Reality TV hits a new low

Breaking Bonaduce, a new series on VH1, enables viewers to watch child TV star Danny Bonaduce disintegrate.

What actually happened to Mr. Bonaduce's wrists is that he slashed them after his wife, Gretchen, asked him for a divorce. It was the last desperate act in a long, crazy night that started with hours of drinking and taking pills, and it caused him to land in the psychiatric ward.

Before she raised the subject of divorce, Mrs. Bonaduce had asked the cameras to leave, so her husband's suicidal gesture and subsequent hospitalization were not filmed. But the events that led up to them were: when as he drank himself into a rage, when he yelled at the television production crew ("I will cripple him for the rest of his life!" he says about a producer) and when he made threats toward his wife ("If she doesn't get on the phone right now," he says at one point, "there will be no stopping me."). These are just a few of the excruciating moments from his life as it fell to pieces. And they will soon be broadcast for all the world to see beginning Sept. 11.

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Not only did he binge drink - viewers will see him downing an entire bottle of vodka in a single guzzle at one point - but he also started taking Vicodin and, as part of an obsessive exercise regimen, injecting steroids. During the show, he becomes increasingly muscular and tightly wound. He also becomes verbally abusive toward his wife and their therapist, Dr. Garry Corgiat. After the suicide attempt, Dr. Corgiat refused to work with Mr. Bonaduce until he got in-patient treatment for his substance abuse. VH1 executives found a clinic near Los Angeles, and Mr. Bonaduce checked into rehab.