The Most Awkward Moments We All Witnessed On Wife Swap

Remember "Wife Swap"? That late 2000s show where two completely opposite families swap matriarchs and hilarity ensues? We're obsessed again now that it's streaming. Additionally, many of the children of the featured families are all grown up now — and telling their sides of the story on TikTok. 

The show originally aired on ABC for seven seasons between 2004 and 2013. The premise is this: two women (or sometimes men) agree to trade their households for two weeks. They would then have to live in each other's homes, following the former wife's house rules, for a week. In the second week, the new wife gets to make her own house rules that the family has to live by, where they inevitably butt heads. After the two weeks, the wives swap back to their own families and discuss what they learned with each other.

But sometimes things get real awkward real fast. Neither of the two families know who or where they're about to end up, and we're along for the ride — popcorn in hand. Let's take a look back on the most awkward moments we all witnessed on the original run of "Wife Swap," and revel in how these people were allowed to be on television in the first place. You can see the cringe for yourself on streaming services Hulu, Tubi, and the Paramount Network. 

You wouldn't think a husband and wife would be this awkward with each other. In Season 1, Episode 3, the Smoaks, a conservative "gun-toting" family, swap with the liberal, free-spirit Beaver family. What makes this episode so awkward is the clear unaffectionate feelings between the Smoak spouses. Wife Aletha says she's refused to share a bed with her husband Glen for over ten years, on account of his snoring. The couple instead opts to sleep on bunk beds. "I would like to have my wife be more loving, being more close to me, and sleeping in the same bed," Glen said on what he hoped to get out of the swap experience. 

During the first week of the swap, Glen proudly shows off "new wife" Amy Beaver to friends and family at a bonfire gathering. Sexy stock music plays in the background, and the cringe intensifies as Glen glows with pride. "I wish I had her as a wife," Glen said in a confessional. Yikes.

While we don't know whatever happened to Aletha and Glen Smoak and their marriage, the Beavers have made a comeback recently on TikTok. According to Axios, daughter Emily designs and sells crocheted tops — which her parents proudly model — and actively posts with her parents on the platform. 

Whoever thought broadcasting this family on the show had an interesting take on what's considered family-friendly for prime time. In Season 1, Episode 7, the Reimers family of strict, militaristic vegetarians swap with the loose and rowdy Bittner family. 

In the Reimers household, parents Paul and Melissa prided themselves on raising their children with strict rules and boundaries, and violation of those rules got swift punishment. The Reimers kids each had a leather belt, called "The Whacker," menacingly nailed to the back of each of their bedroom doors for spankings. "Ideally children should always do what they're told, but they don't," Paul said. 

While we thankfully don't have to see The Whacker in practice in the episode, the image is still shocking. Swapped wife Cindy Bittner spoke her mind and shared our own concerns: "It's very controlling, the kids are treated like robots. I don't like it at all."

In Season 5, Episode 22, the off-the grid Padovan-Hickman family of Virginia swap with the suburban Burroughs family of New Jersey. 

The Padovan-Hickmans, who describe themselves as "modern pioneers," electively forgo electricity in a log cabin with their two kids and livestock. While the members of the family grow their own food and use headlamps to see at night, they do some pretty unsavory tasks in order to conserve resources, including using each other's bathwater to wash and not flushing the toilet. The parents, Delora and Steve, also get a little too unsavory on camera with each other. Delora shows off her armpit hair that she has grown out for six years, and Steve goes in for a big ol' whiff. Yikes.

"My nightmare is a woman that shaves every hair off her body so I can never get a scent of anything human," said Steve in a confessional. Much to Steve's horror, his wife is swapped with Shannon Nicole Burroughs, a materialistic mom who doesn't hesitate to drop serious coin to pamper herself, from cosmetic surgeries to the latest fashions. Steve takes time again to remind us how much he despises non-natural scents. "Shannon is wearing a lot of, I'm sure, expensive perfume," he said. "I prefer the au naturale one hundred percent of the time." Charming.

In Season 4 episode 1, the feminist Boss family swap with the Gustaferro family, who cater to every whim of teenage beauty queen Alicia. Described as the "Princess of Pageantry," we watch Alicia get pampered and flaunt throughout the episode and express zero self-awareness to anyone outside her bubble. Her parents keep a Christmas tree up all year long and even do her homework for her! "I do feel sorry for people that are not gorgeous people," Alicia said in a confessional. 

According to NY Daily News, Alicia sued ABC for $100 million after the show aired. The lawsuit claimed that "Wife Swap" staged scenes to "maximize [Guastaferro's] public embarrassment," including scenes of her dad spray-tanning her legs. She also claimed that the idea that she received daily presents under the year-round Christmas tree was a fabrication. The lawsuit also said that Guastaferro suffered from panic attacks and was forced to transfer schools due to the episode. 

Alicia would later find herself in court yet again for prostitution charges, which were subsequently dropped, and for a lawsuit against the owner of several strip clubs for unpaid overtime, per Buffalo News.

This one isn't for the faint of stomach. In Season 3, Episode 16, we meet the Haigwoods of Iowa who are doomsday preppers and live a "frontier lifestyle." They swap with the modern, city-dwelling Hess-Webb family, who do not anticipate the end days. 

The Haigwoods don't cook their food and consume an exclusively "raw food diet," including raw chicken, eggs, and even rotting meat. Teenage son Lee is caught on camera multiple times drinking raw eggs for breakfast –he claims he "eats" a dozen a day. But just wait, it gets worse. The family also believes all bacteria is good and refuse to use any kind of chemicals to clean the house — or themselves. We see the family brush their teeth with raw butter, which they say tastes like bleu cheese. Hard pass.

During Kim Hess-Webb's week of rule changes for the swap, she takes the whole family to the doctor for check-ups and for father Mike to talk to a nutritionist. The dispute climaxes when Kim has the family eat cooked food at a restaurant for the first time, and the kids and Mike say they feel sick. Mike, in a bathroom confessional, is upset over Kim's rejection of the diet fearing for his kids well being. "I want to do the rules, but I don't want to do it at their death," Mike says before dramatically breaking down into tears and falling to the floor.