MTV’s ‘The Real World’ returns to Las Vegas

Who says you can't go home again?

Certainly not MTV's "The Real World," which celebrates its 25th season with a second visit to a place most MTV viewers would never confuse with the real world: Las Vegas.

Last time MTV brought "The Real World" to Glitter City, in 2002, a Palms fantasy suite provided the lavish backdrop. (You can still book the Palms' "Real World" suite for an ultra-Vegas stay, provided you're willing to shell out $5,000 on weeknights; the price skyrockets to $10,000 on weekends.)

This time around, however, "The Real World" shifts its Vegas headquarters across the Strip to the Hard Rock Hotel, where another pimped-out penthouse -- this one overlooking the pool "Rehab" made famous -- serves as the setting for the show's latest season, which launches at 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Such "Real World" staples as a pool table, a fish tank and a "confessional" room are part of the suite layout -- along with a prime-for-partying hot tub, a single-lane bowling alley and a ultraluxe bathroom that echoes the one at the Hard Rock's Vanity nightclub.

Yet the essential "Real World" ingredient remains the cast members themselves.

As always, this season's seven-member lineup arrives with disparate hometowns, backgrounds and baggage, representing a spectrum of beliefs and behaviors designed to provoke maximum conflict -- and/or contact.

For the show's 25th season, "you want to do something big," notes executive producer Jim Johnston . And because "one of our biggest-impact seasons" was the Palms' Season 12, "it seemed to resonate" because it was so "eye-opening, wild, crazy. So why not come back?"

Besides, "the Hard Rock, as a brand, represents what this age group is interested in," Johnston adds. "It's all happening here."

Including "lots of soul-searching" and "lots of relationships" among the Hard Rock cast members, he says. "They're young and they make a lot of mistakes. But that's how the audience relates to them."

It's how they relate to each other that triggers the drama.

Take Detroit native Leroy, 25, and 23-year-old Michael, originally from Nokesville , Va. (MTV maintains a first-name-only policy for "Real World" cast members.)

Neither assumed they had anything in common -- except the fact that "we would never have been friends," Michael admits.

"We were both assuming that here's this big black guy and I'm this skinny little white boy," says Michael, a college student -- unlike Leroy, who has "never been to college."

But today, on publicity duty in the Hard Rock suite they called home, they're showing off their matching blue friendship bracelets and discussing the serious side of "Real World" life.

"I figured it would be all partying, and it wasn't," Leroy says.

And while "we did a lot of raunchy things," Michael admits, there also was "a lot of room for growth -- and people will be able to relate to that."

Yet "with seven different personalities, you're going to have drama," reasons Nany , 21, from Jamestown, N.Y., who's parked in "the Princess Pad" -- the three-bed girls' room -- with Bronx-born Naomi, 22.

Despite the drama, "what made us stronger is, we are family," Nany explains. "I feel like, compared to the (previous) seasons I have watched, we have a serious love connection."

In addition, because many of this season's cast members come from families with drug-related problems, "we're not going to judge each other," Naomi contends. "We don't put up a front."

As the "Princess Pad's" third resident, 22-year-old Heather -- who was 21 when the show filmed here last fall -- from Delran, N.J., reasons, "we're 20 years old; we're going to screw up." But by being "able to just be ourselves and not be censored, the audience is going to get a lot out of it -- especially people our age."

"The Real World" may focus on the cast members' emotional experiences, but there's also plenty of play -- what Dustin, 24, of Rayne, La., describes as "the capital of going out and drinking."

After all, "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," Dustin says, "except everything's going into everybody else's home."

With cameras tracking "Real World" moves to such hot spots as Vanity, Town Square's Blue Martini and Mirage's Jet, "you just shoot, you don't know what you're going to get," executive producer Johnston observes. "There are no retakes. Nobody's going to get a cue."

To Adam, 22, of Portland, Maine, Las Vegas "wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be," he says. "I was thinking it would be a little more wild."

But, as "Real World" cast members discovered, you can't party all the time -- even in the ultimate 24-hour party town.

"Before I came out here," Nany says, "I thought, 'Vegas -- that's cool, but you can't be here longer than a week.' " Three months on location, however, taught her "there's a lot more to it than night life."

As Hard Rock marketing interns, cast members worked on a variety of events; they also involved themselves in local causes, including programs to assist homeless youths and provide musical instruments to middle-school students.

"We got a pretty well-rounded experience," Heather says, "getting to see other parts of Vegas" tourists don't.

For most of the cast members, however, learning about their roommates -- and themselves -- became a top priority.

While taping the show, "you're forced to address who you are -- your good points and your bad points," Michael acknowledges. "In front of the world."

All of which makes for must-see TV, cast members -- and MTV officials -- hope.

"The first Las Vegas season has nothing on this," Nany says.

Executive producer Johnston declines to compare "The Real World's" new Hard Rock season with its Palms predecessor, but "it's going to be one of the great ones," he predicts. "This experience is a character-builder -- and they are characters."

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.