More than almost any other reality show from the mid-2000s Hell’s Kitchen is regularly in the zeitgeist. Gordon Ramsay’s particularly entertaining brand of British roar made the show a hit when it debuted in 2005 and remains popular today. But now that the series has been running for nearly two decades, there’s also a treasure trove of lore behind the series, including an every now and then uncovered mystery about a secret contestant.
Hell’s KitchenIn the third season, which aired in 2007, six men and six women competed in teams during the main competition. At least that’s how it looked when the season aired. As it turns out, there was a secret 13th contestant who started the season with the rest of the group, but was quietly removed and banned from the broadcast early in the proceedings.
One of the earliest discussions of the mystery appeared to have surfaced about five years ago in a post by Only1ScrappyDoo on Redditbut people have tried to solve it several times since then, in places like that Hell’s Kitchen Fandom forumThe LostMedia Wiki, YoutubeAnd X. The latest revival of interest in the controversy came on Wednesday, when officials Hell’s Kitchen Youtube channel Season 3, Episode 1 uploadedcausing fans to notice the problem again.
Meanwhile, the missing c andidate JR shows up certain parts of the season’s opening episode
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Image: Fox via Polygon
While it appears that JR was seen in parts of the original airing of the third season’s first season, the mystery gained particular traction after Fox released a widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio) version of the episode following its original broadcast. The show was originally broadcast in the narrower 4:3 format, which omitted areas on the sides of the picture, making it easy for the show to edit JR out of most of the show. In the 16:9 version, we can clearly see JR in the background of some scenes in Episode 1, and again later during an elimination segment, where we see his nametag (which is how fans learned his name in the first place). JR).
One of the things that makes this mystery so compelling, and one of the reasons it keeps coming up, is how little we know about it – even though the season is almost 17 years old. It appears that JR may have been removed from the show because he spread rumors about fellow contestant Joanna (apparently based on her deleted Facebook posts) and possibly for Release spoilers for the show. But how either would have resulted in him being kicked off the show before the second half of Episode 1 is unclear.
We may never know the whole truth behind it Hell’s KitchenThe JR puzzle. But the good news is, as long as Hell’s Kitchen is popular, people will continue to discover his disappearance and begin the search for answers again.
