SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE 
 
 Ted Haggard’s life was already a sort of reality show. 
 
 Well, now it’s official. 
 
 Producers of “Celebrity Wife Swap” confirmed Wednesday that the former New Life Church pastor and his wife, Gayle, will appear in the new ABC reality series, on which they will swap partners (without sex) with actor Gary Busey and his partner and baby mama, Steffanie Sampson. 
 
 The show is scheduled to shoot Thursday at the GLBT Pride Center in Colorado Springs. 
 
 Haggard, of course, has become used to the media spotlight. He garnered national attention as the president of the National Association of Evangelicals and much more in 2006, after it came to light he’d had sex with and taken drugs with a male prostitute. Since then, he’s appeared in countless news reports and documentaries that were shown on TLC and HBO. He’s been featured on “Divorce Court” “Oprah Winfrey” and “Larry King Live.” 
 
 But an actual reality show? This would be new. 
 
 “Celebrity Wife Swap” is based on the British show of the same name and is similar to “Wife Swap,” an American TV series that provided hours of jaw-dropping culture clashes between ordinary families. 
 
 The premise is simple: Haggard and Busey will swap partners for a short time. The first couple of days, the men make the rules for their new “spouses.” After that, the women take charge. The fun could come from the conflict between Haggard and Sampson, who's reportedly a spiritual woman but not a fan of organized religion. 
 
 On the surface, it might seem like an unlikely pairing, but there are several surprising parallels between Busey and Haggard. Busey is a born-again Christian and active minister with Promise Keepers, and Haggard has returned to the ministry as pastor of St. James, a new nondenominational Christian church in Colorado Springs. 
 
 Haggard refused to comment about the show. ||||| Ted Haggard to Play Celebrity Wife Swap 
 
 He weathered a sex and drug scandal but can he handle Celebrity Wife Swap?Evangelical pastor Ted Haggard will appear on the upcoming celebrity version of ABC's Wife Swap, the show's producers confirmed to PEOPLE Wednesday.He's reportedly swapping spouses with actor Gary Busey.Haggard, 55, and his wife, Gayle, remain married even after Haggard admitted in late 2006 to paying a male masseuse for sex and using crystal meth . The scandal forced him to resign as a senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.Though he subsequently entered counseling and has condemned homosexuality publicly, Haggard told GQ in 2011 of his sexuality, "I think that probably, if I were 21 in this society, I would identify myself as a bisexual."Haggard, who founded the New Life Church, is currently the pastor of St. James, a nondenominational church also in Colorado Springs.Busey, 67, is no stranger to reality TV. He has appeared on Celebrity Rehab and Celebrity Apprentice . Producers have not confirmed whether his "wife" participating in the show is Steffanie Sampson, his girlfriend and mother of his 19-month old son.
– In possibly the weirdest news you’ll hear all day, sex-and-drug-scandal-plagued Ted Haggard is going on the celebrity edition of ABC’s Wife Swap reality show … and will swap partners with Gary Busey. Yes, in case you’d forgotten, Haggard still has a wife—despite the fact that he admitted paying for meth-fueled sex with a male masseuse in 2006. The probably-bisexual pastor now runs a nondenominational church in Colorado, and Busey is apparently a good match for him: The born-again actor is involved with Christian men’s organization Promise Keepers. However, Busey bizarrely has no wife, just a girlfriend with whom he has a child. Producers haven’t said whether she’s the swapee or not, People notes, but the Colorado Springs Gazette reports that she is. Busey, of course, has slightly more experience than Haggard with reality TV, having already appeared on Celebrity Rehab and Celebrity Apprentice. But Haggard, who is apparently trying for a second career in entertainment, has appeared in a Christian “sex comedy.”