Rare: John John Reality TV Show!

"John John is a mess and he's so gross!"

Ain’t it weird how the world works? A game of inches. Missing success or disaster with a single step.

How many times have you had a brush with death? How many missed opportunities keep you awake at night? If you’d made different choices, would your life be much different?

Would it be much better?

I had no idea that Alex Florence once tried to wrangle her kids onto a reality show. Called it My Three Sons. Kind of a weird move. That type of exposure ain’t great for a growing boy. Child stars traditionally face a pretty grim reality upon maturity. I imagine child reality stars would face similar. Probably worse.

I wonder how John John’s career would have proceeded, had Hollywood come knocking?

Fifteen years old, height of awkward, living in a small community where privacy is already scarce. Everyone knows everything, true secrets in short supply.

Florence was already a name at that point, but no more so than any highly hyped phenom.

“The next Slater” was being thrown around, but we’d heard that before.

He was the first to break the curse. Became a freak, already sure to be a legend.

Would everything have gone the same way had he suffered to see his every adolescent misstep documented?

Would he have been mocked by peers?

Teased and judged?

Would he have burnt out, picked up and addiction, dwindled away into another tale of wasted potential?

Would he still be the greatest surfer in the world, or just another sad reality show sidenote?

Thank the good lord jeebus we’ll never know.