On one episode of NBC's The Apprentice, two teams of contestants each had to renovate and rent a New York apartment within 48 hours. Writer Keith Holliman lived just below one of the two apartments - the one whose team won the competition by renting the apartment for more money.

Or did they? His new upstairs neighbor told him the real story of how she got the apartment a few weeks later:

It turned out that she had actually rented the apartment before it was renovated. She had looked at a few places in the neighborhood, picked the apartment upstairs from us, and made arrangements to move in before learning that it had been pulled off the market for the show. She went ballistic. The landlord told her not to worry, she could still have the apartment at the agreed-upon rent but would have to participate in the episode in order to get it. During the filming, she went through the motions and rented the apartment at a price higher than the one she would actually be paying. The negotiation was a sham.

I like Mark Burnett's shows, but there's apparently a reason they film Survivor in complete isolation: when other people see what's going on, they don't adhere to the script. [via MetaFilter]