Dave Hester of 'Storage Wars' Sues A&E: 'The Series Is Faked'

For three seasons on A&E’s hit reality show Storage Wars, in which professional buyers with strong personalities bid on abandoned storage lockers and try to flip the contents for a profit, Dave Hester played the villain. Hester was confident, clever, brusque—and equipped with a catchphrase. Always bidding at the last possible second with his signature “Yuuup,” he successfully irritated and psyched out his competitors, who were thrilled to beat him as much as land discarded treasure. Then Hester got fired. In December he sued A&E for wrongful termination and “committing a fraud on its viewing audience”—and a reality TV villain became a reality TV mythbuster.

Long before Hester filed his lawsuit, episodes of Storage Wars followed a suspiciously predictable format: Three storage lockers are purchased in open auctions that appear to be attended by dozens of people but are never won by anyone other than the cast members. Items found in the lockers—accordions, pianos, wooden golf clubs, a moonshine still—are valued by the cast members themselves or taken immediately to colorful, reality TV-ready experts for assessment. Of the three lockers, at least two will turn a profit. Usually, one is extremely lucrative, one breaks a little better than even, and one is a total bust.