“Cheaters” Host Tommy Habeeb Recalls Having Guns and Knives Pulled on Him While Filming the Show: 'They Thought I Was the Bad Guy' (Exclusive)
- - “Cheaters” Host Tommy Habeeb Recalls Having Guns and Knives Pulled on Him While Filming the Show: 'They Thought I Was the Bad Guy' (Exclusive)
Virginia ChamleeJanuary 13, 2026 at 12:35 AM
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Tony Habeeb on Cheaters -
Cheaters host Tommy Habeeb is recounting some of the scarier moments from filming the show
Habeeb tells PEOPLE in a recent interview that he turned to Navy SEALs to learn to protect himself
Habeeb currently hostsTo the Rescue, a weekly television series focusing on shelter animals
Cheaters host Tommy Habeeb is recounting some of the scarier moments from filming the show — and how he turned to Navy SEALs to learn to protect himself.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Habeeb spoke about his tenure on the show, which made its debut in 1999 (he produced and hosted the show's first 84 episodes, ultimately leaving the show in 2002). The show was among the earliest in reality television, and featured people who believed their significant other was cheating on them hiring a hidden camera crew to investigate their suspicions.
While the show gained him notoriety, Habeeb, 67, has more recently focused on a different sort of reality tv — a show focused on animal rescue. Habeeb is the creator and host of To the Rescue, a weekly television series spotlighting shelter workers, heroic animal advocates, and life-changing rescue stories across the country. The series began as a passion project and has since grown into a movement as it raises awareness for overcrowded shelters and emergency medical needs.
Reflecting on Cheaters, Habeeb tells PEOPLE the show continued to "have meaning" for him, all these years later.
"It was such an important time," he says, acknowledging that the format — which saw investigators confront a spouse or partner cheating on their significant other — didn't sit well with all viewers. "People saw Cheaters as this, you know, exploitation — we're going in, we're disrupting families. But not really."
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Tony Habeeb reviewing footage with a woman on 'Cheaters'
He continues: "You know, people came to me in trouble, and many times they were on their last leg. They were trying to figure out their suicidal [tendencies], or they were drinking every day, doing whatever it took to deaden the pain of a mate [cheating]. They weren't getting answers."
But the show's confrontational nature meant that some partners often got angry and violent — and Habeeb needed to be prepared.
"There were some Navy SEALs — I spent some time with these guys, and they taught me how to disarm people and what to watch for," he tells PEOPLE. "And when you're put in that situation, you want to make sure and protect yourself as much as you can. So I would study the surveillance footage and go, 'OK, let's look at his waist and hours of surveillance and see if he has a gun. Do we see anything silver or shiny?'"
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Courtesy Tommy Habeeb
Tommy Habeeb
He continues: "I had to disarm several people. But you can't think about it. You just gotta do it, and that's what these guys taught me: How to move fast and not think about it."
During his time hosting Cheaters, Habeeb says he found himself in myriad "interesting situations" where people "tried to pull knives, guns, hit me with a bottle or whatever because they thought I was the [bad] guy."
Other moments, he says, were more "silly."
"I was at a little pub with some friends and suddenly a beer bottle flies right by my head, smashes on the wall, everybody jumps up," he says. "And the place is packed, and all of a sudden it goes dead silent, and this woman is walking on the top of a bar, walking towards us, picking up glasses and throwing them at me. And they tackle her and bring her down and her, her sister comes running over crying, 'I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. She's cheating on her husband, and she saw you and got so angry.' And I went, 'Really?'"
But among the scarier moments were some more uplifting memories.
Habeeb recounts one particular instance when he was off the clock and having breakfast in Las Vegas.
"The restaurant was somewhat closed, and we're just in this kind of patio area and a guy walks by, wife beater shirt, tatted up, teardrop tattoo. And he looks over at me, and I looked at him, and he starts heading this way," Habeeb remembers. "And I told the guys, 'I'm not sure what's gonna happen here, guys. It could be good, it could be bad.'"
He continues: "So he comes heading over and he leans over and whispers in my ear, 'Can I talk to you for a minute?' And I said, 'Sure.'"
The man proceeded to tell Habeeb he had been in Vegas for two days, looking for his wife, who he had discovered was having an affair.
"He goes,'I've been walking around here for two days, and, I don't know where to turn. I'm lost. My wife is here with my best friend.... and I'm gonna take them out, both of them,'" Habeeb recounts. "The first thing I did was to just to kinda get this thing settled down. And we talked a lot, for 45 minutes, about his family, his kids — I knew if I could distract him away from this bad situation happening, [he'd be good.] At the end of the conversation, he goes, 'OK, I'm gonna go home to what's important.' He hugged it out with me. We were both crying ... those powerful moments, they're the reason I did the show."
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
