The Complete Transformation Of Brandi Passante

Way back in 2010, A&E debuted a new TV reality show that — on paper, at least — was saddled with a dubious premise: different salvagers attend auctions to purchase the contents of abandoned storage lockers, sight unseen, and must then comb through their contents in hopes that hidden treasures are contained within.

That show, of course, was "Storage Wars," and anyone who has ever found themselves sucked into an episode, anxiously awaiting to learn the value of those surprising discoveries, will understand why the show became such a mammoth hit. Dubbed "The Young Guns," thrift shop owners Jarrod Schulz and his partner, Brandi Passante, quickly emerged as fan favorites, thanks to their bickering and Passante's withering eye-rolls whenever Schulz ignored her advice and disastrously overbid for a locker full of trash.

Years later, Passante has emerged as a celebrity in her own right. Still, it's a pretty safe bet that she'll remain more closely associated with "Storage Wars" than anything else. In fact, she recently returned for the show's 15th season in 2023. From her hardscrabble childhood to her transition from thrift shop owner to TV storage warrior, there's no denying she has had one amazing journey — and it's not even close to over yet. To find out more, read on to experience the complete transformation of Brandi Passante.

Brandi Passante was born in 1980, in Harris County, Texas. She was surrounded by male energy from a young age, with brothers who liked to torture their sister. As she explained in an interview with Lifetime, that aspect of her childhood wound up preparing her for working within the male-dominated milieu depicted within the episodes of "Storage Wars."

"I grew up with brothers, and they used to beat the crap out of me when we were younger, and I think that toughened me up a bit!" she said (and even offered photographic evidence on X, formerly known as Twitter, posting a childhood photo of herself boasting a black eye). "I find that the men in my business will walk all over you once they discover your weaknesses, so you have no choice but to develop a thick skin," she added.

While Passante hasn't divulged a whole lot of details about her pre-"Storage Wars" past, during a 2021 appearance on the "Spirit Talk Hosted by Shavaun and Sabrina" podcast she did confess to having a "tumultuous childhood." In the course of that conversation, Passante also admitted she often felt out of place as a kid, uncertain of where she fit in within her family, but knowing she was destined for something different. "I was constantly questioning whether I was adopted or something, because I just felt like I never belonged in that situation, you know?" she said. "Some people just kind of ... accept their lot in life, and I just never could."

Brandi Passante first entered the orbit of future partner Jarrod Schulz in 1999, when they were working together at a carpet-cleaning company. "She was, like, chasing me down all the time," Schulz joked when interviewed by The Orange County Register, recalling how they initially got together. "Yeah, right," she responded.

Eventually, the two co-workers began dating — emphasis on the eventually. "That was a process," Passante recalled in an interview with Inquirer.net, revealing that she didn't immediately jump into his arms. "He wore me down," she said. "He was persistent."

One reason for her reticence could have been because Schulz wasn't as charming as he would later become, at least not at first. "A mutual friend put notes on my truck, reminding me to be nice to Brandi, because I could be abrasive," he added. When Passante finally relented and agreed to go on a date with him, there was another stumbling block that needed to be overcome. "Technically, I was her boss ... and you were not supposed to do that," he said. Of course, they did, and it wasn't long before they took the next step in their relationship.

While Jarrod Schulz didn't put a ring on it — he and Brandi Passante were never actually married — they are parents of two, son Cameron and daughter Payton. While the parents have kept their children mostly out of the public eye, they have talked about the health difficulties they have endured, something that Passante discussed during an appearance on "The Dad Diary" podcast.

"Payton, when she was born, she was deaf. And she also had a cleft palate — not the lip, but the soft palate at the back," Passante discussed of her daughter's condition. "She had her first surgery when she was six weeks old," she said, revealing that surgery, which was on Payton's ears, allowed her to hear. "It worked," Passante added. "But she's always had a sort of a ... speech delay as a result of it, so we did a lot of speech therapy." According to the proud mom, Payton's hearing completely healed, and joining her school's cheerleading squad did wonders for improving both her speech and her confidence.

Meanwhile, Cameron also experienced health issues, with Passante recalling that a checkup for an ongoing urological condition revealed a mass on his kidney. They kept an eye on it for awhile, but eventually he became symptomatic. "Cam and I spent three months at the Children's Hospital of Orange County, and he missed three months of high school," she added.

