MTV’s Catfish has been a huge success for the network that it inspired last year’s one-off special Truce featuring rapper co-host Angel Haze. Suspect, debuting tonight, will have another queer, gender non-conforming co-host joining Nev Schulman on his new docuseries, as artist and activist iO Tillett Wright hits the road with cameras in tow to find out what secrets people are hiding from the ones they love.
(Plese note: iO prefers the usage of no pronouns.)
If iO looks familiar it could be for a number of reasons. A child actor who often played male roles, iO is well-known for the Self-Evident Truths Project, a series of photographs iO has been taking of anyone in America who feels they identify as anything but 100 percent straight. iO gave a TED Talk on identity and the project, which helped to boost iO’s profile, which could be one reason Nev and MTV were so keen on having iO join them on their new show.
Suspect is like Catfish in that it begins with someone (most often well-intended) who needs help finding out the truth. On Catfish, it has to do with who the person they’ve been connecting with online. Suspect, however, has relatively nothing to do with the internet. Instead, Nev and iO will force some much-needed conversations (although that even seems like a harsh word for what ends up happening), and help to relieve the stress and pain the secret keeper might feel. Because there’s always a secret, and it’s usually nothing like their friend or loved one guessed it would be.
We spoke with iO at an MTV Press Junket in Los Angeles, where we talked about what we can expect from Season 1 of Suspect.
AfterEllen.com: Tell us the origins first. How did the show come to you?
iO Tillett Wright: That’s a question for Nev. I don’t really know. They found me, and they asked me to come in for a show that the Catfish people were working on, and I was kinda like “Huh?” And I went in, and I was very much like, “What the fuck am I doing here?” and then I think people like that, the less desperate you are.
Then I went back for what they refer to as a chemistry test with Nev and word on the street is that I’m the only one that would actually challenge him and stick up for myself and be like, “Actually I disagree.” I think they wanted the show to actually have some heft to it and some actual intellectual-they didn’t want someone who was just going to be all “Ahhhh” next to him.
And, weirdly, all of the imaginary scenarios that they gave us I had some personal relatable thing to, which continued through the show, which makes me think I had a really weird life but it was just like a natural. We’re both from New York. He’s from the Upper West Side, I’m from the Lower East Side so we’re from the opposite ends of 8 Mile, but we’re both very outspoken, opinionated people with totally separate areas of expertise so, I don’t know, we fit well together.
AE: So what do you do in the show? Is this like Catfish but with a different twist to it?
iTW: No. Catfish is about the internet, and this is not at all about the Internet. This is about people who have secrets. The show is about people who have secrets and somebody who’s worried about someone that they love calls us and is like “Help me, I need to figure this secret out.”
So we go in, and we hear their suspicion, and usually, we’re kind of skeptical about their suspicion. The whole show is a balance of managing people’s privacy because we’re never gonna pry, and it’s not a “Gotcha!” experience at all. I’m super, super, super adamant about that. It’s always about helping people be honest about who they are and realize that what they truly are is good enough and that the people who love them love them for who they actually are, and they don’t need to keep a secret. And if they are keeping something dark or something nefarious, then we try to help everybody communicate with each other so that they can stay family or loved ones or lovers or whatever.
AE: Obviously they’re keeping the secret for a reason so to come in with cameras and say “We’re ready for you to tell us all!”-how soon do you get that person involved and say, “Hey, this is what we’re looking to do”?
iTW: Pretty soon because Nev and I are usually only there for maximum three days, if not two, and I think both of us feel very strongly about not violating people’s privacy. The tactic, because it was the first season of the show and we were learning as we went, pretty early on one of us will be like, “OK, why don’t we call so-and-so and see how they want to handle the situation?” The truth seeker is concerned enough to call a television show [so] why don’t we let the secret keeper know that and be like, “This person loves you so much that they’ve gone to this great length. How do you want to handle this? You don’t have to talk to us. We don’t have to bring cameras. But we suggest that you talk to this person, and if you happen to want us to mediate then, great, we’re happy to help, and we are here to do that.” And every single time, the person has been greatly relieved to get the truth off their chest.
AE: You didn’t have anybody say, “No, I don’t want to”?
iTW: Some people were like, “Sure, I’m down,” and then some people were like, “No,” and then they came around. Everybody came around. It’s weird.
I think that a lot of people were keeping secrets because they didn’t want to burden the person and that is a very common thread we found that we also found sort of surprising. A lot of people were keeping serious shit secret because they didn’t want to burden the person that they loved, which is crazy.
AE: What surprised you personally in going through the experience of making the show?
iTW: How little people know about the people they consider their closest friends. Sometimes people would be like ,”So and so is my best friends and we’ve been best friends for blah blah blah years.” And we’d be like, “Cool, where do they work?” “Well…you know…” And we’re like, “Do you even know they’re last name?” So that was always really surprising. It’s also surprising how little communication people have-a lot!
There’s obviously the obvious parallel to the LGBT coming out experience of working your way up to being sure enough about who you are to come out with it which, I can’t give away, but is a fraction of the instances of reveal on the show that happens. You’d think it’s a coming out show but it’s not. But it’s a similar experience of figuring out who you are and feeling strong enough about how you are and whatever the thing is to want to open up about it-I don’t even know where that train of thought was going with that but it just was an interesting parallel, which I can understand because revealing a secret is owning [up to] something.
