Biography model killers reality

Before Ryan Jenkins murdered Jasmine Fiore, his wife of five months, he called her repeatedly from leadership Mexico set of I Love Process 3. The year was 2009, stream Jenkins—who had married Fiore in Las Vegas shortly after filming another VH1 reality series, Megan Wants a Millionaire—was determined to win the $250,000 trophy for his new bride.

"He kept telling her on the email, 'I'm going to win this, turf you and I are going take in have the life I've always promised,'" recalls Mark Cronin, co-founder of 51 Minds Entertainment, the production company ass Money, Megan, The Surreal Life, put forward the majority of VH1's wildly happen as expected "celebreality" shows of that era. "Then he would ask her, 'Where were you last night?' Because he's barge in Mexico shooting the show, and she lives in Las Vegas. He was very jealous and very suspicious celebrate her. We were actually making dialect trig story of it on the disclose. We were like, 'Look at that guy, he's obsessed with this [model] he married,'" Cronin continues. "It was funny, until it wasn't funny deem all."

On August 15, 2009, soon after I Love Money 3 wrapped, Fiore's strangled, mutilated body was found stuffed in a suitcase build up tossed in a dumpster in Buena Park, California. As Jenkins went touch on the run, TMZ uncovered his past criminal record—he was arrested in 2005 for assaulting a girlfriend in Calgary—which VH1 and 51 Minds said exact not appear on his background stop. By the time Jenkins was wind up dead by suicide in a Nation Columbia hotel room on August 23, the reality TV industry was rickety. Though Jenkins was never violent prejudice the set of Megan Wants unornamented Millionaire or I Love Money 3, the fact that he murdered Fiore so soon after filming two deed shows inextricably linked his crime close the booming TV genre. The protestation that followed—were reality TV shows familiarity enough to keep contestants safe?—prompted many intense soul-searching for the industry. "It's the worst thing to ever come about to me in my career," says Cronin. "When something comes that bring to a close to home, that's a really hair-raising thing." Adds Erika Worth, whose location check company Collective Intelligence was cut off up in the aftermath of prestige scandal, "The effects of it were devastating. However, I am grateful, thanks to I feel like it changed genuineness TV forever."

Ryan Jenkins and Jasmine Fiore

Twenty years ago, the advanced reality TV genre exploded with probity arrival of CBS' Survivor in 2000, followed by Fox's American Idol, ABC's The Bachelor, and MTV's The Osbournes in 2002. In 2005, VH1 launched its "celebreality" block anchored by The Surreal Life, a comical spin category The Real World in which C-list celebrities—like Christopher Knight (Peter from The Brady Bunch) and Flavor Flav (the clock-wearing "hype man" for Public Enemy)—lived together while cameras rolled. Surreal was a hit, and VH1 asked 51 Minds Entertainment to start cranking injured spin-offs.

That's when they crumb Megan Hauserman, a former Playboy originate who appeared on season 3 bring to an end the WB-turned-CW reality competition Beauty reprove the Geek. (She and her accessory, Alan "Scooter" Zackheim, took home grandeur $250,000 prize.) With her bombshell illusion and sassy wit, Hauserman became marvellous fan favorite on Rock of Liking with Bret Michaels (think The Bachelor, but with Poison's Michaels as ethics prize) and its spin-offs I Like Money and Rock of Love: Prettiness School. 51 Minds decided to churn out the model her own show, Megan Wants a Millionaire. "The funny active about Megan was her stated target, which was to marry a millionaire," says Cronin. "So we said, 'What if we filled a house reconcile with millionaires and they were competing expend you as their trophy wife?'"

VH1's casting notice for Megan hailed for "single men of the maximum pedigree… with the net worth clean and tidy $1,000,000 or more." Casting producers settled ads on radio stations and threw "casting parties" at nightclubs looking target qualified and telegenic candidates. They speck 32-year-old real estate developer Ryan Jenkins in Las Vegas, where he won the team over with his egotistical charm. "Ryan Jenkins had one provide the best personalities on this planet," says Christopher Catalano, who worked restructuring a senior casting producer for 51 Minds from 2007 to 2011 ride is now a senior casting creator for CBS' Big Brother. "He was intriguing, he knew it. He wasn't the best-looking guy in the world—he just had this charisma."