After Brandi Passante and partner Jarrod Schulz started a family, he ventured into a new career in the mortgage industry, while she decided to focus full-time on raising their children. However, the experience ultimately left her feeling unfulfilled. "I used to be a stay-at-home mom and it was very difficult for me," she expressed to Lifetime. "I love my kids, but I felt alienated and depressed when I didn't have a career."

When the recession hit in the latter half of the 2000s, Schulz suddenly found himself out of a job and without any unemployment benefits to cushion the blow. "Finding a job wasn't very easy," he told The Orange Country Register. Salvation came from his aunt, who managed a storage facility and informed him about the auctions that regularly took place for the contents of abandoned storage units. The couple began attending those auctions and bidding on lockers, figuring anything valuable that they could salvage could be sold at a profit.

They wound up accumulating enough stuff that storing it became an issue. "I had to draw the line. We could have been on 'Hoarders' instead," Passante quipped. This propelled them to open their own second-hand outlet, the Now and Then thrift shop, setting the stage for a new and unexpected chapter.

As their thrift shop took off, Brandi Passante and Jarrod Schulz continued attending storage-unit auctions, becoming fixtures on the scene. It was at one of those auctions that Schulz wound up chatting with a TV producer who was developing what would eventually become "Storage Wars." Several months later, that producer contacted him, with their conversation resulting in a camera crew shooting footage at Now and Then. As it happened, Passante was on duty at the shop that day and attracted the attention of the producer. "They asked me, 'Who's the girl up front? Would she mind being on TV?'" Schulz recalled in his interview with The Orange County Register.

The footage being filmed was for the "Storage Wars" pilot — although they had no idea what that would eventually mean. "They asked if we wanted to be on camera for a few minutes ... We really didn't think it would go anywhere, but it became a big deal," Passante explained to The Saline Courier. Based on the footage shot, the two were eventually asked to join the cast of the first season of "Storage Wars."

For Passante, seeing herself on television was a new experience, and a revelatory one; She realized that old adage about the camera adding 15 pounds was no myth. "I try to keep my weight down, because the television makes you look heavier," she told Lifetime.

"Storage Wars" proved to be an out-of-the-box hit, with the 2010 series premiere luring 2 million viewers. By 2012, ratings had doubled, with each episode attracting an average audience of 4 million. The show that Brandi Passante and Jarrod Schulz had hoped would bring attention to their second-hand store instead propelled them to TV stardom. Suddenly, they were celebrities. "Neither of us really aspired to be on TV," Schulz explained to The Orange County Register.

When they weren't running their store and raising their kids, they were filming for the show, a schedule that pretty much forced them to be together on a 24/7 basis. Initially, that didn't prove all that beneficial for the couple's relationship. "When we were first starting out, we would have rock-star fights!" Passante recounted to Lifetime. "So we had to make the decision not to bring what happened on the show home ... It can be hard sometimes, because there are some emotional days and sometimes we say hurtful things to each other in the heat of the moment while shooting."

As Passante admitted while speaking with "The Dad Diary" podcast, she soon discovered another downside to her instant TV fame. "I got some scary letters in the very beginning," she said, revealing that she eventually had to move to a gated community patrolled by guards. "It was definitely life-changing," she added. "I did have to have a little bit of therapy about it. I didn't like to leave the house for quite some time."

As the success of "Storage Wars" continued to endure, A&E programming execs cast their collective eyes in the direction of the show's breakout couple. That led to the 2014 launch of "Brandi and Jarrod: Married to the Job," a spinoff series focusing on the behind-the-scenes lives of Brandi Passante and Jarrod Schulz beyond the world of storage lockers, with the two getting engaged during filming.

According to a network press release, the focus shifted from storage lockers to the part of their lives that hadn't before seen on camera, raising their kids and running their shop. "After 15 years together, Brandi and Jarrod finally decide to tie the knot, and they approach wedding planning in a way that only they could: with a little love, a lot of bickering and constant detours along the way," noted the release.

As The Orange County Register pointed out, the new show was far removed from "Storage Wars," placing the couple in contrived sitcom-style scenarios that encouraged the bickering, bantering rapport that fans had come to love. "It makes our dysfunction seem a little less dysfunctional," Schulz said to the publication of their constant back-and-forth chatter. Apparently, viewers didn't want to delve that deeply into the couple's personal lives; "Brandi and Jarrod: Married to the Job" was axed after just one season.

When the sitcom-style shenanigans of "Brandi and Jarrod: Married to the Job" failed to connect with viewers, Brandi Passante and Jarrod Schulz returned to "Storage Wars," where they continued to do what had made them famous in the first place. But it was later revealed that the couple privately split before the airing of Season 12 in 2018.

