Chloe Chrisley Says 'Chrisley Knows Best' Was Scripted in New Lifetime Docuseries
The premiere of The Chrisleys: Back to Reality revisits the family's television rise, criminal convictions and claims that their hit show was staged
The Chrisley family returned to television in Lifetime’s new documentary series The Chrisleys: Back to Reality, and one of the show’s youngest members told viewers that their long-running reality series was not entirely spontaneous.
In the first episode, which aired Monday night, Chloe Chrisley is shown telling her sister Savannah that Chrisley Knows Best was scripted. The moment was presented among interviews and archival footage that trace the family’s rise from a Southern, eccentric reality-TV staple to the legal troubles that upended their public lives.
The docuseries marks the family’s first sustained on-camera treatment since patriarch Todd Chrisley and his wife, Julie, were convicted of fraud and tax evasion and later sentenced to a combined 19 years in prison. The couple reported to federal custody in January 2023, and the series recounts events through the period leading up to their subsequent pardon by President Donald Trump.
Chrisley Knows Best, which aired for 10 seasons on USA Network, built an audience around the family’s brash personalities and unscripted-image. The new Lifetime program positions itself as a behind-the-scenes look at how that public image was formed and at the family dynamics off camera. In the premiere, the exchange between Savannah and a then-12-year-old Chloe interrupts the narrative thread to challenge the show’s authenticity.
The series does not provide extended detail about how often or in what ways scenes were staged; the clip presented in the premiere consists of Chloe asserting that portions of their reality show were scripted. The episode mixes contemporary interviews with past footage and covers the family’s childhoods, television success and the months before Todd and Julie Chrisley’s legal case culminated in incarceration.
Reality television has long faced scrutiny over the extent to which producers shape scenes, prompt reactions or stage events for dramatic effect. The Chrisleys’ admission of scripted elements in front of the camera joins a history of cast members and insiders from other reality franchises who have acknowledged producer influence, but Lifetime’s series frames the disclosure within the family’s broader narrative of fame and legal fallout.
Producers and network representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the specific claim of scripting or about how the docuseries was produced. Social media and fan communities reacted to the premiere, with some viewers expressing surprise and others saying the revelation confirmed long-held suspicions about the constructed nature of many reality programs.
The Chrisleys: Back to Reality is scheduled to air additional episodes that the network says will further explore the family’s upbringing, their trajectory on television and the period surrounding Todd and Julie Chrisley’s trial and incarceration. Lifetime has described the series as a retrospective that aims to let the family tell its own story after years in the public eye.
The premiere’s scripting allegation is likely to prompt renewed discussion about the relationship between reality programming and authenticity, and how audiences interpret the behavior of personalities whose careers are built around appearing unscripted. The series positions the admission as part of a larger, self-examining narrative that revisits the family’s television persona amid legal and personal upheaval.
Additional episodes of The Chrisleys: Back to Reality will be broadcast on Lifetime in the coming weeks. Viewers and critics are expected to continue parsing the series for further revelations about the production of Chrisley Knows Best and the family’s account of events surrounding their convictions and eventual pardon.