American Marie Claire did a "Reality TV Ruined My Life!" article on its October 2003 issue and Rebecca talked about how The Real World turned into a trauma and how she overcame it.
Trancript:
"I became very paranoid and started hiding even the most mundane aspects of my true personality" - Rebecca, 25
When I was chosen to be one of the seven strangers on The Real World Seattle, I was in college, still trying to decide exactly who I was. And I thought that doing the show might help me figure that out.
But being followed by video cameras and staying "on" 24 hours a day actually had the opposite effect on me. Some people just freeze the minute they realize they are being filmed � and that�s what I was like for five months! I was so petrified of being misrepresented on TV that I decided I wasn�t going to reveal my true personality for the producers to manipulate. I hid my little idiosyncrasies: stopped eating Rice Krispie treats for breakfast, stopped talking baby talk to my mom on the phone (which I do when I miss her), and stopped singing in the shower � one of my favorite things. I remember the camera zooming in on me once as I was making a hot dog, and I actually thought to myself, Did I make the hot dog wrong? Is it odd that I made a hot dog in the first place? Do other people make their hot dogs differently?
Another time, after I was filmed recording a song, the editors cut to me saying something completely dorky, like, �Music is the outpouring of my soul.� The minute I said it, I thought, How cheesy! I sounded like the biggest poseur. After a while, I started avoiding the cameras altogether. It was easier to keep quiet than to worry about saying something asinine.
Once the show was over, I had to get away. I was going bananas! So I moved to Italy for my senior year of college, where I surrounded myself with art and spent hours at a time just thinking. Away from the cameras, I realized how anxious I�d been for those few months, and how much I�d overexaggerated my every fault. Slowly, I began to see that my flaws are what make me beautiful, and that � with the exception of commiting murder � there�s nothing I can do, on TV or in �real life,� that can�t be forgiven. My European epiphany gave me the strength not only to revive my Rice Krispie-treat habit, but also to find out what I really wanted to do with my life. After that, I couldn�t imagine continuing with my plan to go to law school anymore.
So I moved to Los Angeles, where I�ve turned my lifelong hobby � singing � into a career. I�m now in a band called becky with Keanu Reeves. And I�m definately a better performer for having been on the show. After months of censoring my every move on The Real World, I decided that I never want to do that again. Besides, in my new line of work, people actually expect you to be a little different.
