Today on CBC Radio, I spoke with Day 6 host Brent Bambury about the suicide of Joseph Cerniglia, a participant on Gordon Ramsey’s Fox reality show, Kitchen Nightmares. [Listen to the interview at the link above, 17:38-24:05]

When the troubled restaurant owner was trying to prove himself on Ramsey’s show, taped in 2007, the vitriolic celebrity chef told him, “Your business is about to f**king swim down the Hudson.” Last week, his body was found in the Hudson, his death ruled a suicide.

If this was a scripted film, critics would say that connection was a bit too on-the-nose.

This marks the second Ramsey reality alum to take their own life. The first was Rachel Brown, who shot and killed herself in 2007 after appearing on Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen in 2006.

As I told Day 6, I do not blame producers or networks for these suicides–but I also do not consider them shocking, in the least. There should be some accountability from networks for the dangerous game they play when they actively seek to cast just the sort of personalities one would assume would be viewed as untenable for shows in which people live together in high-stress environments. And while not all reality show participants are unstable, even those who start off even-keeled often face taping conditions that are designed to break them down, including: sleep deprivation, limited food, ever-present alcohol, constant surveillance, isolation from the outside world, no communication with friends and family beyond sporadic recorded conversations–all of which have been used by intelligence agencies as elements of torture.