A MTV "Real World: New Orleans" housemate urinated on a rival's toothbrush and used it to scrub a toilet, sickening the other resident during filming of the upcoming season of the long-running reality TV show, according to a police report filed on the incident.
The aggrieved housemate, Ryan Leslie, blamed the tainted toothbrush for a subsequent illness, and summoned police to the Uptown New Orleans house in the 1600 block of Dufossat Street. Though police conducted interviews and confiscated evidence, no one was arrested. (
Read the official New Orleans Police report
warning: offensive language
.)
The incident flies in the face of the producers’ penchant for secrecy. Typically, they try to keep hidden the location of the home where cast members live, and they prefer to keep the drama that inevitably unfolds inside the house from leaking into the public domain before the show airs.
But the police report resulting from Leslie’s complaint lays bare what is sure to be one of the season’s plot-lines. It also might serve as a yardstick for how reality TV has come - or fallen. “The Real World” essentially invented the genre 18 years ago, and typically zeroed in on conflicts between 20-something housemates over differences in attitudes, politics, race, gender or sexual preference. The toothbrush-as-toilet-scrubber resolution to an argument may be a new frontier.
When 2nd District officers arrived at the house — which is owned by former New Orleans Hornets point guard Baron Davis — Leslie told them he had gotten into an argument with his housemate, Preston Roberson-Charles, three weeks earlier.
Days after the argument, Leslie came down with a sore throat and a fever, and the 21-year-old had a sneaking suspicion why: He told police Roberson-Charles had urinated on his toothbrush and used it to scrub the inside of the toilet bowl, according to a police report.
During the argument, Roberson-Charles insulted Leslie and called him a “faggot,” Leslie said. He also “stated that he was going to do something to my belongings,” Leslie wrote in a statement to police, which is laden with spelling errors.
“Preston later came in my room and took my toothbrush off the counter and scrubbed the inside of the toilet and urinated on my tooth brush,” Leslie wrote in the statement.
Leslie told police he had used his toothbrush for more than two weeks after the argument. “I wasn’t aware of this [happening] and continued to use my toothbrush,” he wrote in the statement.
His throat “started to hurt and got progressively worse,” according to the report, and he visited a local hospital Feb. 21, where he was treated for a viral infection. Tests came back negative for strep throat and mononucleosis, Leslie told police. He received a steroid shot and was prescribed an antibiotic.
After the complaint was filed with New Orleans police, officers spoke with Jim Johnston, the show’s executive producer, and learned video surveillance was set up around the house, according to the report. The report does not indicate whether police attempted to look at the footage.
Police confiscated Leslie's $120 Sonicare toothbrush as evidence, according to the report.
Johnston, reached by phone, said he “wouldn’t be in a position to talk about it” and declined comment. A number listed for Leslie in the report was disconnected. Johnston declined to put a reporter in touch with Roberson-Charles.
Police did not take a statement from Roberson-Charles. When a reporter rang the doorbell at the home Thursday, no one answered.
Officer Garry Flot, an NOPD spokesman, said it’s likely Leslie simply wanted the incident documented, rather than have charges filed. Had Leslie wished to press charges, police would have likely issued a municipal summons to both roommates and let a judge decide whether a crime had been committed, Flot suggested.
“Just because the report is written, that doesn’t necessarily always mean it’s a crime,” he said.
The 9,860-square-foot, two-story house at 1633 Dufossat St. where the show is being filmed has seven bedrooms and bathrooms. It is still owned by Davis, though he left the Hornets for the Golden State Warriors in 2005 and now plays for the Los Angeles Clippers.
The house is on the market with Sotheby’s International Realty for $1.7 million, according to the company’s Web site. Davis paid $1.5 million for the place in 2002, records show.
This marks “The Real World’s” second residency in New Orleans. The first, for season nine of the long-running reality series, was based from January to May 2000 in the Belfort Mansion on St. Charles Avenue.
For all its synthetic “reality,” the series was hailed in its early years for shining a spotlight on many issues of contemporary young-adulthood its core audience is first confronting – sexuality, prejudice, substance abuse.
In recent years, however, the show has garnered a reputation as a showcase for immature and irresponsible behavior sometimes fit for a police report.
Before shooting began on the current New Orleans season of “The Real World,” pre-production announcements by Bunim-Murray Productions, the Los Angeles company that pioneered the series, seemed targeted at reversing that reputation by promising its cast would participate in recovery activities.
“Hurricane Katrina threw New Orleans for a punch, but the city is coming back and we’re hoping our cast members and the series can play a small role in the city’s rebirth,” said Jon Murray, co-creator and executive producer, in a news release.
At the same time MTV heralded “The Real World’s” high-minded return to New Orleans, however, the network was striking pop-culture gold with “Jersey Shore,” a “Real World” clone that celebrates less-than-altruistic values.
The “Real World” episodes in production here now are expected to air later this year. The series’ current season, set in Washington, is airing now on the network, with the next episode scheduled to air Wednesday at 9 p.m.
Flot, the police spokesman, wondered whether the toothbrush episode might have been contrived to get attention for the upcoming New Orleans season.
“This is a reality show,” he said, “so who’s to say this wasn’t done just for some publicity?”