Reality TV Stars Who Now Lead Boring Lives

Artist Andy Warhol once predicted that in the future everyone would be famous for exactly 15 minutes, and that's about as long as fame lasted for these reality TV stars. Their lives went from super-famous to super-boring. Join us as we check in on former cast members who've gone from making red carpet appearances to showing up at PTA meetings.

Evan Marriott became one of the first major reality television stars in 2003, when he appeared on the FOX dating competition series Joe Millionaire. On the show, Marriott, who was really a construction worker at the time, convinced a bunch of women he was filthy rich.

More than a decade after captivating America (at one point, the show had more than 40 million viewers), Marriott's life gives new meaning to the term "Average Joe." He reportedly struggled to find work after his TV gig, but eventually found his footing. "I started a business for myself, and everything is great," he told People at the 2015 Evolution of Relationship Reality Shows panel. "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.'" Prior to the panel, sources told People that Marriott was "adamant about living an anonymous life" and "had no interest in revisiting" his brief stint as a TV star.

In 2002, Brian Dunkleman walked away from co-hosting American Idol to pursue an acting career. Almost immediately thereafter, the show (and Dunkleman's former co-host, Ryan Seacrest) went on to become two of the biggest things Hollywood had seen in decades.

Dunkleman, meanwhile, remained your average struggling actor. Speaking to CNN in 2016, Dunkleman—who is now married and a father—revealed that after his acting career fizzled, he kept busy by doing standup comedy and shopping a TV pilot inspired by the hit HBO documentary series The Jinx. He also spent the last decade or so coming to terms with walking away from arguably the most successful reality competition show in American television history.

"I was very upset about it for a long, long time," he told CNN. "You got to make up your mind that either you are going to be that angry guy for the rest of your life, or you gotta move on. It's taken me a long time to get there."

After the first season of The Bachelor, star Alex Michel certainly seemed like he was ready to make a go at Hollywood. He became a spokesperson for Match.com and Princess Cruises and even appeared in a short film called Our Very First Sex Tape (2003).

However, in the years that followed, Michel reportedly made deliberate steps to distance himself from the Bachelor franchise and Hollywood altogether. "I know people have tried to get a hold of him...but he's kind of gone on to live his life," Bachelor host Chris Harrison told Katie Couric in 2013.

Three years later, Harrison revealed he was having trouble contacting Michel about ABC's 20th anniversary special on The Bachelor, going so far as to claim that Michel was "missing." Even New York magazine had trouble tracking down Michel for its big story on the ABC juggernaut in December 2015. Eventually, based on Michel's presumed LinkedIn page, followers assumed he'd been working for Microsoft in London for years. According to that LinkedIn profile, he later became the CEO of a company called NewCo in Washington, D.C.

As one of the biggest stars to come out of VH1's reality TV boom, Daisy de la Hoya made a name for herself in 2008 on the second season of Bret Michaels' dating show Rock of Love 2 before starring in her own spin-off, Daisy of Love, the following year.

In a 2016 interview with VH1, de la Hoya said she battled drug addiction following her reality show stints, but had cleaned up and was planning to live the life of your typical American college student. "I've been doing a lot of traveling around the world and working on music and getting involved in activism and animals rights," she said. "I'm actually going back to school right now. I'm going for performing arts."

If there's one couple who made the most out of their 15 minutes of fame, it's Rob and Amber Mariano. The pair found love during Survivor: All-Stars in 2003 and appeared on as many as five separate iterations of CBS' hit Survivor franchise (two of which they individually won). They also appeared on not one, but two editions of the Emmy-winning juggernaut The Amazing Race. CBS even aired a two-hour special about their 2005 nuptials, which was seen by nearly 10 million viewers.

Despite all of their fame, popularity, and prize money, the Marianos now appear to be living a pretty normal life as parents. According to a 2013 interview (via The Kingston Whig-Standard), the couple resides in Pensacola, Fla. where they're busy raising four daughters. "Being a dad is full-time... Every day is a new adventure," Rob told the paper. "We were painting toenails yesterday. Boston Rob is getting diversified." At the time, Rob said he had no desire to return for another go at Survivor. "I won the show, my wife won the show, I played four times," he said. "No disrespect to the show, I love the show with all my heart, but I've done everything I want to do, I have nothing left to prove.".

Although they managed to stretch out their 15 minutes of fame longer than anyone who recorded a song like "Higher" should, former Hills stars Heidi and Spencer Pratt claim they are no longer living a life of luxury.

Speaking to People magazine in 2016, the couple admitted they lost the millions they made during their reality-TV run, due in part to their lavish lifestyle. "We were keeping up with the Joneses, but we were going against Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes," Spencer said. "We should have stayed in our reality TV lane."

Added Heidi, "I was kind of playing house, I felt like I was someone I wasn't. We had business managers who told us to stop spending but we acted like we knew what we were doing... Everyone else on our cast had houses and we had nothing to show for what we'd done. I was like, the haters were right! It was sad."

On the bright side, the couple admitted that they were still doing "fine," thanks to appearances on various reality TV gig. They appeared on an edition of Celebrity Big Brother in the UK as recently as January 2017. They also welcomed their first child, a son named Gunner Stone, in October 2017. And in case you thought they were living too modestly, Pratt took to Twitter to thank the Crystalarium store in West Hollywood, Calif. for "dropping off $27,000 in crystals for the birth."

Darva Conger became a celebrity overnight after she won the FOX reality series Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? in 2000. After the show and her quickie marriage to Rick Rockwell ended, she posed for Playboy and appeared on other reality shows such as Celebrity Boxing.

"I couldn't work," she told Entertainment Tonight in 2015. "I work in a very public environment. I worked in the emergency room around lots of people, so I couldn't just go back into that. I tried. There was media everywhere. There were paparazzi in emergency rooms."

Fortunately, things have gotten better in recent years. "I actually went back to school and became a nurse anesthetist," Conger told Entertainment Tonight. "And that's what I do for a living, and it's a wonderful living."

As any stay-at-home mom will tell you, raising children full-time can be even more stressful than being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Former Survivor star and The View co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck seemed at peace with her decision to leave FOX & Friends to spend more time with her three kids.

"I am taking a new position as CBO—chief breakfast officer—at our house with the kids," she said (via FOX News) in November 2015. "I'm in a season where the kids need the best of me, not the rest of me." She added, "This is a really, really hard decision but I know it is the right one and I thank you all at home for understanding."

Something tells us that fighting with her kids about unfinished homework is probably a lot less stressful than bickering about politics every morning. At least, we hope so.

For a number of years, Jon Gosselin and his (now ex-)wife, Kate, dominated the reality TV scene thanks to their hit show, Jon & Kate Plus 8. Kate rebounded just fine after their divorce, landing other reality shows and a spin on Dancing With the Stars, but Jon basically hit rock bottom.

In 2013, it was reported that the father of eight was waiting tables at a cafe and living in a cabin in the woods without TV or internet access in Pennsylvania. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight (via People) about his new job, Gosselin said, "At first I was nervous because I was like, 'How are people going to react?' But then I'm thinking, 'Well, it's fun and I get to talk to people.' And they technically already know me—they're like 'Are you the guy?'" The following year, RadarOnline reported that Gosselin had been fired by the restaurant for "blowing off shifts and coming in late."

In 2016, Gosselin appeared on The Steve Harvey Show, claiming he'd "lost everything" in the divorce and saying he hadn't seen all his kids together in three years. That appears to have at least somewhat changed as of August 2017, but that doesn't mean it's gotten any less messy, per reports from TMZ.