Slovak Reality Show Airs Scene of Possible Rape of Drunk Female Contestant

Slovak broadcaster Markíza has aired an episode of its reality show — the local version of America's Jersey Shore — in which one of the male contestants repeatedly moved a woman who was unconscious from alcohol into his own bed, then drew a curtain over the camera. The incident took place during filming of the sixth episode of the show's second season at a villa on the Croatian coast.

The show follows eight young people living without phones or internet access. Five women from another reality show, "Roses for the Bride," arrived for a VIP party at the house. The contestants got heavily drunk, losing the ability to speak clearly or keep their balance. The group eventually moved to a hot tub, where only a contestant named Nicolas and one of the female guests remained.

The woman later left him, went to her own bed and fell asleep. According to her roommate, she had explicitly said, "Let me sleep." Despite this, Nicolas came for her, lifted her from the bed and carried her to his own. When another contestant demanded that he leave, the man picked up the limp, unresponsive woman again, carried her to another bed and lay down beside her.

Whether a rape actually took place cannot be established: the man drew a curtain over the camera, then moved the woman to the bathroom, where filming was not taking place — according to him, she felt unwell and wanted to vomit. "The safety and protection of participants during filming is one of our top priorities. The format includes a mandatory monitoring system under the constant supervision of the production crew and a medic," said Markíza PR manager Lukáš Kočíšek.

The Crew Should Have Intervened

Dana Dostálová, director of the ALEJ counseling center and an expert on violence, assessed the situation very differently than another contestant on the show, who described what happened simply as "they got up and went somewhere else." "She wasn't going anywhere on her own. She was limp in his arms and had no understanding of what was happening to her," the expert said.

According to her, the footage doesn't allow one to definitively confirm rape or attempted rape in a legal sense, but it clearly points to a serious violation of personal boundaries and a situation lacking the woman's consent. Nicolas explained his behavior by saying he had been "waiting" for this woman. "He turned his waiting into a claim on her presence and her body. The fact that she was asleep, weakened and vulnerable meant nothing to him," the specialist commented.

An "Ethically Indefensible" Format

Dostálová considers the very concept of the show to be problematic: "Television first creates an environment in which young people get drunk and predictably become weak and vulnerable, and then sells their vulnerability as entertainment. I consider this kind of format ethically indefensible."

In her view, based on the aired material, the mistake wasn't made only by the crew at that particular moment — the entire chain responsible for protecting participants failed, from people on set to producers, editors, and those who signed off on the final cut of the episode. The crew should have intervened the moment Nicolas entered the sleeping woman's room, even though her roommate had asked him to leave the woman alone.

The expert calls the failure at the editing and approval stage even more serious, since by that point there is no excuse of live-filming chaos. "During editing, there's no more chaos. The footage can be paused, reviewed as many times as needed. The situation passed through many people's hands, and not one of them stopped it," Dostálová concluded.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz