The Fear Factor Episode That Ended The Show
Anybody who grew up on a diet of insane 2000s reality TV was no doubt traumatized by the Joe Rogan-hosted series Fear Factor at some point during their childhood. The competition reality show featured a variety of literal death-defying and stomach-churning stunts, including being yanked into the air via a bungee cord attached to a helicopter and being subjected to sticking one's head in a box of spiders. After six seasons of its original run, Fear Factor went off air in 2006 before circling back for a revival series. However, the show was cancelled yet again after one stunt managed to find the line and cross it.
As Rogan explained on an episode of his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, "We got cancelled because we served people j****."
The secretion in question was donkey semen, which was foisted on contestants during what was otherwise a pretty normal game of horseshoes during the unaired 2012 episode entitled "Hee Haw! Hee Haw!" To answer the obvious question: yes, some of the contestants did drink it.
The controversy behind the Fear Factor cancellation
Before the Fear Factor episode was set to air, two contestants, twins Claire and Brynne Odisio, gave an interview on a local Tampa Bay radio program. During the conversation, they described their experiences on the show, including the revelation that they'd drank donkey semen and urine. When Fear Factor producers caught wind of this, they contacted the twins to give them a stern warning about the possible legal repercussions of breaking the confidentiality clause in their contracts by talking to the press. This story was picked up by TMZ, creating a media frenzy.
Rogan recounted on the Your Mom's House podcast (via BroBible) that once the TMZ story broke, the controversy around the episode became "this giant fear." He added, "So hard to imagine that this was a real show. That episode killed it." Apparently, the old adage that "all publicity is good publicity" doesn't apply to stunts involving animal's bodily fluid.
For their part, the Odisio twins didn't seem particularly upset by the actual donkey fluids. When asked by TMZ if they would do it all again they replied, "Probably. We are proud of what we did."