Tony LaBrie’s 2008 Wife Swap Episode Now Available to Watch on Hulu
For the longest time, people have been asking where they could watch my 2008 episode of Wife Swap. Well, ask no more because it's now available on Hulu.
Back in 2008, I was on an episode of ABC's Wife Swap with my ex-wife and family. Yes, the "reality" show where wives pack up, leave their families, and go live with a family they've never met.
We filmed our episode in the fall of 2007 but it didn't air until February of 2008. Over the years it aired over and over again on the Lifetime channel but if you didn't know it was on, you'd miss it. You couldn't even watch any of the clips on Youtube until a couple of years ago.
Since the show first aired, people have asked a variety of questions and wanted to know a few things about how it all worked.
Commonly asked questions and facts about the show
Due to contracts that we signed, we weren't allowed to talk about anything that happened on the show. Since so much time has passed and it's now airing on Hulu, I figured what better time than now to explain a few things.
Was everything that happened on the show real?
Yes and no. A lot of the scenes were put together by a producer with hopes of creating some sort of TV drama. My ex-wife's tears were real and the attitude you saw from the kids was real (for the most part) but a lot of the stuff was really forced.
They had a hard time creating drama between myself and the wife that came and lived with us, so they focused on creating drama between my stepdaughter and the new mom.
Some of the scenes had to be recreated because of bad cameras angles or because I swore, so they had to be recut which at that point came across as very fake.
Why wasn't your son, Aiden featured on the show?
He was only 2 years old at the time and the producers felt he was too young to be on the show. They also couldn't allow the new wife to interact like a mom and change his diapers and stuff because he was so young. So, because of the legalities, they felt it was better to pretend that he didn't even exist. That was the number one thing that made the show very unrealistic.
Do you get paid every time that the show airs?
No, we got a one-time payment of $20,000. When we first talked about being on the show I wasn't really all that interested until I found out how much money they were going to pay us.
Do you have any regrets about being on the show?
I don't regret doing the show at all, it was a really cool once in a lifetime kind of experience. The only thing I regret was a scene where I was talking about my parents and how they weren't the type of parents to tell me that they loved me all the time while growing up. The whole conversation wasn't used and it made it sound like my parents didn't love me or something which is totally not true. It was never intended to sound that way and I think it hurt their feelings. However, they sure ramped up their I love yous after the show aired that's for sure.
How did you get on the show?
Maggie Meadows nominated us after seeing an ad online about ABC's Wife Swap looking for a rock n' roll family. She walked away with a $1,000 finder's fee.
Life is definitely different for all of us now. Corrie and I got a divorce 10 years ago, she's now married to a farmer lol. After you watch the episode, you'll understand why that's so funny. I'm now engaged to an amazing woman with hopes of getting married in the near future. When it comes to the kids, they're pretty much all grown up. Tuesday is 29 years old, Hunter is 22, and Aiden (who wasn't on the show) is 16.
Here are a few clips (below) from the episode which can now be watched in its entirety on Hulu. When looking for it on Hulu, just look for S04 E06 · LaBrie/Zaring.