Greatest Reality TV Personalities of All Time: Drama Queens

While we can’t honestly classify most of it as “real,” we admit that we’ve been hopelessly hooked on reality TV for, oh, about a decade and a half now. In honor of the 15th anniversary of Survivor (the show that kick-started the reality TV revolution premiered on May 31, 2000), we’re celebrating our favorite reality TV personalities in eight categories… and letting you pick the winners. Be sure to vote in the poll below — and if we left out your favorite, feel free to submit a write-in vote in the comments. Today’s category: Drama Queens.

Jon “Jonny Fairplay” Dalton, Survivor (Seasons 7 and 16) and Kill Reality

Why He Makes the Cut: Had Jon “Jonny Fairplay” Dalton retired from reality TV after finishing third on Survivor: Pearl Islands, he would have ended up in our Villains category. For sheer manipulative evil, no one has topped him prearranging for his friend to deliver fake news that Jonny’s grandmother had died, thus giving him the pity boost he needed to stay in the game. Unfortunately for his legacy, Fairplay didn’t go away: In 2005 he joined E!’s one-season show Kill Reality (reality stars live together while shooting a horror film) and — with The Real World’s Trishelle as his chief enabler — proceeded to unleash a series of cruel and unfunny “pranks” on his poor, trapped housemates. The series ended with him being kicked out after moving his bowels on the bed of The Bachelor villain Trish. Then, three years later, he returned to Survivor: Micronesia and — after much preshow bragging about the havoc he was going to wreak — cried in the season premiere because he wanted to be home with his pregnant girlfriend, and his teammates honored his pleas to make him the first one voted off. You can be the pooper or you can be the sensitive guy, Fairplay, but you can’t be both. Pick a lane!

Best Moment: Hard to call anything “best” with him, but upon being kicked off Kill Reality, he protested that firing him went against his contract. A producer replied, “No, we did not think to put in the contract, ‘Do not s–t on another cast member.’”

— Josh Wolk

Teresa Giudice, Real Housewives of New Jersey (Seasons 1-6)

Why She Makes the Cut: The only original RHONJ cast member left standing, the ditzy Italian housewife with the cookbook empire has found herself in the thick of just about every feud in the show’s history — and her fiery temper when defending her friends and family means that no table is too big to be flipped. And of course, the very public legal battle that landed her and husband Joe in prison added a serious dose of real-life drama last season.

Best Moment: Two words: Prostitution. Whore.

— Dave Nemetz

Kim Kardashian, Keeping Up With the Kardashians (Seasons 1-present)

Why She Makes the Cut: She’s one of the world’s most polarizing public figures, a successful businesswoman whose business, many believe, is making money off her sex-tape fame — and someone who has let us inside two spectacular weddings (and one astonishing divorce). Plus, she’s cried enough on the show and its sibling-centric spinoffs to warrant a “best of” montage.

Best Moment: Yes, we’re tempted to say it’s when she had a meltdown in Bora Bora after Kris Humphries pushed her into the ocean and a $75,000 diamond earring went missing (“Kim, there’s people that are dying,” Kourtney told her). But give credit where credit is due: She handled herself beautifully in the recent About Bruce special when she served as mediator between the person we now know as Caitlyn Jenner and her siblings and mother. Kim’s still at the center of the drama, of course, but this time, she’s trying to minimize it.

— Mandi Bierly

NeNe Leakes, Real Housewives of Atlanta (Seasons 1-7)

Why She Makes the Cut: After seven seasons as RHOA’s undisputed queen beyotch, fellow cast members past (Kim, Sheree) and present (Kenya, Claudia) know better than to get on NeNe’s bad side lest “Nay-Nay” come out. But we can’t help rooting for NeNe, mostly because her insults are all sitcom-ready one-liners that belong on T-shirts (e.g., “Close your legs to married men!”).

Best Moment: Oh, there are so many to choose from… but we have to go with NeNe’s utter destruction of Sheree in a wine bar, crowing about the “Trump check” she’s cashing after appearing on Celebrity Apprentice.

— Dave Nemetz

Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Jersey Shore

Why He Makes the Cut: Is there anything sexier than confidence? Is there anything funnier than unearned confidence? A guy who names himself after his (good but not great) abs is clearly both and — even though Snooki was the bigger breakout star — it’s Mike Sorrentino who’s the heart of the show. Yes, these people are cartoonish and awful, but they’re also recognizably us at our worst. There’s a little bit of The Situation in all of us.

Best Moment: Don’t let that cab company shame you just for your ridiculous nickname, Sitch. You. Do. You. 

— Robert Chan