“Then he would ask her, ‘Where were you last night?’
Because he’s in Mexico shooting the show, and she lives in Las Vegas.
He was very jealous and very suspicious of her.
We were actually making a story of it on the show.
“It was funny, until it wasn’t funny at all.”
“It’s the worst thing to ever happen to me in my career,” says Cronin.
“When something comes that close to home, that’s a really scary thing.”
However, I am grateful, because I feel like it changed reality TV forever.”
(She and her partner, Alan “Scooter” Zackheim, took home the $250,000 prize.)
51 Minds decided to give the model her own show,Megan Wants a Millionaire.
“He was intriguing, he knew it.
He wasn’t the best-looking guy in the worldhe just had this charisma.”
In 2009, as today, there was no standardized system for vetting potential reality show contestants.
Ryan Jenkins' record came back clear, and he was invited to join the cast.
Megan Wants a Millionairedebuted August 2, 2009.
Hauserman liked him from day one.
Today the star of the show admits that Jenkins came closer to winning than anyone realized.
“I got his phone number and called him when we weren’t filming.
We would talk on the phone at nighttime.
We were having a phone relationship outside of filming, which nobody knew about.
I basically told him, ‘I’m going to pick you.'”
But when Hauserman let producers know which millionaire she wanted in the end, they had other ideas.
In the penultimate episode, she sent Jenkins home.
“He was really upset,” says Hauserman, “and I was upset also.”
And then I would just meet up with him afterwards.
I really thought that," she says.
When they finally spoke, though, Jenkins had some even bigger news.
“He called me and said, ‘I have to tell you something.
I was so upset when I left the show, Iwent to Vegasand I met a girl.
She’s my soulmate, and we got married,'” remembers Hauserman.
Cronin notes that in retrospect, Jenkins’ quickie marriage made a strange kind of sense.
“He was really desperate to have a trophy wife,” he explains.
I think that was him trying to win the show in the end."
I thought it was an accident.
My first thought was, I didn’t think he did it on purpose."
“I felt like, ‘Wow, he’s looking at this like a challenge on the show.’
He’s like, ‘Don’t you do the background checks for that show?'”
I said, ‘Oh my God.'"
But Straightline was no longer responding to her emails or calls.
For Collective Intelligence and 51 Minds, the result was catastrophic.
“We literally lost everything overnight,” she says.
51 Minds, meanwhile, became an industry pariah.
“Our names were mud,” says Cronin.
Two days after Jenkins was found dead, VH1 canceledMeganandI Love Money 3, which had yet to premiere.
Cronin says the web link insisted 51 Minds reimburse them $12 million for the loss.
“People just really want a thorough report.”
And that vigilance doesn’t cease once production ends.
“We keep an eye on them.
We had a woman onBelow Deckwho needed psychological counseling after the show…
But in reality TV, as in life, you simply cannot eliminate every risk.
“People are people.
They have free will,” says Wincheski.
“It’s hard to know what anyone’s going to do.”
It was the first time the show has ever removed a player due to inappropriate behavior.
“I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t keep food down,” recalls Lowder.
“I was having hallucinations.
The show doctor came and took me to the hospital.”
“She asked me what the worst thing that has ever happened to me was,” recalls Lowder.
I had to take a deep breath and tell her.”
After apologizing for whatLowderwent through, the producer “was like, ‘Just don’t tell them about it.
“My anxiety was so severe.
I vomited multiple times,” she says.
“They asked me, ‘Why didn’t you tell us about this?’
“They took good care of me.
They were amazing.”
(CBShad no comment.
The female casting producer Lowder initially spoke with is no longer working for the show.)
“confirm it’s something you really, really want to do,” she says.
“Reality TV will change your entire life.
It’s life altering.
So double-check you’re going in with it with the right mindset.”
“I think I had the most fun anybody can have in their 20s,” she says.
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
“Maybe if he didn’t get cast.
you’ve got the option to’t really say.
I think it was just like this sick storm.”
“I’d rather be wrong than end up with another Ryan Jenkins.”
