Claim to Fame is back, and fans can expect the ABC reality game show series to raise the stakes — and the level of competition — quite a bit when Season 3 premieres.
As part of TV Insider’s July 2024 digital cover celebration of the new season, here are a few behind-the-scenes details you might not know about the show. Plus, watch the video above to see Kevin and Franklin Jonas play the game themselves!
1. Cohosts Kevin and Franklin Jonas are intentionally kept in the dark about contestants’ identities.
“We’ve intentionally kept Kevin and Franklin in the dark about who the players are each season and who they’re related to so that they can play along, just like the audience at home. And their reactions are in the guess-offs and when the celebrity relatives are revealed, those reactions are all genuine. It’s one of the things I love about working with them on the show because they’re just as invested in the show as the players are,” executive producer Eric Detwiler tells TV Insider.
2. Contestants who have been eliminated are sequestered without their phones or internet access all the way until the finale.
“They’re sequestered individually in hotels as they are eliminated because we bring them back for the final episode, and they participate in the final challenge,” Detwiler explains. “They still don’t have access to phones until and computers to be able to research information that they’ve learned. They do get together in small groups. They’ll go on outings, and we’ll take them to the beach, or they’ll go on a hike or do something to get out. So they’re not just in a hotel room with nothing to do. And that’ll happen in small groups, and so they’ll get some time with each other there. The key is to make sure that the integrity of the game is maintained. So I think because they have this extended period of time where they don’t have access to technology, and they are focusing on their relationships, both inside the house and then again, occasionally in small control groups during the sequester time, they do tend to bond over that, and there have been a few relationships even born out of that. If you look back at Olivia [Aquilina] and Hugo [Wentzel] from Season 2, which I think is telling in terms of how people end up connecting in this environment.”
3. In Season 3, the celebrity relatives will be more familiar to at least one cohost.
Kevin Jonas teases, “I have met and seen a couple of people after the fact. This season… We can’t give too much away, but I knew a lot more of their relatives than I knew in the moment, which was really cool.”
4. Producers knew Carly Reeves’ (Tom Hanks’ niece) meltdown in the Season 2 premiere would be a viral moment.
Claim to Fame‘s second season got off to the highly hyped start when Carly Reeves, who was the niece of Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks, had an absolute conniption over being the first person eliminated.
“The first thing I was concerned about was Carly because it was a very intense night for her, and the first person eliminated on a show where you got some dreams to go all the way taken away from her. It was really hard for her to process,” Detwiler says. “It was a very long night getting Carly through that, to make sure that she was taken care of … I think that when we were done with that night, and we knew Carly was settled down and taken care of and had a moment to reflect on what had happened over the previous several hours, I knew it was going to be a breakout moment for the show.”
5. There’s a specific team devoted to making sure things stay fair for all contestants.
Production designer Steve Leonhardt explains that in addition to the producers who are conceptualizing the clues and game show elements of Claim to Fame and his team who executes on them, there’s a third wing of the show that ensures everything remains fair for every contestant involved.
“There’s a three-way push and pull between our department, the art department, the creative producers, and standards and practices are responsible for making sure that the games are fair and that the producers don’t steer the competition in any direction because, of course, there’s money on the line,” Leonhardt explains.
Claim to Fame, Season 3 premiere, July 10, 9/8c, ABC