The current season of Netflix’s The Circle has seen two extremely high profile celebrities appear on the show as catfish; Spice Girls’ Emma Bunton and Melanie Brown.
Spoiler alert: if you haven’t already watched the first two episodes of The Circle Season Four and want to avoid spoilers, you may want to stop reading.
The reality show started off with the usual process; a group of people in separate rooms who decide if they’d rather play as themselves, or pretend to be someone they’re not – which is known as catfishing. The contestants will communicate with each other solely through typing in a group chat, or private messages. The only identifying feature they will have is a selection of photos of themselves (or the person they’re pretending to be), that other contestants can see.
And, while the show started off without any major twists, that all changed at the end of episode one when Baby Spice and Scary Spice strutted down the iconic Circle hallway and revealed that they’d be participating on the reality show.
During episode two, viewers were told that the two pop stars would be playing a catfish character together, who is known as children’s author, Jared. Shortly after being introduced to their catfish character, Bunton and Brown began playing as him, and working to fool the other players.
And while having Emma Bunton and Melanie Brown on The Circle is a welcome surprise for most, it does beg the question of how producers got the two superstars to take part in a reality show. Fortunately, The Circle executive producer Toni Ireland has revealed how they pulled of the celebrity addition.
“It’s always fun to have a big season opener,” she told EW. “We started brainstorming ideas, and we loved the idea of a pair playing the game. It gives you so much more. And then genuinely, the first people that came to mind [were] Mel and Emma. We knew that Emma had posted on Instagram before that she liked show, so we thought, “Perfect, let’s reach out to her,” and then we spoke to Mel.
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“It was so exciting because they instantly wanted to hear more, and Mel was the fan of the show as well. We wanted to explain a bit more and pitch the show to them and they didn’t take much convincing. They were both up for it straight away, really. We couldn’t believe our luck,” she said.
Ireland also revealed how they broached the idea with Bunton and Brown.
“We just said, “Would you like to come on and play the game?”, which they were up for. They really wanted to come in as players and wanted the immersive experience of being in The Circle. We explained how they would be a catfish,” she said.
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