Relationship Reality Show Stars: Now and Then

Updated on Jan 5, 2016 at 7:00 PM

At a WE TV panel about the evolution of relationship reality TV shows I learned that a real show exists called Sex Box — yes, people have sex in a box — and that Bob Eubanks and Chris Harrison hang out together at their neighborhood Starbucks (note to self: find this Starbucks). It was also an interesting look back at how reality dating shows have changed over the years. Check out some of the most eye-opening quotes and see what your favorite stars from back in the day are up to now. Spoiler alert: Evan Marriott does not look like he did on Joe Millionaire.

Bob Eubanks

Bob Eubanks was the original host of The Newlywed Game, which debuted in 1966, and along with The Dating Game (1965) was among the first shows to talk about relationships and sex on national TV. "Newlyweds was the first time that we looked into people's bedrooms," Eubanks said. He added that they had a hard time getting sponsors because it was considered a "dirty show." In fact, it was so risqué that the euphemism "making whoopee" became the show's catchphrase. Eubanks explained the backstory:

"They wanted me to say 'make love' and I wouldn't say 'make love' because I didn’t think you should have to tell your children what that meant until you were ready to do so. So I refused to say 'make love' and that's why we came up with 'whoopee'."

Chuck Woolery

Chuck Woolery was the first host of Love Connection from 1983 to 1994 before hosting the last two seasons of The Dating Game from 1997 to 1999. One of Woolery's most famous interactions — "It'll be on my tombstone," he quipped — was when he asked, "Where's the strangest place you've made whoopee?" And a woman responded, "In the butt, Bob, definitely in the butt." When prompted to share more about the story he explained:

"There was this girl from Pennsylvania named Olga, and I asked her the strangest place she'd ever made whoopee and she said, 'In the ass.' When they did the Chuck Barris movie Confessions of a Dangerous Mind they called her and they said, 'Olga we're going to put the clip in the movie.' She says, 'Please don't, I'm a grandmother.' They said, 'Well, it's worth $5,000.' She said, 'You put that sucker in!'"

On how dating shows have evolved, Woolery added this anecdote about when he was coming up with the approach to Love Connection in the early '80s:

"The sex part isn't important — and I still think this is true today — because that's the end of the game. The game is how you meet, how you relate to each other, how it develops, where it goes, and that's what it's about. It's the story that counts. In fact, people would say 'Well, Chuck when we woke up the next morning,' and that's about as close to 'We had sex' as we ever got on the show."

But kissing, kissing is "everything," he said. "People can't kiss today, it's amazing."

Darva Conger

I know it's hard to imagine a time before The Bachelor, but the show that really started it all was Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? in 2000. The whole thing went down in just a single two-hour show and was more like a beauty pageant with the judge (and prize?) being Rick Rockwell. He married the winner, Darva Conger, at the end of the episode.

The real drama came after the show aired, when it was questioned if Rockwell actually was a millionaire (the toilet in the backyard was a dead giveaway) and it came out that a former girlfriend had filed a restraining order against him for domestic violence. After the inevitable annulment, Conger posed nude for Playboy. She remarried and had one son, but has since divorced and now works as a nurse anesthetist.

Despite her rocky televised past, Conger has no regrets. She said:

"Yes, it was a very stressful experience, and yes, I had some rough times. I have no regrets. I had a wild moment, I did something crazy and completely out of character for me. I made a mistake, and I made a mistake on national television. I do anesthesia for a living now — I don't make mistakes when I do that. I know what the important things are in life. A moment in time does not define who I am."

Evan Marriott

Joe Millionaire who?! A year after The Bachelor premiered in 2002, a show with a similar concept, Joe Millionaire, kicked off, but with a twist. It starred Evan Marriott as a "millionaire" looking for love, but in reality he was just a construction worker. The premise was that he'd admit the truth to the final woman, and if she still wanted to be with him the show would give them a check for $1 million. Zora Andrich was his final pick, and even though she stayed with him, they ended up breaking things off.

Now Marriott — who works as a contractor — looks like a totally different person, joking with Darva Conger that she should just "grow a beard, you won't get recognized." He said that after the show he felt aimless, but his friends rallied together and gave him a little intervention, and he had a "come to Jesus moment." He said:

"I started a business for myself, and everything is great. I did my first job . . . I got it and literally almost was in tears. I called my dad and said, 'I feel like I've just been paroled. This is where I should have been.'"

