In the wake of any reality show, contestants come forward to proclaim that the bad behavior we saw wasn’t the “real” them and that the editors snipped here and cut there to make them look bad.

“Anyone who knows me knows that’s not what I’m really like,” they will say.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet BIG BROTHER’s Lydia. And more importantly, meet her in unedited, live-feed footage from earlier this week. (Please be warned that the clip is uncensored and definitely not safe for work!)

NOTE: Embedding has been disabled on this, so click here.

Now, it’s only fair to say that Lydia is not the first person to have gotten into screaming matches with her fellow housemates this season, and this fight may not even be the worst. (That “honor” might well go to the Chima/Russel smackdown from several weeks back.)

But it’s stunning to me that people who know that they are not only on television (where they can point the finger at editors) but also on 24-hour live feeds, where their every action is studied and critiqued by fans with too much time on their hands, would allow themselves to be seen in this light.

Chima call Russell a “terrorist”. Several of the houseguests were heard dropping the f-bomb of gay slurs. Even Ronnie, who at first came off as the quiet, nerdy type, morphed into the mouse that roared (and lied) as time went on.

 CBS actually does seem to edit things in such a way that people do not come across as they actually are, and, ironically, the houseguests TVselves are sanitized as opposed to being dragged through the mud. In other words: If you shake your head at what you see on screen three times a week, trust me when I say a quick trip to youtube or the live feeds will leave your jaw hitting the floor.

Part of the problem, of course, lies in the fact that just like all other aspects of television, reality shows have become more and more reliant on combustible personalities. Strategy and game play are no longer enough. Just as hockey fans want to see blood on the ice, reality shows now most provide viewers with catfights and explosive confrontations. Thus, you get casts such as this season’s group of BIG BROTHER housemates who are, generally speaking, a mostly unlikeable lot with the possible exception of Jordan.

But hey, the networks are a business and they give us what we want to see… right?

Call me crazy, but when a woman hires a stripper to attend her 10-year high school reunion in her stead — and has the foresight to wire the woman for sound and have the entire thing videotaped — I smell a desperate bid for fame.

Yes, I’m talking about you, Andrea Wachner.

Seems Wachner was apparently too fearful to attend the reunion because she didn’t want to dive back into the “pressure cooker” that was Palos Verdes Peninsula High in the Los Angeles area. The comedy writer — a self-proclaimed former drama geek — says that her fellow students were not only too focused on being the best academically but also had a high rate of alcohol problems and eating disorders.

Now most of us who had a tough time in high school simply blow off reunions. But not Wacher, who hired Amy Bernadette “Cricket” Russell — whom she met in a strip club — to pose as her, dress in skanky clothes and then titillate everyone with tales of her life as a stripper.

Sound like something off a bad reality show? Hey, what do you know! Wachner has, according to a Reuters news report, written a feature film based on the story, wants to sell it as a reality show and is now making the rounds of various talk shows.

In other words, the woman who hired a stripper is now whoring herself all around town.

Perhaps not surprisingly, a lot of the other reunion guests aren’t happy about having been played for fools. And who can blame them? For a lot of people, attending a reunion is about second chances, catching up and days gone by. Many want to prove how they’ve bettered themselves, and others have to actually work up the nerve to go back into what for many was a painful time. And here’s a classmate who claims to share those fears… yet has turned the event into not only a mockery but one upon which she hopes to profit.

And let’s face it: Wachner’s tale rings false on another level. Why would someone who dreaded her days of dealing with heavy drinkers or the binge-and-purge crowd pursue a career in Hollywood? Is she planning to only associate with sober actors who have healthy self-images? Good luck with that.

Several of the folks who actually attended the reunion are not happy about the way they came off in the documentary Wachner is trying to sell and have taken legal action to prevent her from showing it. Good for them. As for Wachner, I can’t help hoping that her attempt to profit off the idea of making others uncomfortable falls flat. But given how much America loves watching people humiliated on reality shows, something tells me she’ll make a killing.