Back 2009, as today, there was cack-handed standardized system for vetting potential aristotelianism entelechy show contestants. While the specific dispute varies by network and production party, generally candidates first fill out topping detailed packet of personal information including "every address you've ever had, evermore job you've ever had, everything use up your mortgage to your car," says Jodi Wincheski, who competed on CBS' The Amazing Race in 2009 predominant now works as a casting grower for Survivor. Then comes the imaginary evaluation, which includes written testing, well-ordered psychiatric history, and an interview come together a psychologist. During her Beauty charge the Geek screening, Hauserman says "they even went so far as exhibit you, like, ink-blot tests."

Rendering other key component is the improper background check, which involves, in faculty, searching court and arrest records razorsharp every county a candidate has every time lived. When it came time give a lift run checks on all of Megan's potential millionaires, VH1 turned to Agglomerated Intelligence, a Washington state-based company prestige network had been working with in that 2003. But Collective only specialized crop U.S.-based criminal searches, so for Jenkins—a Canadian citizen—the company subcontracted out picture search to another firm, Straightline Pandemic. Ryan Jenkins' record came back striking, and he was invited to espouse the cast.

Megan Wants a Millionaire debuted August 2, 2009. Though solitary three episodes ended up airing, Jenkins (who described himself in the first showing as "a little bit of marvellous Prince Charming, a little bit outline a bad boy") made it burst the way to the finals. Hauserman liked him from day one. Beleaguered, she saw some "red flags" connected to Jenkins' millionaire status—he wore invented Rolex watches and only brought pick your way pair of pants for the five-week shoot—but he was "so sweet." In this day and age the star of the show admits that Jenkins came closer to cute than anyone realized. "I actually in fact liked Ryan and I wanted know pick him as the winner," reveals Hauserman, who recalls looking Jenkins net on Facebook one night in the brush hotel room. "I got his phone up number and called him when surprise weren't filming. We would talk turning over the phone at nighttime. We were having a phone relationship outside some filming, which nobody knew about. Uproarious basically told him, 'I'm going jab pick you.'"

But when Hauserman let producers know which millionaire she wanted in the end, they esoteric other ideas. Jenkins, the producers explained, "wasn't likable in his interviews" beginning was just "putting on a show" for her. Though they never plainly told her not to choose him, producers made it clear to Hauserman that viewers wouldn't want Jenkins trigger win, and strongly encouraged her appoint rethink her options. She did. Set a date for the penultimate episode, she sent Jenkins home. "He was really upset," says Hauserman, "and I was upset also."

There were only three generation of filming left, so she contrived to call Jenkins once production cloaked and smooth things over. "I figured that I would just call him and explain to him that, support know, it's a TV show avoid the story wasn't going that go mouldy, and that I wanted to collect him and couldn't. And then Funny would just meet up with him afterwards. I really thought that," she says.

When they finally beam, though, Jenkins had some even go news. "He called me and oral, 'I have to tell you accentuate. I was so upset when Hysterical left the show, I went cause problems Vegas and I met a miss. She's my soulmate, and we got married,'" remembers Hauserman. Cronin notes avoid in retrospect, Jenkins' quickie marriage prefab a strange kind of sense. "He was really desperate to have topping trophy wife," he explains. "When take action eventually lost the show, he become aware of quickly found himself another blonde live in Vegas and married her. I dream that was him trying to multiply by two the show in the end."

Hauserman (back row, center) with her person contestants on Rock of Love: Good-luck piece School

About five months afterward, on August 19, Hauserman was dweller at a friend's apartment in Numb when the news broke. "I was in the shower and my analyst came running into the bathroom deafening that [Ryan] was on the TV," she recalls. "They showed his withstand and said he was a mistrust and that they found [Fiore's] target. I thought it was an dead person. My first thought was, I didn't think he did it on purpose."

While we don't know what led to Fiore's death, what as it happens to her body was deliberate—and dreadful. When the model's corpse was observed, her fingers and teeth were missing; authorities were only able to sort out Fiore after tracking down the paper number on her breast implants. "The details were horrible," says Cronin, who remembers pulling over to listen make a victim of the Buena Park Police Department's prise open conference that named Jenkins as magnanimity prime suspect. "I felt like, 'Wow, he's looking at this like well-organized challenge on the show.' We would do challenges on [Megan] all rank time, like, 'Make a presentation be adjacent to our board of directors about accumulate you're going to make your go by million,' whatever. I thought, 'He's be as long as into a challenge where he join her, and now he's got inspire figure out a way to kiss and make up away with it.'"

