http://www.canoe.ca/Television/jan20_millionaire-sun.html

Rich with rumours
Is Joe Millionaire really a poor ol' boy?
By BILL BRIOUX -- Toronto Sun

HOLLYWOOD -- "I'm just a 28-year-old trying to find myself."

So says Evan Marriott -- aka Joe Millionaire -- the tousle-haired, beefcake bachelor who is at the centre of the hit Fox reality dating series.

It returns tonight at 9 p.m.

The premise is simple: Twenty women date a good-looking dude who appears to be the lord and master of a wealthy European estate. On the Feb. 17 finale, he'll reveal to some clueless gal who thinks she's hit the jackpot that he's really just a $19,000-a-year construction worker. Suckers!

The point, as Marriott says in the promos, is to find out if the babes are really going out with him or just his wallet.

The 6-foot-5, 210-lb Marriott seemed pretty at ease with reporters Saturday even though he claimed not to care for the limelight much. This Joe Millionaire gig is just a lark, just like his brief soap opera stint and that underwear modeling he once did.

Pictures of Marriott looking more Joe Boxer than Joe Millionaire are all over the Internet.

"Hey, my mom's seen me in my birthday suit," says Mr. nothing-to-hide.

Still, the dude also auditioned for Big Brother and filled out an application for Survivor: Thailand, so this 'TV's not for me' bit seemed as fake as the premise for the Joe Millionaire series.

There have been rumours down here on the tour that there's another big twist waiting at the conclusion of this series. Is Marriott really rich after all? Is Fox lying to viewers as well as the women on the show?

"Stay tuned," says Fox president Gail Berman. She insists that he is a $19,000-a-year construction worker, although she never said anything about his overall net worth.

Marriott claims he's not getting rich from doing this show. Besides a nice trip to Europe and the attention of 20 vapid-but-leggy bimbos, he claims he's only getting expenses for doing the series, as well as a few debts cleared up back home.

As for rumours of some hidden bank account, Marriott says he only has about $500 in the bank and really was on a back hoe eight months ago. "Now he's back of a 'Ho," said the critic sitting next to me. (It's nice to meet folks who are even more cynical than I am.)

About that nineteen grand. Marriott says he worked three months last year at the California union rate of $29.54 an hour, but the rest of the year he just worked off and on for peanuts back in his home state of Virginia.

He's never been married and never been engaged. "If I thought there was any scandal in my life, I wouldn't have done this show to begin with," he says.

Marriott didn't go to college, quit a military academy his junior year and admitted rather sheepishly that he didn't even graduate from high school. "I didn't like school period," he says. "I always just wanted to stare out the window."

As for that rumour that he's an heir to the Marriott Hotel family fortune, forget it. He says his father had to sell the family car in 1970 to put a down payment on a modest house back in Virginia. Even then, they could only swing the deal with the help of his godfather.

"My mother painted sweats to put food on our table," he says. "I had Ralph Lauren clothes but they were bought at (U.S. discount house) T.J. Moss."

After this show winds up, Marriott has no plans, but hopes to host his own construction series someday. None of this pansy Bob Vila, This Old House stuff, though. Marriott's talking girders and beams. "Real men don't nail trim," says Marriott.

I think we all know what they do nail. This job is getting way too easy.

• RE: Joe Millionaire Article - Canoe, 1/20,MellowYellow, 08:05 AM, 01-20-03
• Just a few comments,SurvivinDawg, 10:00 AM, 01-20-03
  • US Weekly article,Sheila, 10:23 AM, 01-20-03
    • RE: US Weekly article,smiles, 12:49 PM, 01-20-03
  • RE: Just a few comments,Swami, 12:44 PM, 01-20-03
• RE: Joe Millionaire Article - Canoe, 1/20,SurvivorBlows, 01:21 PM, 01-20-03
  • RE: Joe Millionaire Article - Canoe, 1/20,MellowYellow, 02:59 AM, 01-21-03
  • RE: Joe Millionaire Article - Canoe, 1/20,VA Slim, 03:20 PM, 01-21-03
• RE: Joe Millionaire Article - Canoe, 1/20,frisky, 04:19 PM, 01-21-03

I thought he lived in Dana Point?

I thought the $19,000 a year was a low ball figure in his business!

I have a hard time feeling compassion for someone who states his Ralph Lauren clothes came from discount stores, like it's an affliction! I guess I'll tear up if I find out he had to buy sushii with food stamps, though.

Okay, I thought of making a separate thresd for this, but I can just put it here.

This whole show just reeks of fakery, in more ways than Heidi's luggage.

First, I'd be very surprised if Evan was making JUST $19,000 a year. One of our chess center's best players is in construction, drives bulldozers and the like. Without giving specific figures (because I didn't pry that hard), he said that the only real bane to his industry is bad weather. While it's possible to make just $19,000/yr., someone in the construction industry willing to do work can make much better. So Evan probably does have more net worth than is being suggested.

Second, I just cannot see this TV program taking these girls on this ride, then telling them at the end that this guy is all but penniless. I've suspected that they know something already, and that there is a great deal of acting for the TV going on. Also, who wants to make bets that at the end of the show, they come in and award Evan $1,000,000 or something for his end of everything?

Your comments?

Put ME on this show... I'll dig ditches for a vacation to France and dates with these babes!
Contradictions don't exist. If you are faced with a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong. -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Evan is on the cover of this week's US magazine as well. The article didn't really have any spoiler information for the show. However, it tries to give some insight on how this average "Joe" is where he is now.

"Half the spring, I didn't work" because of a weak economy which may explain his $19,000 salary for the year.

Apparently, Evan has had some smaller jobs as well in the "entertainment" industry. He had a walk-on role on Days of Our Lives and he was an underwear model for a short while.

After reading this article, I think that either 1) Evan's annual income is well above $19,000 (plus a nice payoff at the end of Joe Millionaire) OR 2) he is lazy. I find it interesting that Evan met with the Joe Millionaire casting agent in December of the year before he didn't work for "half the Spring". Maybe they asked him to take some time off so that his tax return could match their "idea" of an average Joe's income.

For Evan fans, you can register to win an Evan Marriott-autographed tank top at tellusmagazine.com.

Evan was on Days of Our lives?? When?? I am embarassed to admit this, but I tape the show everyday and I have not seen him. Well maybe his role was really really little.

I don't believe the $19,000 a year crap either. I guess he is only counting the 3 months of work. Even still he has to be pretty lazy.

>>who wants to make bets that at the end of the show, they come in and award Evan $1,000,000 or something<<

No bet. Something like that seems inevitable. It's the kind of "clever" reverse twist a TV exec would like. Fake a reality, then make it happen. So clever, ha-ha, and the network comes out looking good instead of like big meanies to innocent young women.

Swami