I was so mad —and they were all so calm and cool.”
Lubin says he still can’t get a grip on why Shuh and Cornelison left.
“We struggled in the editing [process] because I still didn’t understand what they were doing or what they were talking about,” he says. “The truth is, I think those five [contestants] did a really great job of getting to that place and they weren’t happy with the fact they couldn’t control the ending.
“There’s something to that,” he says. “I felt they made one good point: We should have been clear from the beginning [about the returning-contestants twist]. We did that last season, on Day One, but this season it was only implied and then happened so late in the game.
“We tried to be very balanced about it,” he says. “Clearly we have the ability to do whatever we want . . . and we tried to get at what was their best argument [for leaving].
“They said it would have been best if we told them [about the twist] in the beginning.”
Shuh and Cornelison — restricted from speaking to The Post because they’re still under contract to the show — won’t be among the contestants invited back to compete.
“They’re off for good. That’s the rule — if you leave, you’re quitting the show,” Lubin says.
Lubin says Shuh and Cornelison “don’t regret” their decision to leave.
“They’re still trying to justify it,” he says. “Buddy [Shuh] had a real shot at a quarter-million dollars and really needed the money. This is a five-month show and enables [the contestants] to talk to their families, who report back what people are saying. Buddy and Mark are both preachers and have to be careful with their image.
“But the next day, when they were leaving the show, I invited them to the finale.
“They’re part of the family, and while I don’t agree with what they did, I still want them to be a part of this.”