Contestants Sue Paramount & Producers For Defamation

The rough ride contestants Jonathan Towns and Ana Towns had on the CBS competition series The Amazing Race last year has now turned into a legal brawl between the couple and the show’s producers.

Accusing Paramount, CBS and producers ABC Signature (now 20th Television, part of Disney Television Studios) and Jerry Bruckheimer Films of rigging the series and unleashing a “smear strategy so audacious and immoral that would shock the conscience of even the most cynical propagandist,” the Season 37 participants are looking for $8 million and more in damages as part of a defamation suit.

“The gravamen of this action is not a dispute over legitimate editorial judgment or discretion,” reads the jury-seeking complaint filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court by the Townses, who are representing themselves.

“The claims asserted herein arise from a calculated and sustained course of conduct in which Defendants, possessing the evidentiary materials necessary to depict Plaintiff Jonathan Towns accurately and completely, made the deliberate determination to suppress those materials and to substitute in their place a constructed, false, and highly damaging portrayal – one manufactured through the systematic juxtaposition of decontextualized footage, the willful omission of material exculpatory and humanizing content, the disproportionate inclusion of narratively irrelevant but inflammatory content, and the sustained and asymmetric application of editorial standards that were applied to no other participant in the production,” the complaint adds.

“The resulting broadcast, disseminated to tens of millions of viewers on a nationally distributed television network, falsely portrayed Jonathan Towns, a private individual with no antecedent public profile, as a morally depraved, brutal and abusive spouse.”

As anyone knows who watched Season 37’s episodes, which ran March 5-May 15 of last year, the clearly stressed out Towns duo ended up coming third in the competition. Since appearing on TAR, where he was reprimanded more than once for his name-calling and demeaning attitude towards Ana Towns, Jonathan has been diagnosed as having autism spectrum disorder, their 25-page complaint asserts.

Citing a “meltdown” and “clear emotional anguish” by Jonathan Towns during the May-June 2024 shooting of the Phil Keoghan-hosted series, the filing alleges that producers, including EP Keoghan, did little to nothing to help the contestant. What TAR producers did do, according to the suit, is convince the couple there was nothing underhanded going on and to not quit the show. What they also did, the filing claims, was paint a portrait of Jonathan Towns as someone engaging in “intentional emotional abuse toward his spouse.”

“The foregoing portrayal is not susceptible of characterization as the product of subjective editorial interpretation or the legitimate exercise of creative discretion,” the March 4-filed complaint states. “Defendants possessed the evidentiary materials necessary to tell an accurate and complete story. Their determination not to do so, and to substitute in place of accuracy a false and damaging characterization, constitutes the publication of a false statement of fact within the meaning of applicable California law.”

Not only do the Townses want $8 million from Paramount and pals, the couple is seeking a court injunction compelling producers to re-edit the show with “appropriate disclaimers” of Jonathan Towns’ condition. In what may be a first for the dirty business and messy sausage-making of unscripted TV, the pair also want a public apology for how they were depicted.

Neither Paramount’s CBS nor 20th Television, which absorbed ABC Signature in fall 2024, have responded to Deadline’s request for comment on the complaint or claims. It seems they are trying to track down the suit, I hear.

As for The Amazing Race, the globetrotting challenges continue, with the show renewed for Season 39 in January.