PRODUCERS of the reality TV show Extreme Makeover promised Deleese Williams a “Cinderella-like” transformation that would forever fix her crooked teeth, deformed jaw and small breasts.

Relatives, who had always kept mum about the ugly duckling of the family, say that they were encouraged to mock her looks on camera and point out her physical flaws.

But the night before her life-changing plastic surgery the Hollywood producers dumped Mrs Williams and told her to go back home to Texas. “How can I go back as ugly as I left?” she sobbed. “I was supposed to come home pretty.”

Her return provoked a family crisis for the guilt-ridden relatives who had revealed their real thoughts about Mrs Williams’s looks — especially her sister Kellie McGee, who was already struggling with bipolar disorder. Miss McGee moved out from the home she shared with her sister and brother-in-law. Four months later she died from an overdose of pills, alcohol and cocaine.

Mrs Williams is now suing the ABC television network for unspecified damages for the emotional distress caused by her sister’s apparent suicide.

“Extreme Makeover found a family that was coping with issues and left them devastated, and one person died as a result,” Wesley Cordova, her lawyer, says.

The legal action against ABC — which refuses to comment on the case — is just one sign that the trend towards cheap, voyeuristic “reality TV” may have gone too far for the sanity of those involved.

Ms McGee’s death follows at least four suicides of “reality TV” participants — including that of the British teenager Carina Stephenson in May.

“Five years ago, the Chicken Littles among us were warning this would happen, that it was only a matter of time before somebody died in connection with one of these programmes,” Brian Lowry, a columnist for the Hollywood trade paper Variety wrote recently. “It was Network come to life, we said, and turning people into rats in a maze for entertainment purposes would inevitably lead to dire consequences.”

Exposing people to the glare of television has always been risky. In 1995 America’s Jenny Jones talk show turned deadly when one guest murdered another who made a homosexual pass at him.

Jon Schmitz, 24, went berserk when Scott Amedure, 32, admitted on air that he had a “secret crush” on him and fantasised about tying him up for a “whipped cream and champagne” adventure. Three days later Mr Schmitz drove to Mr Amedure’s home and shot him dead with two bullets to the chest. The first known Reality TV suicide took place in Sweden in 1997 when Sinisa Savija, 34, threw himself in front of a train after becoming the first contestant voted off the island in the reality TV show Expedition: Robinson. His widow said that he did not react well to his humiliation being broadcast nationwide. With producers always seeking new money-making concepts, three more contestants killed themselves this year.

In February a young boxer shot himself in his car outside his Philadelphia gym after losing a make-or-break bout on the Sylvester Stallone-fronted reality contest called The Contender.

Najai “Nitro” Turpin, 23, had returned to the Philadelphia ghetto after losing his shot at the $1 million (£550,000) prize in the finale at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

In March Melanie Bell, a television producer, jumped to her death from the top of the Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas, where she was taking part in a reality show called Vegas Elvis that featured the film crew as part of the case. Friends said she had been battling against anorexia. Then in May Carina Stephenson, 17, was found hanging from a tree near Branton, in South Yorkshire, after returning home from four months on filming in Australia for The Colony. The British teenager had become withdrawn after “coming out” as a lesbian and had been secretly logging on to suicide websites.

The History Channel show, which put the Stephensons and three other families in the role of colonists in the New South Wales of 200 years ago, was postponed but eventually aired on British TV.

“The only people who are asked to participate in these shows are people who have self-esteem issues,” said Mr Cordova, the lawyer in the Extreme Makeover case. “It’s all about ratings, it’s all about money, it’s all about the schedule.”

REAL CASUALTIES

The Contender Najai Turpin, 23, shot himself dead after he lost a bout in the boxing contest hosted by Sylvester Stallone

Expedition: Robinson Sinisa Savija, 34, threw himself under a train after being voted off the show

The Colony Carina Stephenson, 17, killed herself near her Yorkshire home after appearing in a mock Australian colony

Jenny Jones Scott Amedure, 34, declared his love for his heterosexual friend Jonathan Schmitz, 24, live on this US show. Three days later, Schmitz shot Amedure dead

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