TV Bride: Married? <i>Moi?</i>
Darva Conger wants you to get something straight: She does not consider herself married.
No matter if you were among the millions of viewers who witnessed the ceremony on nationwide television. She says because it took place on a stage in Las Vegas and not in a church, she is not married in her heart.
Furthermore, she wants you to know that she's not especially fond of her husband, Rick Rockwell: "I was very uncomfortable around him. He's just not a person that I would ordinarily have a friendly relationship with."
On Feb. 15, Who Wants To Marry A Multimillionaire?, a Fox television special, received smash hit ratings and touched off widespread debate about the limits of reality television. Rockwell, described as a millionaire through real estate investments, picked Conger from among 50 contestants.
When she was chosen, Conger said she was at first terrified and then horrified when the groom gave her a lingering kiss.
"I would like to think that someone who had respect for me in a romantic way and cared about me as a person would have shown me a little more courtesy and kissed me on the cheek," said Conger. "That's what I would have hoped for."
Despite the flap, no fewer than three new series plan to take the gamble of putting real people in real-life dramas for fun and profit. They include two CBS programs: Survivor!, which will strand contestants on an island to compete for $1 million, and Big Brother, which will stick players in a house filled with cameras.
The Multimillionaire debacle "certainly heightens awareness of the need to be careful," said CBS spokesman Chris Ender. "We're confident that our casting and screening process will ensure that everyone involved is appropriate and ready for the experience."
Based on a popular Swedish game show, Survivor! leaves 16 strangers marooned on a deserted island in the South China Sea. They must work together as a tribe to provide each other food and shelter, and a system of ballots will eventually winnow the group down to two people. The object of the game is to be the last person on the island, as selected by popular vote. If you are the survivor, you get $1 million.
For becoming the bride on Who Wants To Marry a Millionaire?, Conger, a 34-year-old nurse who served in the Persian Gulf War, received prizes worth a total of $100,000, including a Caribbean honeymoon, a $35,000 engagement ring, and an Isuzu Trooper.
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She said she and Rockwell, 42, spent their honeymoon in separate rooms and she told him "I don't have those feelings for you. I can't let you believe that I do."
The agreement to participate in the show included an annulment clause, which she says she will exercise.
Fox canceled a planned rerun of the show after an online news service, The Smoking Gun, revealed Saturday that a California judge issued a restraining order against Rockwell in 1991 sought by his ex-fiancee, Debbie Goyne. She said Rockwell had hit her and threatened to kill her. Now Fox has canceled the show entirely.
Rockwell has denied hitting Goyne, but he admitted letting the air out of the tires on her car "to get her attention."