When The Swan first aired two decades ago, in 2004, the reality makeover show captivated viewers—and horrified critics. Ahead of a new Hulu documentary about the controversial series, we revisit a story longtime Allure contributor, Joan Kron, wrote for our September 2004 issue. In the piece, Kron reports on what happened offscreen throughout season one—and the details the contestant didn’t reveal.
On the day of the Swan pageant finale, close to a thousand guests—mostly families and friends of the contestants and the producers—pass through metal detectors, pick up their entry badges, reluctantly give up their cameras, and find their seats in the VIP section of the soundstage (adjoining the American Idol set). Under a fake deep blue sky sparkling with lights, fans wave homemade signs: “Las Vegas is Betting on Belinda.” “We Love Rachel.” “Chica bam Cristina, We Love You.”
It takes a village to make a woman beautiful,” says Swan creator and executive products Nely Galán in her welcoming remarks to the crowd. And the villages are all th ere—the two plastic surgeons, cosmetic dentist, psychotherapist, exercise guru, dermatologist, Lasik eye specialist, choreographer, pageant coach, and hair-extension technicians. Backstage, ten makeup artists, ten hairstylists, and nine dressers fuss over the Swans, the nine final contestants of this surgical interpretation of Cinderella.
In the pageant, each woman is introduced with her “before” video and a heartrending confession. Beth Lay is first, a gangly Plain Jane with drab hair, a gummy smile, and wire-rim glasses. Her painful confession is that her husband kissed another woman. But Lay doesn’t have the nerve to leave him, fearing that “no man will ever love me again.” A silhouette of a curvy woman appears on a scrim, which rises to reveal the new, improved Lay, now a blonde knockout in a strapless black gown slit up to the legal limit. Wolf whistles and cheers follow. She looks fully capable of turning consonants on Wheel of Fortune.
The Swan Contestant Beth Lay sees herself for the first time after her transformation during episode 3 of the first season.
Everett Collection
Lay’s parents and husband, carrying their four-year-old son, mount the steps to the stage. It is the first time they’ve seen each other in person in four months. This is one of those lump-in-the-throat moments that make reality TV worth watching. Lay sweeps the little boy into her arms; the audience dabs at tears. Then an anxious murmur goes through the crowd. Uh-oh. The child twists away from her, trying to get out of her arms. It seems that he does not recognize his mother. Quickly, the house lights come up, and Lay and family are hustled backstage to get reacquainted. After a 45-minute pause in the taping, Lay’s “before and after” scene is reshot from the top—minus the family moment—and there are no reunion scenes for any other contestant that day or in the pageant that airs three days later on national TV. A retired psychiatric nurse in the audience whispers, “I wonder if there’ll be any divorces next week.”
