Exclusive90 Day Fiance’s Stephanie Spills Behind-the-Scenes Secrets: Producers Go to ‘Great Lengths To Make a Great Story’

Spilling all the tea! 90 Day Fiancé alum Stephanie Davison dishes about all of the behind-the-scenes secrets she learned while filming the hit TLC reality series in an exclusive tell-all video interview with In Touch.

“I learned the game very quickly,” Stephanie, 52, says about her experience on season 8 with ex Ryan Carr.

She explains that once a couple is cast for the show, they are assigned several producers who work as “independent contractors.” In order to bring the most and best footage back to the production company, Sharp Entertainment, they try to make story lines appear more dramatic or more intense by giving direction while filming — and it can get competitive.

“My first one, you know, he would be like, ‘OK, now say this and be really sad about it.’ And then the same exact situation, he goes, ‘Now say it and be happy.’ And, and so he wanted several different ways of it being said. Cause then, you know, the editors and the executives, they have plenty to pick from,” the Michigan native adds. “I then, after then working with two or three other producers along the way, I got to know the game. It’s like, ‘Aha, they’re all trying to do one another.'”

Stephanie reveals that she thinks most of the time, the executive producer will have an idea of the way they would like story lines for a specific couple to play out. Once they have an outline for the story line, it’s the producer and crew’s job to get the footage to fit within those guidelines. The Skin Envy medspa owner adds that the outline can change depending on what happens in real time as they’re filming the series.

Another secret Stephanie learned is that executive producers will have a say in the “interview dress” women on the show wear for their confessional interview. In her experience, she claims she was told to find a dress with a “plunging neckline” to show “more boob.”

“I became friends with a lot of the crew and they could tell I was upset by that, being sexualized on a 90 Day Fiancé show,” she says. “One of them took me aside and said, ‘Well, Stephanie, you won’t have to worry about the tell-all.’ What they used to have all women do is sit, they had to wear very low-cut things. And then they had to sit with their knees propped on these like lounge chairs, so everything, and then like lean forward and then you couldn’t see it. They sat on there, but then everything then plunges forward. And he goes, ‘I just want you to know, I know you’re upset right now. But you won’t have to deal with that at the tell-all. They’ve changed that rule.'”

That “rule” hinted at a trick that was used in past seasons on 90 Day Fiancé that fans actually took notice of. In 2018, a fan took to the comments section of former 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After? star Anfisa Nava (née Arkhipchenko) to inquire about the seemingly awkward sitting position.

“May I ask why you always sit with your legs elevated during interviews?” the follower wrote. Anfisa, 25, responded, “Because producers make all women on the show sit like this if you haven’t noticed. I hate it. So uncomfortable. Somebody please tell TLC that you don’t like it!”

After coming forward about her experience on the show, Stephanie reveals several cast members have reached out to her who could relate because there were similarities in their own experiences with production. Stephanie also speculates that some of the behind-the-scenes antics may cause issues in the couple’s real life relationships.

“They go to great lengths to make a great story at the expense of, what possibly could have been a couple — in my opinion — staying together,” Stephanie muses. “But when you find out you’ve been deceived, obviously some things are unforgivable.”

TLC and Sharp Entertainment did not respond to In Touch‘s request for comment.