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."
