A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila is an American reality television dating game show similar to the TV show The Bachelor. It premiered on October 9, 2007 on MTV hosted by Tila Tequila. The series consists of a bisexual-themed reality dating show where 16 heterosexual men and 16 lesbian contestants live in Tequila's house and compete for her attention and affection. The contestants were not aware of Tequila's bisexuality until the end of the first episode, after ten contestants had been eliminated. The remaining contestants, both male and female, then shared the same home for the remainder of the series. A Shot at Love II premiered on April 22, 2008.
The show debuted at No. 1 in its time period across all of cable in the network's target demographic of persons 18âÂÂ34, averaging a 2.0 rating. It became MTV's second highest-rated series premiere for the year, behind Life of Ryan (August 27, 2007) and tied with ' (August 15, 2007).
The first season finale had 6.2 million viewers, which at the time was MTV's most watched series telecast.
The show was the subject of a heated online debate. An article critical of the show appeared on The Christian Post on September 13, 2007. Tequila wrote a response in her blog on September 28, 2007, criticizing churches for "bashing" the gay community while thanking God for saving her life. Criticism of the show has come from at least three conservative media organizations: Culture and Media Institute, Media Research Center and Parents Television Council, which named two episodes of the show the "Worst Cable Content of the Week".
Fox News and others stated that Tequila had a steady boyfriend and that the show was a sham, and that she is not bisexual. They cite New York Post's Page Six article. In 2007, Tequila responded to the claims made by Fox and denied them stating "I find it absolutely absurd that they would even make such an ignorant statement," but in 2018 (11 years later) she admitted that the Fox News report was true and that she indeed had a boyfriend while the show was being filmed and aired, stating that she was never actually gay or bisexual, and described her presence on the show as being "gay for pay".
On December 30, 2007, the winning contestant of the season, Bobby Banhart, posted a message on MySpace stating, "She never called me after the last show and no one would give me her number."
Tequila offered her own reasoning for why they broke up:
The following table lists the roster of contestants for each episode, ordered based on Tila's call-out order.
The following table explains Tequila's reasons for asking each contestant to leave.
Among the contestants, the comedian and television personality Amanda Ellen Soloman Ireton after the show went on to appear on other MTV television shows ' and That's Amore, WETV's Secret Lives of Women, CCTV's The Rack, and Entertainment Television's The Soup and Extra.
She hosted CBS's reality show Big Brother â The Reunion Special as an interviewer. She starred in Karmina's The Kiss music video. Furthermore Ireton was MTV's columnist and video blogger for A Shot at Love 2.
A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila â The Complete Uncensored First Season was released on April 15, 2008. The DVD contains the ten episodes, the reunion listed as episode 11, but does not contain the special episode "One Shot Too Many". It also includes some extended and deleted scenes.