ARTS & EVENTS

Reality Love: D-Listers Who Deserve Their Own VH1 Shows

20090202-rayj.jpgD-LISTERS EVERYWHERE should thank VH1 every day of their lives: Thanks to the music network, they're living the easy-women-and-a-big-new-house dream.

First, Public Enemy's Flavor Flav got not one, not two, but three seasons of "Flavor of Love," which not only introduced the world to Flav's eccentricities (that is, if you hadn't suffered through his relationship with Brigitte Nielson on "Strange Love") but also to Tiffany Pollard a.k.a. New York, quite possibly one of the most imbalanced women in the history of television (and that's counting "The Real World"'s Trishelle). Naturally, neither Flav nor New York — who got two seasons of her own dating show, of course, and then two of her rejects, brothers Chance and Real, got their own show with "Real Chance of Love" — would marry the people they chose on the show; who does that, right?

Then VH1 flipped the music-genre script and invited Bret Michaels, lead singer of Poison, to get in on this action; he would get two seasons of tattooed groupies before embarking on "Rock of Love Bus with Bret Michaels," and in a "Flavor of Love" turn of events, one of Michaels' rejects, "musician" Daisy De La Hoya, is also getting her own dating show come later this year. Good luck, dudes.

And this February continues the trend: Starting Feb. 2, the channel swells its ranks with "For the Love of Ray J," starring the little brother to Brandy, co-star of that infamous sex tape with Kim Kardashian (yeah, the one where he wears white tube socks and they both chew gum the whole time) and former paramour of Whitney Houston. Mr. J will look for true love among 14 women nicknamed "Atomic Bomb," "Naturalle," "Li'l Hood," "Hot Cocoa" and other miserable monikers.

The lesson here is: VH1 will give absolutely anyone a dating show, so they should just go big: Grab as many celebrities as they can and give viewers everywhere more hours of high-class romance. Forget "The Bachelor;" here are Express' picks for the stars VH1 should encourage to go on their own short-lived love affairs.

20090202-lopez.jpgMARIO LOPEZ
Who would have thought that A.C. Slater would grow up into a muscular tool who would not only cheat on Miss USA (former wife and Doritos girl Ali Landry) but also would be vain enough to force the other dudes in the Broadway play they were in, "A Chorus Line," to always wear shirts on set (only Lopez's muscles can be salivated over, ladies)? If you had the foresight to know Slater would become that guy, congratulations. And essentially for that reason, Lopez would be a great candidate for a VH1 show — he's got all the hosting skills down (see: his hosting of the Miss America pageants and the far cooler "America's Best Dance Crew"), already knows how to abuse women and is a big enough jerk to carry an entire show by himself. After all, what else do you need?

20090202-howard.jpgTERRENCE HOWARD
Similar to Lopez, Howard seems like the kind of guy that would talk about only himself on the first date, the second and every single one after that. He may come with some baggage — he was married to ex-wife Lori McCommas for 14 years; they divorced in 2003, remarried in 2005 and then separated again — and three children, but also some awesomely uncomfortable quirks. First, there's the fact that he told Elle magazine he refuses to date women who don't use baby wipes. Direct quote: "If they're using dry paper, they aren't washing all of themselves. It's just unclean. So if I go inside a woman's house and see the toilet paper there, I'll explain this." Hot! And, Howard also admitted to The New York Times that he got the inspiration for one of his songs, "No. 1 Fan," on his recent album, "Shine Through It," from stalking his ex-wife. A creepy obsession with cleanliness and following his romantic interests? We would love to see this kind of behavior debut on the small screen.

20090202-chadwell.jpgHEATHER CHADWELL
When Chadwell screamed in Lacey's face that she was an "A-list celebrity, bitch!" on this past season of "Rock of Love Charm School," the stripper-turned-VH1-superstar kind of meant it. Chadwell may not have won the first season of "Rock of Love" or the first season of "I Love Money" or the second season of "Charm School," but she has become one of the channel's favorite rotating characters, and we're definitely OK with that. Plus, she did beat down on Daisy De La Hoya once, and that's enough to have captured our hearts for good. Now, shouldn't she be given the chance to capture some hearts of her own — and tattoo the names of more dudes on her body? We vote yes.

20090202-whit-bob.jpgBOBBY AND WHITNEY
The world has already seen Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston's marriage fall apart on national television - on Bravo's "Being Bobby Brown" — so why not watch them try to rebuild it? Though Brown and Houston sometimes seem to bring out the worst in each other (for example, all those times Houston would shriek "Hell to the no!"), now that Houston's ex-boy toy Ray J has his own show, we're sure the singer wouldn't mind having her own, too. And honestly, what else are the two going to do with their time?

20090202-busey.jpgGARY BUSEY
All we're going to say is this: We would love to see Busey woo women with lines such as, "When you get lost in your imaginatory vagueness, your foresight will become a nimble vagrant." Just sayin'.

Written by Express contributor Roxana Hadadi

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COMMENTS (1)
  • VH1 can't give Heather a reality show! The only entertaining thing about her are the tantrums she throws as a result of being outshone by her younger, more attractive, less moral but, nevertheless, more popular costars. Her completely delusional self-perception is humorous, but needs to be tempered with the commentary of her rivals rather than fueled by the adoration of a dozen spineless men.

    By Meredith , Posted February 20, 2009 1:07 PM
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