How The Biggest Loser made reality TV judge and jury

The Biggest Loser was a hit reality TV show that ran across 17 seasons – all with one goal in mind, to help fat people lose weight. But in reality, it was a cruel stop on many contestants’ journeys with their bodies and health, all broadcast for millions to see – and comment on. While the show didn't technically do anything illegal, the documentary reveals the show did have victims. Director Skye Borgman joins Crime Story to discuss her series Fit for TV. You can watch Fit for TV on Netflix.

For years, Mr. Deepfakes was the most popular site in the world for DeepFake porn. The site hosted tens of thousands of non-consensual and violent DeepFake videos. DeepFake porn uses AI to swap a person's face onto somebody else's body, and technology has made the results incredibly realistic.Now anyone can make a deep fake of anyone. The Mr. DeepFake site had half a million users, some paying hundreds of dollars to create custom videos.Tech journalist Sam Cole was the first person to report on DeepFake porn back in 2017. And in this season of Understood: DeepFake Porn Empire, she explores the popularity of non-consensual DeepFake porn, why our legal system has had to struggle to ban it and introduces us to the kingpin behind it all.You can listen to Sam's podcast here.  You can read Ida Herskind's investigation into Mr.Deepfakes here.You can read the CBC News investigation into Mr.Deepfakes by Eric Szeto, Jordan Pearson, Ivan Angelovski here.You can read the Tjekdet investigation here.And you can read the Bellingcat reporting here.

In The Cult Queen of Canada from CBC’s Uncover, a tiny Saskatchewan town faces a surreal crisis when a cult leader calling herself “The Queen of Canada” occupies an abandoned school. As neighbours turn on each other, a retired teacher leads resistance in a story about what happens when online extremism spills into the real world. Hosted by Rachel Browne.Crime. Investigation. Revelation. Uncover brings you explosive, high-caliber true crime year-round. From CIA mind control to serial abuse, mysterious disappearances to wrongful imprisonment.More episodes of The Cult Queen of Canada are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/CQOCxCS

In the rural prairie town of Richmound, Saskatchewan, an abandoned school becomes the unlikely stage for a 21st-century crisis. When Romana Didulo, a cult leader who calls herself “Queen of Canada,” arrives with her followers and turns the school into her royal court, the town is thrust into a surreal standoff.Investigative journalist Rachel Browne uncovers how online extremism bleeds into everyday life and divides the town. As threats escalate and officials hesitate, a retired schoolteacher is thrust into leading an improvised resistance. The new podcast The Cult Queen of Canada tells a story about polarization, power vacuums, and what happens when a small community becomes the testing ground for extremism in modern Canada. Listen to the podcast here. Read Rachel Browne's coverage of the story for The Walrus, here.

Kelly Harnett has a passion for practicing the law. But, when she started, her office didn’t look like what you would expect. It wasn’t in a law firm or a courthouse. Her office was a maximum security prison.Harnett was there because she had been convicted of second degree murder – a crime she insists she did not commit.This week on Crime Story, Anna Sinfield, host of the podcast The Girlfriends: Jailhouse Lawyer, introduces us to Kelly, and shares her amazing story.Listen to The Girlfriends: The Jailhouse Lawyer here.

In 2004, 16-year-old Daniel Yuen left his home in New Jersey and travelled to San Bernardino, California to enrol in a so-called "tough love" bootcamp. Daniel had been struggling with depression for years. Desperate for help Daniel’s family was promised that the CEDU Running Springs facility would help their son. Instead, he vanished.In the podcast Lost Kids from USG Audio, journalist Josh Bloch dives into the world of teen bootcamps. He talks to one family about their search for their missing son and discovers one bootcamp's ties to one of America's most dangerous cults. He joins us today on Crime Story to help make sense of it all. You can listen to Lost Kids here.

The Sunday Magazine is a lively, wide-ranging mix of topical long-form conversations, engaging ideas and more.In this episode, host Piya Chattopadhyay speaks with Gisèle Pelicot about her public rape trial and her thoughts on becoming a feminist hero. The Sunday Magazine also interviewed Gisèle’s daughter, Caroline Darian last year. You can find that conversation here.More episodes of The Sunday Magazine are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/TSMxCS

The 1985 massacre at Whitehouse Farm is one of England's most notorious cases. But did police get it right? Five members of the Bamber family were found dead in their home, alongside the murder weapon and an open Bible. Suspicion quickly turned to the police's star witness and apparent heir to the family fortune, Jeremy Bamber. Today, Bamber has been in prison for over 40 years.Journalist Heidi Blake grew up with this story. She thought she knew it well, until she began her own investigation. This week on Crime Story, Heidi Blake shares the story at the core of her new podcast In the Dark: Blood Relatives from The New Yorker. She tells us how the evidence she uncovered casts doubt on the conviction of one of the U.K.'s longest serving prisoners. You can listen to In the Dark: Blood Relatives here. 

On March 3, 1993, three people were brutally murdered in Silverspring, Maryland: single mother Millie Horn, her young son Trevor, and his nurse, Janice Saunders. There were no fingerprints. The killings were targeted and quick. The killer seemed to know what they were doing - almost like they had read a book about it. Well, it turns out, they had. Ten years earlier, Paladin Press published a book called 'Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors'. It detailed how to kill and get away with murder. Despite attempts to have the book taken off shelves, many argued that the first amendment to the U.S.constitution meant it had a right to exist. This week on Crime Story, Jasmyn Morris joins us to talk about the podcast Hit Man. She explains how a book became evidence for murder, the fight to take it off the shelves and the mysterious author behind the murderous manual.You can find Hit Man here.

If you were in the Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto on December 17, 2022, you might have come across a very normal scene: a group of teenage girls hanging out. They were rowdy and obnoxious, like most teens having fun. Some of them would eventually head to a house party, but for eight of the girls, their night would end much differently. Those eight girls ended up arrested for the murder of Kenneth Lee in what would later be deemed a "swarming attack."The news shocked the city. What happened? How could this have happened? Journalist Inori Roy wrote about this case for The Walrus. She's here to make sense of that night.