Celebreality of VH1 Love
MARGAUX: Hey all you hot dogs and bitches, how’s your day-who-even-cares-because-time-is-meaningless of self-isolation going? Mine has reached the point of holding a Zoom happy hour hostage to force friends to workshop what Carole Baskin’s greeting would be if she were a dog person because that’s what happens when you smoke weed and are stripped of your carefully crafted routines that have defined your daily life for the last six or so years. Anyway, I am doing great, why do you ask?
Since it now takes me one million years to complete a task that should take a few hours because focus is extremely hard to come by these days, I need you to do the work, to cast your mind back. Yes, it was a time when we could see People, and go Places, but it was also a time when the girls you remember from high school who got skunk highlights dusted off their best Wet Seal skirt, and openly fought with other women who looked like her on TV for the love of one be-bandana’ed man. One who directly applies to our VH1 Celebreality episode, that’s right, the one, thankfully only, Bret Michaels.
Some might remember Bret Michaels as the guy from Poison, but not us. To an entire generation he is, Rock of Love with Bret Michaels.
The premise was simple, one-time judge of Nashville Star, Bret Michaels, was tired of looking for true love and his “perfect Rock Star Girlfriend” in all the wrong places. So, he turned where all people do when they want to find true love (while promoting an album in the 2000s), a reality show with their name in the title!
Rock of Love was like watching a time capsule happen right before your very eyes. To Bret Michaels, it’s like the 80s never ended; he is peak “I get older and they stay the same age” cause like the shows inspiration, Flavor of Love, age is nothing but a number as long as you’re a man with a once successful career. But I’ll give it to Bret Michaels, the difference between him and Flav is that he is a messy bitch who loves drama. Bret Michaels sauntered so Pilot Pete could walk into a golf cart and smash a glass into his forehead.
But one key difference between a former frontman of an 80s hair metal band and a “pilot” whose Mom has an awful lot of say-so in his life is not only Bret Michaels bold enough to go with one T, he also has the guts to do what these sad sack Bachelors clearly want to do, but ABC won’t let them. At the end of the first season of Rock of Love, Bret asked his remaining two contestants to be in an open relationship with him.
Even though it was totally worth the shock value, there is a reason why this doesn’t usually go over well, unless you’re on that TLC show called something like Shopping For Sisterwife (I’m not looking up what it’s really called, but that is not far off). Anyway! After dragging these women to Vegas and Cabo, and putting them through various, moronic challenges to “prove” their loyalty, the best he can do is shrug and say “por que no los dos”. At least he’s honest! One of the remaining Rock-Testants (I don’t know what they were officially called) agreed, AND HE DIDN’T EVEN PICK HER. Dick move, ten points Slytherin.
But what happens after is funnier than a man who earnestly gives the rock-on hand sign in photos. The first season reunion for Rock of Love was, like its lead paramour, not without some drama. First, not all of the former Rock-testants came back for it. Then there was a kerfuffle over one woman giving another woman a shirt that said she loves Michael Vick — yeah, I dunno.
The real highlight of the whole reunion is two-pronged. The woman who agreed to a three-way relationship at the end, but whom Bret said was NOT his rock of love, happens to have/had a “Bret” tattoo on the back of her neck, and she said she was going to add “sucks” to it (citation needed on if that actually went down). And then, the woman who “won” Rock of Love told everyone that Bret made a mistake by choosing her and that he should’ve picked the “Bret Sucks” tattoo gal!
Apparently the crowned “winner” of Rock of Love never even ended up as Bret’s girlfriend! After filming, she received a phone call from Bret’s manager connecting her to Bret and he proceeded to ask for two things: for her to come to the reunion, and for his cowboy hat back. Classy. Regardless, it seems like there was no love lost between them since she declared at the end of the reunion she had no feelings for him, and he got a season two of Rock of Love.
Fun fact before we go off to the next topic on a sick guitar riff, America’s Next Top Model and Rock of Love used the same house to film. I assume the house has since self-destructed by sheer force of will, shame, and poor choices because I cannot find a good picture of it.
