Fan Fare
Entertainment behind the scenes
Octomom show — repulsive or sympathetic?
Is the public fascination with California’s Octomom running out of steam?.
A two-hour TV special on single mom Nadya Suleman’s life with her eight new babies and six other young children was watched by just 4.1 million American viewers on Wednesday night, while more than double that (10.3 million) tuned in to see the latest episode of “America’s Got Talent.”
Suleman, 33, has garnered wall-to-wall media coverage since giving birth to octuplets in January and the show compiled video footage approved by her not just of her chaotic life at home and with the paparazzi, but also film shot inside the hospital delivery room.
The Fox TV special appeared to have made few new friends for Suleman and her (mostly) screaming brood. Entertainment Weekly called it a “repulsively grim two hours of TV” while the New York Times said it “failed to produce a second’s worth of contrarian evidence that Nadya Suleman isn’t a self-obsessed, publicity-driven lunatic.”
