‘It’s satisfying to learn the wealthy have problems’: why is reality TV obsessed with the super-rich?

From Bling Empire to Made in Chelsea, the uberwealthy trend in TV is here to stay - and it might even be good for diversity

In the first episode of reality TV show Bling Empire, heiress Anna Shay commits to an excursion so globe-straddlingly audacious it would make Greta Thunberg weep. Los Angeles resident Anna asks a friend and her objectively awful boyfriend to go to her favourite restaurant with her - in Paris. They chart a private plane, eat their dinner and head back to LA the next day. It sets the scene for a series that luxuriates in the lives of the super-rich, and the candour, conflict and rule-breaking that such an existence affords.

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