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“There are three kinds of reality TV stars,” says Jerry Broach, the founder of realityspeaking.com, a company that books former reality TV contestants for speaking engagements. Broach is an intense man, and he counts off the reality star varieties on his fingers as he lists them in rapid-fire staccato:
“The first kind is in it for fame, fortune and prize money. Second are those who don’t care about the money but want to be actors. Third are the ones that producers pick because they have a real spark and a great back story.”
At RealCon ’06 last weekend—billed as the first-ever convention where reality TV fans could meet the, um, “stars” of the reality shows that they watch and love—all three varieties were represented.
Not on display to the general public were the former contestants’ petty jealousies, heartfelt ambitions and aching desire to turn their 15 minutes into something—anything—better than the life they had before their time spent as stars on the little glowing box.
It began Friday evening in a large suite on the 18th floor of the airport Marriott. There was a reception for the former contestants, newly arrived from points near and far.
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By the time Scout Cloud Lee got there, about 20 had gathered. They stood munching cold Domino’s pizza and talking about how weird and physically uncomfortable it was to wear a body mic for weeks at a time. The assembled hushed when Lee, a contestant in the ninth season of Survivor, walked in. Wearing khaki cargo pants and sandals, her neck was festooned with all manner of jungle trinketry, from stones and carved wooden gewgaws to a bright orange bandana emblazoned with the Survivor logo. She walked with a certain swagger, though it was impossible to tell whether that was because of her D-list celebrity status or her recent knee surgery.
It didn’t take long for some of the assembled guests to crowd around. One of them, a contestant from Big Brother, extended a hand and introduced herself. “I don’t remember you from the show, but I don’t really watch Survivor,” the woman said, seemingly without animus.
“Well, I never watched your show either,” Lee snapped, as those around them managed uncomfortable laughter.
Nearby, Jameson Graceffa and Tarah Smith—both formerly of Unan1mous, a show that involved locking them together in some kind of bunker for more than a week—stood talking. Amanda Avila, a slender, tanned, dark haired woman who had been an American Idol contestant, joined them.
“It’s not that I didn’t like your show,” Avila said to Smith, a naturally beautiful brunette with jangly bracelets to her elbows, “I just didn’t get it.”
Then Howie Gordon began waving a very expensive replica light saber around his head. He’s a big guy, well over 6 feet tall, and very buff, with an outsized personality to match. He refers to himself on his website as a “popular icon” and “a rising figure in Hollywood.”
“Yeah, I had one of these babies in the Big Brother house with me,” he says of the light-up toy. “It’s an official replica.” Gordon was selling them from his booth at the convention. They list for $120 on the manufacturer’s website.
Selling light sabers is one of his many sidelines. He also sells a DVD of his highlights from Big Brother—and even the clothes he wore on the show.
“I sold a bandana, some shirts and I even got $14 for my underwear.” He concedes that the prospects for his gaining fame and fortune from time spent on Big Brother are limited, before noting, “When you can sell your underwear on the Internet, that’s the rush right there.”
That was when the Biggest Loser(s) showed up. The Biggest Loser is a show on which obese people compete to see who can lose the most weight. Most of the contestants who came to RealityCon ’06 clearly hadn’t come very close to winning.
The Losers that entered the suite on the 18th floor were ready to party. They’d been drinking for a couple of hours in their rooms and were primed for action. When informed that there was no “booze” in the suite, Lisa Andreone, a garrulous, hilarious woman, suggested that she and the six or seven other Losers “get the fuck out of here and find some action.”
By her own account, the crew didn’t return to the hotel until just before the convention kicked off at 9 a.m. the next morning. Of their evening out, she would later say, “I don’t remember much of it, but I’ve never seen so many tits in my goddamn life.”
The convention itself was held in the hotel’s ballroom, which was actually a soft-sided tent-like structure resembling a very large geodesic dome. The former contestants had their own tables where they sold autographed memorabilia, copies of their new CDs and, in at least one case of course, light sabers.
Also present were those pitching new reality shows to representatives of the new FOX Reality Network and casting directors looking for the “next reality TV star.”
For much of Saturday morning and early afternoon, however, there were more reality stars than fans, though the few fans who showed up were extremely enthusiastic.
One young man flew in from Kent, Ohio, and came equipped with a portfolio of short biographies that he had compiled of every reality TV participant he could find. It was a very thick portfolio.
Another man, one Michael Stuckey of the Nashville area, was even more dedicated. Stuckey is an older man, slight of build with a crooked nose. His mouth is full of tiny black teeth that look like crooked flints stuck into grey gums. He is such a fan of Christina from a show called Starting Over that he flew her to Nashville for the convention from her home in North Carolina. (Starting Over is a show that takes a group of women, each with lives that would rival even the most maudlin Lifetime original motion picture, and offers them a chance to put themselves on the right track.)
Christina, a cuddly cute twenty-something, had gotten married, pregnant and divorced by her 18th birthday. She soon found herself hustling on the Vegas strip. “Basically, I would do anything you could think of for money,” she says. When asked what she had done for a plane ticket from Mr. Stuckey, she demurs, saying only that his passion for her work was “kind o’ weird.”
Then there’s Melissa “Mojo” Hunter, a former Joe Millionaire girl with a gym-perfect body and white-strip bright teeth. A former account executive at a Midwestern real estate company, she moved to Los Angeles last year and is trying hard to parlay her brief stint on national television into mega stardom. According to her website, her goals for this year include landing “a pivotal role in a Hollywood blockbuster,” “hosting a television show” and doing “a voice over for a Disney animated film.”
So far, she’s managed to hostess a movie premiere and get her picture taken with the likes of Paris Hilton and Snoop Dog. She seems bored by the event and uninterested in mingling with the other former contestants. It’s as if she’s at RealCon ’06 because somebody in her position, with her ambitions, has no other choice.
“I really don’t want to go back to doing what I did before,” she says while signing her head shots in case any fans show up.
Mostly, they don’t.