Trista Sutter

The very first star of The Bachelorette, Trista Sutter (Rehn at the time) — who host Chris Harrison called "the godmother of the franchise" — accepted a proposal from firefighter Ryan Sutter in the finale of the show, and the pair married in 2003 on TV. They're still married and have two children.

Sutter opened up about how she faced sexist criticism when she was given the reins for the Bachelor spinoff in 2003. She said:

"It was hard. I was called every name in the book. I think one newspaper or magazine said that I was setting the women's movement back decades. Even before I kissed anyone, and I didn’t kiss anyone, except, I think, two people — and you know one of them — I was called a slut."

The franchise's host, Chris Harrison, said back in those days The Bachelorette "was just a bunch of guys in a frat house" with the bachelors eating dog food and passing out in the front lawn. Trista elaborated:

"No one wanted to go on the dates with me because they were having so much fun with each other. I actually wanted to hang out at their house. That is a huge difference now, [where it is like] they're competing for the bachelor or bachelorette. I still look at it not as a competition. I think you show up, and if you're compatible with that person it works out, and if not, then you go home and you are grateful for the experience, hopefully. On my season, I felt like the guys had such a great time, and they just were thoroughly enjoying being away from their normal life. And now it's like the girls [are getting in] catfights and caught up in the drama. It has definitely changed."

Chris Harrison

If anyone knows relationship reality shows, it's Chris Harrison, who has hosted The Bachelor and all its spinoffs since 2002. In case you're curious, that's 19 seasons of The Bachelor, 10 seasons of The Bachelorette, three seasons of Bachelor Pad, and one season of Bachelor in Paradise. Harrison said a lot has changed since those early days when there were no rules. "I used to go to the guys' house and we'd play poker and hang out and drink beer all night," he said.

When asked which one is easier, The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, Harrison said:

"The Bachelor is much easier. It's an easier show to do. The Bachelorette as a premise, we never intended to do that. It's a much tougher show to do. Guys are much tougher to produce and try and create that kind of romance and that escapism that people love . . ."

"Express their emotions?" Trista chimed in. And on that most infamous of episodes every season — the fantasy suite date — Harrison remarked:

"One of the great social dilemmas — and I love this every season — is the fantasy suite card. People always say, 'Why do you do that? Why do you force [it]?' And I say, 'Because that is the point.' You are forcing them to now have that conversation. We're not telling you to go have sex in a box. We're just telling you, do what you will. And, you know, that is, to me that is a great dilemma."

Speidi

"Speidi," aka Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, have made the reality TV rounds as a couple many people have loved to hate first on The Hills in 2006, then on I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!, Celebrity Big Brother, and Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars. But the craziest thing is that despite their relationship drama being consistently played out on screen, the married couple (they tied the knot in April 2009) is still going strong. On creating a successful marriage "against the odds," Pratt said:

"Having the perception of being not so liked in the media and the public made our marriage stronger because when it seems like no one else likes you, you're like, 'Well I love you!' So I feel like that really brought us together, when it felt like it was only us on the planet and everybody else is like 'We hate you.'

Other than that, very few jobs you spend every minute with your wife. I always say, my parents have been married 40 years, but I feel like I've spent more time with my wife then my own parents have because my dad goes to work at 7 a.m. and comes home at 7 p.m. Whereas, Heidi and I wake up and are like, 'Hey! How are you again? That was fun last night! Have a good day!' So we definitely spend a lot of time together."

But what are they up to now? Montag filled us in (and you might be surprised):

"We moved up to Santa Barbara and took a few years to be like 'OK, who are we? What do we want to do? Let's really work on our real relationships with family members and figure things out.' Spencer went back to school, and he just graduated from USC with a political science degree. I was his notetaker in class, so that was fun, too."

Yes, she went to all his classes with him.

"He wasn't going to go! We would drive from Santa Barbara to LA, and that's a long commute. So I had to be there to help him. But we've maintained two lives. We have a character, Speidi, and then it's our real marriage. For us, it's two different worlds that we've been able to kind of separate at the same time. But we're always a team. We get to go on as a team. We get to work together, and that always continues to strengthen us."