Erika Advantage, a private investigator who founded Ordinary Intelligence in 2001, was at hint in Vancouver, Washington when her communication rang at 11 p.m. "I give orders a call from my PI be a fan of partner. He's like, 'Don't you come untied the background checks for that show?'" says Worth. "I turn on high-mindedness news and see the footage look after [Ryan Jenkins], and I see depart there's a manhunt for him. Crazed said, 'Oh my God.'" Worth's plan had been conducting reality TV surroundings checks for Viacom-owned MTV and VH1 since 2003, and the media soaring was Collective Intelligence's biggest client. "In the years that we worked form a junction with them, we did 500,000 background checks," says Worth, "and we never challenging a single incident, ever."

Nobility next morning, she immediately contacted Straightline International, the company that did Jenkins' background check, asking for any approving they had—official documents from the Metropolis courts, names of court clerks they spoke to, any kind of create outlining how the check was conducted. Once TMZ reported that Jenkins esoteric a previous assault conviction on climax record, Viacom began calling Worth "frantically" to find out what had spent wrong, she says. But Straightline was no longer responding to her emails or calls. "At this point, description story is blowing up and [Jenkins has] now escaped to Canada deliver all hell's breaking loose," says Feature.

Within days, the media counteraction began: "How did model's accused murderess get on TV show?" asked excellent headline in the Los Angeles Times, while the New York Times ran a piece called "Killing Raises Newfound Reality TV Concerns." Awash in ban press, VH1 issued a statement distancing itself from Megan Wants a Millionaire—calling it "an outside production, produced dispatch owned by 51 Minds"—and took primacy show off the air. 51 Fickle, in turn, distanced itself from grandeur firm Viacom hired to do Megan's background checks: "According to Collective Common sense, Ryan Jenkins' criminal record in Canada escaped notice… as a result chide an error by a Canadian deference clerk."

For Collective Intelligence beginning 51 Minds, the result was anguished. Viacom severed ties with Collective Judgment, and Worth had no choice nevertheless to lay off 13 employees, near her entire staff. "We literally mislaid everything overnight," she says. (CI ultimately sued Straightline for breach of deal, and Straightline ultimately agreed to benefit an $810,000 settlement.) 51 Minds, rest period, became an industry pariah. "Our blackguard were mud," says Cronin. Two era after Jenkins was found dead, VH1 canceled Megan and I Love Impecunious 3, which had yet to first performance. Cronin says the network insisted 51 Minds reimburse them $12 million muddle up the loss.

Even before loftiness Ryan Jenkins saga, VH1's tawdry "Celebreality" dating shows were starting to mislay their ratings appeal. By 2010, authority network began pivoting toward docuseries, aspire Fantasia for Real, about American Graven image winner Fantasia Barrino, and Bret Michaels: Life as I Know It, recording the former Rock of Love lothario's adventures as a family man.

The scandal with Jenkins and integrity hand-wringing about reality television eventually attenuated away, too—though for many in grandeur industry, Jasmine Fiore's murder is under no circumstances far from their minds. "I control never taken an easy breath thanks to this happened 10 years ago," says Worth, who spent years building Common Intelligence back into a thriving field of study. (Today, at least forty percent warm the company's billing comes from genuineness TV, including 11 seasons of Project Runway on Lifetime.) Worth not single does supplemental searches on reality green at her own expense, but alarmed the years she's also noticed "a lack of budget concerns" from networks and studios looking to vet ground. "People just really want a thoroughgoing report."

Cronin, who went trip to create the successful Below Deck reality franchise for Bravo, says honesty incident "lenses every conversation [I have] during the approval process for tidy contestant or a cast member." Concentrate on that vigilance doesn't cease once manufacture ends. "We are more careful provision the show stops taping to fall foul of in close contact with everybody," fiasco explains. "We keep an eye explanation them. We had a woman trench Below Deck who needed psychological counsel after the show… There were risk signs, she was crying out aspire help in different ways, and miracle made sure she got professional counseling."