When the 2021 season rolled around, the two shared the news with viewers in the debut episode. "I'm not with Jarrod anymore," Passante said, as reported by People, and emphasized they were now embarking on their storage-unit bidding individually. "Just because me and Brandi aren't together anymore, doesn't mean we can't go to an auction — but separately," Schulz noted during the episode.

Speaking with Distractify before the premiere of that season, Passante seemed to be relishing her single status, particularly in relation to her role on "Storage Wars." "I'm actually really excited that I'm out there by myself doing this," she explained. "I brought a couple of friends with me and I think it's going to be funny and interesting and I think I'm more excited about this season than I have been in the past."

2020 was not a great year for Brandi Passante. She was still reeling from the breakup of her long-term relationship with Jarrod Schulz when she was forced to face an even greater loss, as she took to Instagram that October to mourn the death of her father. "I will miss you terribly," she wrote, accompanying a photo of herself as an infant, being cradled in her father's arms.

When she appeared on "Spirit Talk Hosted by Shavaun and Sabrina," Passante revealed that her father had been ill for some time before he died, and was asked how long he had been unwell. "Most of my life," she replied. "My dad had COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] for, like, probably 35 years," she said. "And then he had rheumatoid arthritis, he had osteoporosis, he got liver cancer ... so many things. He ended up dying of lung cancer."

Four years after her father's death, Passante paid tribute via Instagram, sharing a series of photos set to the late John Prine's single, "When I Get to Heaven." Wrote Passante in the caption, "I hope you're enjoying a Road Soda, in a paper bag & a cheap smoke."

When Brandi Passante returned to "Storage Wars" for the post-pandemic season in 2021. For that particular season, Passante was joined by her "Storage Wars" co-stars, including auctioneers Dan and Laura Dotson, along with storage warriors Darrell Sheets, Kenny Crossley, Rene and Casey Nezhoda, Ivy Calvin, and wily veteran Barry Weiss.

Also returning was her ex, Jarrod Schulz, which understandably brought a certain degree of awkwardness to the locker auctions. "Luckily I don't run into him that often," she told Distractify at the time, also putting a timeframe on when the relationship ended. "It's been three years since we broke up and I would like to say that it was a little nicer than it is but it's not. It is a little tense but we seem to get through it."

Interviewed by PopCulture, Passante admitted the mandated COVID-19 testing and safety protocols that had been put in place for filming that particular season had resulted in a scenario that was "on level weird for everyone," even aside from the awkwardness of the split. That said, she also believed that she and the other members of the "Storage Wars" cast had "found [their] stride again ... tumultuous as ever."

The tension that Brandi Passante referenced between her and ex Jarrod Schulz took an unexpected and terrible turn mere weeks after the April 2021 season premiere of "Storage Wars." As TMZ reported, Passante was hanging out with some friends at an Orange County bar when Schulz turned up at the establishment. The two reportedly got into a "heated" argument, with Passante telling Schulz to leave.

According to law enforcement officials, Schulz didn't leave, and the argument between the two escalated. At one point, Schulz allegedly pushed Passante, twice, and police were called. He had left the bar by the time officers arrived on the scene, and the allegations were detailed in a police report. Cops later paid Schulz a visit, but he reportedly denied getting physical with Passante. The officers apparently doubted the veracity of his account; He was charged with a single count of misdemeanor domestic violence battery.

Perhaps not coincidentally — a firing was never confirmed nor denied by the network — Schulz didn't return for any subsequent seasons of "Storage Wars" after the incident. He also reportedly started a new relationship, with a woman named Rochel Beckman.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

Unlike her ex, Brandi Passante did return for further seasons of "Storage Wars," but also had some other irons in the fire. One of these was her involvement in the "Happening Now with Hammer" podcast, appearing on an episode as a guest when she revealed that she was joining the show as a co-host. She was asked what she had planned for that episode. "Currently we are licking our wounds, and we are having a little hair of the dog," she replied, holding up what appeared to be a can of beer in the daytime after what was apparently a libation-filled evening in a dive bar.

Meanwhile, she also moved on romantically, revealing she was in a relationship with boyfriend Clifford Beaver. While Beaver certainly isn't in the public eye, we know that he owns the Orange County-based bar and grill, Our Place. As of May 2024, the two were still going strong. Passante posted Beaver an Instagram shoutout for his birthday, posting a series of photos featuring the two of them together, along with a caption reading, "Happy Birthday Beaver."