Carmen
Rassmusen: How real is reality television, really?
It’s
not an uncommon question and in many ways equally as complicated
as that sentence. I think that all of us understand that reality
can never be so neatly packed into an hour and rarely is it as
exciting as the shows that are broadcasted. Let’s face it,
the biggest reality that the majority of people have in the morning
is their acne. Reality TV doesn’t show that. It’s
a little too real.
Well,
even though reality TV doesn’t show acne that doesn’t
mean the participants of these shows don’t experience it.
Carmen Rassmusen, an American Idol finalist constantly struggled
with acne during last season’s competition. Not only did
she have the stress of singing and looking perfect on stage, she
also woke up each morning having to conceal her acne (having to
deal with Simon Cowell’s criticism would cause anyone to
break out).
“It
seemed like every day we were taping I would wake up with like
four zits on my face,” says Rasmusen. “It’s
one thing to get zits at school but I was basically performing
in front of millions of people. I remember waking up one morning
and just crying because it’s hard to do your best when you
feel like everyone is staring at your zits.”
Although
her acne didn’t seem to slow her down, it did cause a lot
more undue stress on her while in an already highly stressful
competition. Rassmusen, who is now just 18 years old, was the
last of six to stay in the competition.
“I
was in tears at one point and I called my mom and said there has
to be something I can do about this,” said Rassmusen in
a recent interview. After going through several acne treatments
she finally was able to find a prescription
medication that helped her control it, although not eliminating
it completely.