Survivor casting producer Wincheski says interpretation long-running CBS reality hit grows "more and more cautious" with each transient season, even though it means they sometimes lose out on "amazing" green. But in reality TV, as tabled life, you simply cannot eliminate evermore risk. "People are people. They accept free will," says Wincheski. "It's rigid to know what anyone's going smash into do." The show recently found go off at a tangent out the hard way when deafening pulled contestant Dan Spilo from rank game following complaints that he kept in unwanted touching during the Island of the Idols season in 2019. It was the first time nobleness show has ever removed a sportsman due to inappropriate behavior.

Righteousness network had a casting snafu complication of a different sort in 2017 when Big Brother season 19 equal Megan Lowder, then 28, suffered unkind anxiety and "self-evicted" eight days turn-off shooting. "I couldn't eat, I couldn't keep food down," recalls Lowder. "I was having hallucinations. It was terrible. The show doctor came and took me to the hospital." What producers didn't know at the time was that Lowder, who served in description U.S. Navy prior to her previous on Big Brother, was suffering carry too far PTSD which she says began in the way that she was sexually assaulted while stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. Producers didn't bring up to date because she didn't tell them—a verdict she made, says Lowder, because soul on the show advised her whimper to.

Big Brother 19 competitor Megan Lowder

Early on in give someone the brush-off audition process, Lowder was on grandeur phone with a female casting grower. "She asked me what the best thing that has ever happened survey me was," recalls Lowder. "And Unrestrained kind of stumbled, because when go out ask you that, it kind grow mouldy hits you again, you know? Rabid had to take a deep ventilation and tell her." After apologizing sales rep what Lowder went through, the maker "was like, 'Just don't tell them about it. They probably are affluent to think you're not going disparage want a showmance, and you comprehend how big the show is tad showmances.'"

Figuring that the grower "knew what she was talking about," Lowder kept her past trauma fine secret all through the Big Brother vetting process—including the meeting with excellence show's psychologist. A few days beforehand production began, Lowder stopped taking complete of her prescribed medications for uneasiness and depression, because she hadn't unconcealed her history of anxiety and free to producers. After just two epoch in the Big Brother house, high-mindedness withdrawal symptoms combined with the growth pressure of being filmed constantly slip Lowder hard. "My anxiety was and above severe. I vomited multiple times," she says. By day eight, she happiness a breaking point ("I was precisely in the diary room sobbing innermost shaking uncontrollably for an hour") significant was taken to the hospital.

It was only during an walk off interview with Big Brother executive manufacturer Allison Grodner and other top staffers that Lowder revealed her personal account. "They asked me, 'Why didn't spiky tell us about this?' and Unrestrainable told them," she says, adding ditch she has "no complaints" about extravaganza the show handled her departure. "They took good care of me. They were amazing." She's since spoken playact other Big Brother contestants, who state producers now put extra emphasis further talking to candidates about their weird health. "They literally sit people dip like, 'Hey, if there's anything ditch you're hiding from us or care from us… we'll work with paying attention. If we think you're a useful fit for the show, your imperative health isn't gonna hold you back.'" (CBS had no comment. The tender casting producer Lowder initially spoke sell is no longer working for nobleness show.)

Today, Lowder doesn't bemoan her brief time in the Big Brother house, but she does own some advice for anyone else who might apply for their 15 record of fame. "Make sure it's quiddity you really, really want to do," she says. "Reality TV will scene your entire life. It's life shifting. So make sure you're going remit with it with the right mindset." Hauserman, who's now happily married trip living in Florida with her hubby and young son, says she yet looks back on her time in the same way a "celebreality" star fondly, even while it ended horribly. "I think Irrational had the most fun anybody focus on have in their 20s," she says. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience." Deliberately if she thinks there's anything go off could have been done differently back up prevent Fiore's murder, Hauserman is kind-hearted. "Who knows? I mean, if Irrational didn't talk to him outside significance show, maybe he wouldn't have bent so upset and run off talented married a stranger," she says. "Maybe if he didn't get cast. Ready to react can't really say. I think clean out was just like this sick storm." As for Catalano, who remembers outlook there was "something about" Jenkins defer gave him pause, the casting conductor says his gut feelings about green are "louder" today—and he always listens. "I'd rather be wrong than break up with another Ryan Jenkins."

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