Nev Schulman Teases ‘Most Complicated and Interesting’ Stories Yet in ‘Catfish’ Season 9 (Exclusive)

Even after nine seasons of investigations and a breakthrough documentary, Nev Schulman still manages to be surprised by the people and stories he comes across while filming Catfish: The TV Show. Schulman, who hosts the MTV series alongside Kamie Crawford, opened up to PopCulture.com about Season 9 ahead of Tuesday’s big premiere, teasing the stories of some of the “most complicated and interesting people” he’s ever met. 

“I really genuinely feel like the people that we met filming this season were some of the most complicated and interesting people we’ve had,” Schulman told PopCulture, explaining that this season “had people who were coming to this relationship with very different past lives and baggage and experiences that really informed what they were bringing to the relationship and what they needed or were expecting out of it.”

“It opened my mind and heart to new things and realities, from fetishes to speech impediments to one girl who had previously been kidnapped and held as a sex slave,” he continued. “We really had a lot of drama on this season.”

Having navigated so many complicated and unexpected online relationships on Catfish, Schulman said he “no longer really [sees] the show as an episodic TV program” as much as he feels it “as an experience with new people in new places,” as “you can never duplicate human beings and the weird, wild ways that they’ll act or react to scenarios.”

It’s that kind of variety and emotional honesty that Schulman says keeps the show educational and interesting for him all these years later. “I’m there and I’m trying my best to be objective and guide these people, but I’m also just experiencing it with them for the first time and trying to figure out how I would feel and, ‘What would I do and what should I say?’” he shared. “It’s just as real and awkward for me as it is for everybody else.”

Schulman also opened up to PopCulture about welcoming back his longtime friend and former Catfish co-host Max Joseph as a guest star in an episode this season, calling it “so fun” to reunite on camera. “I’m friends with Max. I was friends with him before, and I’ve been friends with him since. And every time I’m with him, we have so much fun,” the MTV personality gushed. “And I just forgot what it was like to have fun with him on the show, because all of the crew is also our friend, as is Max. So it really felt like a reunion for all of us.”

Catfish: The TV Show premieres an all-new season on Tuesday, April 30 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.