‘Suddenly Amish’ Fans Believe the House Featured on the Show Is an Airbnb With Modern Amenities

While many reality TV shows are presented as docuseries that capture genuine and spontaneous interactions between cast and characters, this hasn't been the case. Take MTV's The Hills and Laguna Beach for instance, whose cast members revealed after-the-fact that certain narratives, arguments, and situations were all heavily produced years after new seasons of the show began airing.

And this doesn't just pertain to shows that are taking place in Tinseltown, either. Online anecdotes and reports are stating that the TLC series Suddenly Amish isn't as genuine as it's made out to be.

For everyone reading this who remembers having to use a landline phone to call their friends, they remember TLC as the learning channel. I.e. the network they kept reserved on the "last" button on their TV's remote to quickly switch back to in an effort to keep their parents from knowing what they were really watching.

Now the network airs shows like 1000-lb. Sisters, which covers the daily lives of two morbidly obese siblings. Or 90-Day Fiancé, where folks leave the country in order to import a husband or wife looking for a green card in the U.S. There's also Dr. Pimple Popper, which chronicles the work of a dermatologist who squeezes pus out of people's bodies, along with other procedures.

TLC has also offered a glimpse into what it's like living in an Amish community with its series Breaking Amish. Funnily enough, years ago, I wrote a dramatic monologue for a cast member of the show for a storyline following a young Amish man who wanted to pursue becoming an actor.

Suddenly Amish is a series in the same vein of this TLC programming niche, that "follows six non-Amish individuals on a rare journey as they leave behind their modern 'English' lifestyle and step into a deeply traditional Amish community in Lancaster, Pennsylvania."

But folks are questioning the validity of the Amish setting the non-Amites are supposedly getting themselves into on the show. So it's less like this scene from Kingpin and more like this purportedly staged Cheaters stabbing.

Soap Opera Spy writes that folks around the Lancaster County area have pointed out a peculiar fact regarding the home the non-Amish are staying in during their tenure on Suddenly Amish.

And it's that the house isn't a modest Amish dwelling devoid of modern creature comforts, but actually an AirBnb that production rented for the duration of shooting.

The outlet quoted a local source who said that they "live a few minutes from where this was filmed and discovered the house they are staying at."

According to this source, it's a charming "vacation rental ... [with] a full bathroom in the house." Others have pointed out that they've noticed several cars in the background of episodes, highlighting that if they were indeed in an Amish community, such newfangled technology wouldn't be in such abundance around them.

However, Billy Jo, who appears on the series, stated that she finds it "insulting" that people are questioning the validity of the series. She doubled down on the fact that the TLC show is real and that she isn't an actor. She added that it's "horrifying" to think people would believe the Amish community hosting them would lie to viewers.

"I'm not an actress. I'm just authentic. I'm myself, and I don't want to be a movie star," News Nation reported her as saying.