‘Cheaters’ host Tommy Habeeb had guns, knives pulled on him on show

Cheaters host Tommy Habeeb is looking back at some of the dangerous situations that he found himself in while shooting the reality series. 

The 67-year-old television star, who hosted the show from 1999 until 2002, revealed in a recent PEOPLE interview that he had people who “tried to pull knives, guns, hit me with a bottle or whatever” because they thought he “was a [bad] guy” in the situation.  

As its name implies, Cheaters saw individuals reach out to the series asking them to investigate their suspicions that their partner was being unfaithful. In preparation for the show, Habeeb told the outlet that he personally trained with the Navy SEALs to learn how to disarm someone just in case he ever encountered a confrontational partner. 

“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,” Habeeb said. “And when you’re put in that situation, you want to make sure and protect yourself as much as you can.”

That meant utilizing every piece of evidence at his disposal. He continued, “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?’” 

It was skills that he put to good use on the show. “I had to disarm several people,” Habeeb said. “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.”

But it wasn’t all scary situations. Habeeb noted that he also experienced some very “silly” moments when hosting the show, too. 

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“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 recalled. “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.” 

Habeeb said that the woman’s reign of glass-flinging terror was ultimately put to an end when she was tackled to the ground. It was then, he said, that the woman’s sister explained the real reason behind her unexpected fury.

“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,’” he remembered. “And I went, ‘Really?'”

Cheaters eventually came to an end after 21 seasons in 2024. While speaking with PEOPLE, Habeeb took a moment to challenge the idea that the series’ mission was “disrupting families” and not actually helping them. 

“People came to me in trouble, and many times they were on their last leg,” he said. “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.”