Some might say we can’t talk about the pantheon of VH1’s celebreality without talking about Charm School. And like, yes of course, but for brevity’s sake because there are A LOT of seasons of Charm School, here are the highlights from the Rock of Love season of Charm School.
It was hosted by Sharon Osbourne’s old face in October of 2008 and featured fourteen former ROL (wow, the irony of that abbreviation) over two seasons, and winner gets $100,000. One thing I like about VH1 competition shows is they don’t skimp on the prize money, just ask Drag Race. As you may know, the Charm School franchise premise was simple (it’s basically proto-Bad Girls Club), ladies of former dating shows who could use…on camera training, let’s say, learn etiquette and compete for money for most improved. It’s also the same show that gave that iconic Mo’Nique quote, learn your meme-istory!
Every season, the girls would have to adhere to a set of Charm School rules, and the ones for Rock of Love were, as the kids would say, extreme 2008 energy:
- Thou Shalt Rock Together
- Thou Shalt Rock It With Style
- Thou Shalt Be Takin’ Care of Business
- Thou Shalt Not Rock Rude
- Thou Shalt Rock Thy Body
- Thou Shalt Rock At Love
- Thou Shalt Express Thyself
- Thou Shalt Know Who Thou Art
- Thou Shalt Rock Unto Others
- Thou Shalt Be Fully Rockin’
Thou shalt please fucking stop this.
What you might remember from this particular season though is not a nonsensical set of standards that have no real barring on regular life, but that Sharon Osbourne fought a bitch. To be specific, she assaulted Megan Hauserman, of future Megan Wants a Millionaire infamy. At the reunion, Sharon went after a clearly drunk af Megan for not taking a VH1 celebreality show “seriously”, told Megan that she should have her tubes tied, and when Megan made a half-slurred insult about Ozzy, Sharon threw a drink on Megan and then ripped her weave out. It is WILD. Again, Sharon was the HOST of an ETIQUETTE SHOW. Megan eventually sued her, and they settled out of court as rich people are wont to do.
In retrospect, I wonder if Megan now sees her fight with Sharon Osbourne as the first horseman of increasingly bad shit to come because WHOO BOY, Megan Wants a Millionaire was a mistake. Not only that, it ended the VH1 celebreality universe.
Megan Wants a Millionaire (but gets a murderer instead) was supposed to be a spin off where seventeen men compete to make Megan’s dream of becoming a “trophy wife” come true. In order to be cast on the show, men had to have a net worth of over a million dollars, but that seems to be the only background check they did.
Megan Want a Millionaire premiered August 2, 2009, and a few weeks later, contestant Ryan Jenkins was sought by police for questioning in connection to the murder of his wife, Jasmine Fiore. Jasmine and Ryan met and married in Vegas shortly after the show premiered in March, and you can read all grisly details by performing the same Google search I did (Google: Megan Wants a Millionaire Murder). The show was never officially cancelled, just put on indefinite hiatus out of respect to the Fiore family, or at least that’s what part of the press release VH1 released at the time said.
It came to light later on Twitter that Jenkins had come in third place on MWM, and the outside background check firm hired by 51 Minds got sued for not discovering a 2007 domestic battery charge against Jenkins that would’ve barred his casting in the first place. After Jenkins was charged with murder, the day after he was called in for questioning, they cancelled I Love Money 3 because he’d won the show and it was due to premiere after MWM. This ultimately had a domino effect, once MWM got shelved, IM3 cancelled, all of New York’s spin offs were put on hiatus, as I learned from a YouTube clip of her talking about it on a podcast.
As for Megan, I bet you’re waiting on the edge of your seat to know if she got her wish? Kinda! After a DUI in 2010, she and her chihuahua Lily won a trophy in the Lighthouse Point Dog Show in (of course!) Florida for the category “Smallest Dog” (sounds legit!). She married pro golfer Derren Edward (sure!) and had a baby. Mazel!
If you’re a scholar of reality television arts & sciences, like myself, the VH1 celebreality cinematic universe (the VH1CCU for short) is an integral part of your studies. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Stay safe, stay home if you can, and wash your hands. *does shaka sign cause fist bumps are not my thing*.
Listen to our VH1 Celebreality episode.