AE: So the people calling the show generally just really want to know the truth, and feel strongly a secret is being kept from them?
iTW: They’re usually just really worried. The most interesting thing that is not actually the most surprising but was just really fascinating to watch is what happens when you leave someone that loves you in the dark. No matter what it is, you can think that you’re not doing anything that weird but if you are keeping a secret the people that love you can feel it and then they start to get in their head about why are you keeping a secret from them and what it could be. Every single time it went to the darkest place possible. It didn’t go to, “Oh, maybe you have self-loathing issues or maybe you’re depressed.” It would go straight to “You’re a hooker” or “You’re a murderous criminal.” The suspicions were bonkers but it’s a form of torture to leave the people who love you in the dark. That was a real learning curve for the people who were lying. They were just so caught up in their own shit that they were not even thinking about the effect they were having on the other person and it was really emotional for them to see the effect that it had had on the other person during the reveal.
AE: You said there are obviously some LGBT parallels…
iTW: I think 13 out of 16 segments we shot had either an L, G, B or T person involved.
AE: So what do you think LGBT viewers will like about Suspect?
iTW: First of all the fact they have the first trans spectrum reality show host in history, I believe. So there’s that. That’s officially the first time I’ve ever called myself to the press. Well, there’s that. We’re really, really sensitive about language. I’ve been there cracking the whip the whole time. Like “Nuh-uh!” And Nev is–for a straight, white, cis male of a certain degree of privilege–he is remarkably sensitive and cares remarkably much about getting it right. So throughout the whole show, because we kept encountering so many LGB and T people, he learned to ask people how they identify; he asked people what their preferred pronouns were. And he was really paying attention; he was really porous. So that built my respect for him up a lot and then we could kind of operate from this equal footing because I wasn’t watching what he was doing.
You know, we were just like experiencing these people together and I think the viewership will be sensitive to that and will appreciate that. And also the fact that like what is lovable about Catfish is that they just treat everyone as an equal, and there’s no weird judgments. And on this show, no matter what lifestyle people come with or orientation or gender identity or whatever the fuck, our message is always unilaterally, “Well, hey, if that’s what this person is into, then great for them. And that’s their business and we should be stoked for them that they found something that they’re into.” There was a BDSM segment at one point, which you can see in the commercial, that, like, the girl who had the suspicion where we went to the BDSM place, was not accepting. She was not. She was kind of like, “What?” And both Neva nd I were like, “Yo, check your bullshit.” You know? I think that LGBT audiences will really resonate with that because we’re so used to having people project their bullshit onto us.
AE: Do you think that things in the general public are changing because of media?
iTW: Totally. That’s the only reason I’m doing this. Because I think visibility creates familiarity which creates empathy which creates conversation, you know? And that’s the only reason I would-[you’ve] known about my shit for years. And I’ve never-you guys were some of the first people to write about Self-Evident Truths five and a half years ago.
AE: You’re still doing it, I hope.
iTW: 9,589. Coming up on 10 thousand. But [you’ve] known me since I started doing all these other things and no one, least of all me, would predict that that arc would encompass a reality show on MTV. But when the opportunity came up, the exciting thing about it was one, I get to have input in how, exactly, we handle these issues on a super mainstream outlet. Two, just the visibility of someone like me on a television show is crazy. And then half-way through it, I’m like, “Hold on a second. Am I the only trans spectrum reality host?” Janet Mock has a talk show, but I’m definitely the only masculine-presenting trans spectrum person ever in existence.
AE: That’s out about it.
iTW: That’s out about it, for sure. I think the idea of a closet is so stupid.
AE: What about situations where you might be worried the secret would be getting into something illegal, like pedophilia or something?
iTW: We thought we were. Ugh, I dread the day. I dread the day. One of the examples they gave us during our chemistry test was a guy who had a secret second family. And I think part of probably why they hired me was because in the thing I was straight up like, “Yo, that’s fucked up.” I’m not going to stand here and tell you this is OK and convince her to stay with you. I’m going to tell her ass to leave. Sorry, no!
I dread the day that that happens because I have no-I don’t have the TV host gloss. If I think something’s fake or I think someone’s using us for attention, or I think somebody is not actually being-there was an episode, without revealing too much, there was an episode where these boys suspected that their mom was doing something, and they had lost touch in their mom. And their mom was just on her own trip in a city where that’s very predictable, and she was on some like heavy ego shit, and she tried to hide behind the, like, “Well I talk to them! I know about my boys! What’s his name, blah blah-I talk to him all the time, and he works as a welder and he has a girlfriend named-I’m a good mom!” And I straight up was like, “Excuse me, but my definition of a good mom is not somebody who calls once a week to check in.” I just went after her and was like, “Shit, am I allowed to do this?” And the producers were like, “That’s why you’re here.” So I have no bullshit filter.
AE: You have a memoir coming out, right?
iTW: September! Zero to 23, my life in New York, living as a boy for eight years. Single mom, Lower East Side, poverty, drug addiction, forgiveness, acceptance, high art, low money. The basic conceptual logline for it is for all the things my parents got wrong they always accepted me for who I said that I was.
AE: What’s the cover look like?
iTW: I can’t tell you that, girl! All I can tell you is that I was cute when I was a kid, and my mom was handy with a camera. She has, like, a thousand photos.
Suspect premieres tonight at 11/10c on MTV.
