--- title: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: The 50 Most Influential Reality TV Seasons description: Find out why Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous has one of the most influential reality TV seasons of all time. canonical: https://time.com/collections/reality-tv-most-influential-seasons/6197712/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-08-04T12:30:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-03T00:05:24.764Z og:title: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: The 50 Most Influential Reality TV Seasons og:description: Find out why Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous has one of the most influential reality TV seasons of all time. og:url: https://time.com/collections/reality-tv-most-influential-seasons/6197712/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb8c8d653fe3c2c98/698a33f7b3fce3492d0c979e/lifestyle-of-the-rich-and-famous-reality-tv.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: The 50 Most Influential Reality TV Seasons og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: The 50 Most Influential Reality TV Seasons twitter:description: Find out why Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous has one of the most influential reality TV seasons of all time. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb8c8d653fe3c2c98/698a33f7b3fce3492d0c979e/lifestyle-of-the-rich-and-famous-reality-tv.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Aug 04, 2022 # Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Season 1 (1984) by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff  ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’ ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’Everett Collection Mansions. Yachts. Celebrities with golden tans lounging poolside. Host Robin Leach’s foghorn baritone showering viewers with “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.” This is the fantasy _Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous_ peddled for more than a decade beginning in the mid-’80s, when [Ronald Reagan](https://time.com/3858793/ronald-reagan-history/) reigned, the economy soared, Wall Street was cool, and hippies who’d grown up to be yuppies conspicuously consumed. An advertorial for capitalism disguised as a lighthearted broadcast newsmagazine, the syndicated series fit nicely into TV schedules studded with glittery soaps like _Dynasty_ and _Dallas_. Early episodes found [Brooke Shields](https://time.com/4969162/brooke-shields-donald-trump-date/) on safari, [Siegfried and Roy](https://time.com/3939099/siegfried-roy-white-lion-dies/) lounging with their menagerie of big cats, and Tom Jones showing off a telephone booth from his childhood neighborhood that he paid to transport across the Atlantic. _Lifestyles_ was an instant hit. By 1985, Leach was [regaling the New York _Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/07/arts/why-the-rich-rule-the-tv-roost.html) with anecdotes about viewing clubs: “We get letters from them: a group of people in Redondo Beach, Calif., get into tuxedos, or their hot tub, and hire maids and drink champagne to watch the programs.” Over the years, the show would profile icons of opulence from Joan Collins to Donald Trump. And when reality took over TV in the early 2000s, its influence exploded. In addition to spawning successors like _MTV Cribs_ and VH1’s _The Fabulous Life Of_, _Lifestyles_ shattered taboos around flaunting one’s net worth and opened the wealth-porn floodgates. These days, as the gulf between the rich and the poor keeps growing, reality shows that revel in the luxury of [high-end real estate](https://time.com/6123115/selling-sunset-real-estate-explained/), cosmetic surgery, and [well-to-do housewives](https://time.com/5929741/real-housewives-beginners-guide/) just keep flowing out. —_Judy Berman_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/reality-tv-most-influential-seasons/6197712/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/reality-tv-most-influential-seasons/6197712/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous/"},"headline":"Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous","datePublished":"2022-08-04T12:30:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:05:24.764Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/reality-tv-most-influential-seasons/6197712/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous/","keywords":["franchise"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb8c8d653fe3c2c98/698a33f7b3fce3492d0c979e/lifestyle-of-the-rich-and-famous-reality-tv.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb8c8d653fe3c2c98/698a33f7b3fce3492d0c979e/lifestyle-of-the-rich-and-famous-reality-tv.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/reality-tv-most-influential-seasons/6197712/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous/","name":"Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous"}}]}] ```