Mother and son duo Joey, 20, and Kelle, 51, on MILF Manor. Photo / TLC
Mother and son duo Joey, 20, and Kelle, 51, on MILF Manor. Photo / TLC
If you think the concepts seen on reality TV are wild, wait until you hear about the newest show in the US leaving viewers horrified.
Eight single mums in their 40s and 50s go on a dating show to meet men in their 20s and 30s only to find out in the first episode those younger men are their sons.
MILF Manor is filmed in Mexico and is aired on America’s cable channel TLC, which has also bought viewers 17 seasons of Sister Wives, a show about a man with four wives and 18 children, and more recently, I Am Shauna Rae, the journey of a 22-year-old woman dating in an 8-year-old’s body.
Thanks to social media, clips from MILF Manor have made their way to viewers across the world.
On TLC’s own TikTok videos, the show has been slammed as “vile”, “gross”, “weird”, “horrendous”, “disgusting”, “disturbing” and the “most uncomfortable show ever”.
Elsewhere on social media and in published reviews the critique is even more intense. The New Yorker described it as a “new low” and “perhaps even a rock bottom” for reality TV.
In the first episode, the sons of the women arrive at the mansion and one reads the text message: “You are not exactly on the show you thought were on.
“You are now in the same dating pool. Open your minds and have an experience you may never have imagined.”
The women on the show date each other’s sons and in one challenge (right) they had to feel the younger men’s bodies while blindfolded to identify their own son. Photo / TLC
It cuts to a producer interview with real estate broker and fitness coach Kelle Mortensen, 51, who says: “I’m so excited to meet these other guys … sorry ladies I might be sleeping with your son.”
The show, which began airing in mid-January, has included the sons and mothers writing anonymous sexual admissions and then having to guess who they belonged to.
“She’s kind of kinky like that,” one son said as reasoning for guessing his own mother was behind a confession about once having sex in a shopping centre elevator.
In another challenge, the women were blindfolded and ran their hands along the young men’s shirtless bodies to identify their sons.
In one viral clip posted by a user on TikTok, Mortensen’s son Joey, 20, talks about her breasts in detail as explanation to why she gets attention from the young men.
“I need to erase the last 30 seconds from my memory please,” one user commented.
“(Sigmund) Freud would have loved this,” wrote another, a common joke being made in association with the show.
Mortensen, who is a mum-of-six from Orange County, has said in interviews she was grateful for the time she got to spend with her eldest son on the show – the mothers share bedrooms with their sons – and that she would do it again.
She was reportedly told the show would be about older women dating younger men and that Joey was invited along to be her support system.
Daniela Neumann, the managing director of the London-based production company behind the idea for the show, said she doesn’t understand “what all the fuss is about”.
She told The Washington Post the show is about female empowerment, erasing the double standard stigma of older women dating younger men, that everyone on the show had a good time, and that every man is someone’s son.
“So I’m not quite sure what the big deal is. No one’s doing anything wrong. And these are all consenting adults,” Neumann told the publication.
“I don’t really understand it, but I think that anything that provokes conversation is a very positive thing.”
