Tracey Yukich quickly became one of the most polarizing contestants to ever appear on NBC's The Biggest Loser, and her Season 8 journey left viewers divided. Netflix's new documentary Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser revisits the show's complicated history, including why Tracey, in particular, sparked such strong reactions.
Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser has shot to the top of Netflix charts, telling a three-part story of The Biggest Loser's lasting impacts on society and its contestants. Netflix has been on a roll with its docuseries', with 10 others (and more) hitting the streamer this year.
However, Fit for TV has captured a specific audience, those who used to tune in week after week to a show that, arguably, profited from misguiding overweight people desperate to turn their lives around.
Despite her dramatic medical emergency during the very first challenge, an incident she now recalls in Fit for TV as the moment she "died" on the beach before being airlifted to a hospital, Tracey pushed to stay in the competition. Which many would assume would make her an underdog, someone to root for.
But as the season unfolded, the reality competition quickly turned her into one of the most disliked figures in the show's history, a reputation the new docuseries revisits in detail.
Why Tracey Yukich Was So Disliked on 'The Biggest Loser
There's no way around it: Tracey was a villain on Season 8 of The Biggest Loser, but why? That's the new question after viewers watched Netflix's docuseries Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser, which began streaming on August 15.
While the new docuseries reveals that she suffered a life-threatening medical emergency, the reality TV show at the time is remembered to have downplayed the severity of her condition. Viewers were left with the impression that her collapse was due to poor endurance rather than rhabdomyolysis, a dangerous illness that can cause organ failure.
Instead of showing her as someone battling to recover, the edit positioned her as someone trying to game the system. The villain edit is nothing new to reality TV fans, a common phrase coined by contestants that feel they've been misrepresented on TV and audiences aren't getting the full story.
Because Tracey was restricted from workouts early on, she often leaned on advantages in weigh-ins and challenges to stay in the competition. The Biggest Loser highlighted these moments in ways that made her look manipulative and self-serving.
What wasn't explained at the time was that Tracey had little choice but to find other ways to compete since she couldn't physically train at the same level as the others, as recommended by the show's MD, Dr. Robert Huizenga, who also was interviewed on Fit for TV.
Contestants and even trainers Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels also appeared to turn against her on-camera. What has aged poorly, 16 years since Season 8 aired, was how Harper and Michaels reacted to Tracey losing weight, despite not being part of the physical training. She was not medically cleared, but the trainers, contestants, and producers clearly did not care.
In reality, Tracey explained during Fit for TV that her push to stay in the game was fueled by a desire to change her life. At the time, she blamed her weight for her husband's infidelity, so The Biggest Loser was in many ways an attempt to keep her family together.
Even at the time, Tracey told Entertainment Weekly in 2009 that the show's portrayal felt completely off, "I was being portrayed like a villain who's mean and nasty:"
"The person I saw [portrayed on the show], I was like, 'Are you kidding me?' I was being portrayed like a villain who's mean and nasty, and I’m not really a mean and nasty person!"
She explained her determination to stay on the show, pointing out that "No one saw [her] staying in the hospital for 10 days from heat stroke and wanting [her] chance:"
"I really had to get myself composed. It took me a couple of days. Once I did, I realized what I had to do to stay there. I was doing what I had to do to take care of me. No one saw me staying in the hospital for 10 days from heat stroke and wanting my chance. No one ever saw that."
Luckily, Fit for TV did not give her a villain edit and was able to fully realize Tracey's story, potentially changing the minds of past viewers.
For more Netflix documentaries with a dark twist, get to know the full cast of Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing,
