Was 'To Catch A Predator' Real or Staged?

If you were on the internet in the 2000s, the name Chris Hansen will probably be familiar to you. His segment with Dateline NBC, To Catch A Predator, had become a TV juggernaut.

The premise of the show, which put Hansen front and centre as a self-styled pedophile hunter, was simple: lure potential sexual predators out from the shadows and into the light. 

With the help of the police and an online advocacy group called Perverted-Justice.com, Hansen would set up elaborate stings in a house filled to the brim with hidden cameras, well and truly catching these people in 4K. For a while, Hansen and his team appeared unstoppable. But everything changed when a man they attempted to ‘catch’ committed suicide. 

This triggered not just a lawsuit, but also a huge conversation about To Catch A Predator and its approach to justice, namely whether it was ethical or not. Now, this conversation is returning to public discourse thanks to the upcoming A24 film Primetime, in which Robert Pattinson plays Hansen. The film is already receiving high praise, with a 92% consensus on Rotten Tomatoes and a seven-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Venice. 

But, as this movie promises to take us through the good, the bad, and the ugly of To Catch A Predator, one question remains: how much of the show was actually real?

Was 'To Catch A Predator' Real Or Staged? 

The truth is, the answer is complicated. At its core, To Catch A Predator is real. The Dateline NBC show involves real men coming to these locations because they truly believe they are interacting with a minor. So, the criminal actions they have committed, like attempting to solicit sex from a minor, are real. This is why the police are there. Moreover, on the ‘predator’ side, the confrontation with Hansen is unscripted. They are reacting in real-time to the presenter appearing when they were expected to be met by a child.

Still, as someone who has watched a fair few of these stings, it feels like Hansen’s side of the conversation is somewhat artificial. This is clear from the consistent inclusion of certain phrases such as “You see how this looks, right?” and “Why don’t you take a seat right over there?” His quips are smooth, but a little too smooth in the sense that they’re always spot on. Of course, there’s no actual proof of this, and is purely my speculation. But if there was a sense of rehearsal for these stings, or a reliance on certain pre-written ‘lines,’ I wouldn’t be surprised.

Moreover, the whole scenario built around the IRL predator is fake. The person they’re talking to isn’t a real child; it’s an of-age Perverted-Justice volunteer. The house they visit isn’t actually someone’s home; it’s a property bought and decorated for the sole purpose of the sting, lulling the predator into a false sense of security until the last possible moment. 

With this in mind, it’s difficult to say whether To Catch A Predator was truly staged or not — but the justice these men are facing is undoubtedly real, and for most people, that fact alone is enough.