TSR Investigates
An Illinois woman’s hopes of repairing her rotting teeth on a reality television show took a turn for the worst when things didn’t go according to plan.
Brooke Allen agreed to participate in the 2014 show “Smile” on the Lifetime channel. She saw that contestants could receive serious dental work in exchange for participating in the show.
Allen says that the show’s producers arranged for her to have nearly all her teeth pulled and replaced with implants.
However, the show was pulled from the air before her work was completed. Allen never received the teeth implants she was promised.
The woman claims she was left high and dry. Furthermore, she is still missing almost all of her teeth eight years later.
While the producers of the show claim they are not responsible for completing her dental work under the terms of an agreement Allen signed, she’s still seeking answers.
Could this be an unfortunate case of miscommunication? Or should Lifetime be held accountable? The Shade Room investigates…
Allen admitted bluntly that it was neglect that caused the initial dental damage. The problem became so bad it even kept her from her friends and family.
She’s since lived a mostly-sheltered life in Evanston, Illinois — about an hour from Chicago.
She goes to work, goes to church, and goes home to her husband and four children.
However, she did take the blame for her situation.
“What happened to me was totally (on) me,” Allen told TSR Investigates’ Justin Carter. “It wasn’t drugs or anything like that.”
Allen was eventually cast on “Smile.” The show documented her journey as she flew back and forth from Illinois to New York City. There is where she was seen by celebrity cosmetic dentist Dr. Deborah Glassman.
Dr. Glassman said Allen’s gums showed signs of infection. Additionally, she was told that dentists would “save as much” as possible.
She says she was then seen by another dentist, who told her, “‘Alright, we’re gonna pull out all of your top teeth.'”.
“If you watch my facial expression, I’m like this (defaced). Because (Dr. Glassman) had told me otherwise just before that. From there, I was all like, asking questions, getting stuff in writing, because something doesn’t make sense.”
Allen continued: “My first question to them was, ‘Am I getting implants?’ he hesitated and said, ‘Yes, the Glassmans are going to prepare them for you.’
Dentists pulled out 20 of her teeth to make way for what one producer told her would be a mouthful of permanent dental implants.
Text messages sent between Allen and the show producers, provided to The Shade Room, show that Allen was told to wait a few months to let the bones heal before assessing the next steps toward implants.
The producer even provides Allen with a date in that exchange, and she says they ensued with pulling out all of her teeth.
“I didn’t really fight with them because that’s not professional.”
The “big reveal” involved a set of dentures Allen says were temporary and only for the show.
Allen says the dentures caused her anxiety because she couldn’t eat with them, prompting her to call producers about the permanent implants again.
She says that’s when she was told she needed to heal for a year. She says she waited nearly two years before even reaching back out.
But Allen says by then, it was too late. The dentist told her that Lifetime producers had told them to stop (work related to the show).
“The dentists said they were done.”
In an email exchange between the producers of the show and Allen, the former shrugged off responsibility for any further dental work, saying that it was made clear to Allen that “any further work outside the scope of the show would be your responsibility.”
“Now it’s eight years later and I’m still having anxiety (over my mouth), I still can’t eat. I just have nothing. They left me hanging.”
We reached out to Lifetime for comment and have yet to hear back. Allen’s focus now is to find the right person to help with her implants.
Those interested in helping Brooke Allen can do so via her GoFundMe here.
