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Talk about "cowboy up."
A buff rodeo rider is fixin' to lasso a bunch of European gold diggers for The Next Joe Millionaire: An International Affair, premiering Monday on Fox at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
For the first Joe, the network flew 20 women from America to France to vie for Evan Marriott, a poor guy posing as a rich guy. Marriott chose Zora Andrich; both have since moved on.
Fox, however, was not about to move on from a show that drew 40 million viewers to its final hour. Producers made a beeline for Europe and found 14 women who had never seen the first Millionaire. They set up house in Italy.
David Smith, spotted by producers at a rodeo, plays the role of joe millionaire. The 24-year-old from Midland, Texas, makes $11,000 a year and lives in a trailer, his income boosted by his dad, who's in the oil business.
Smith watched only the finale of Joe Millionaire, so he wasn't quite sure what he was getting into. "I thought it was a group of guys and a group of girls. I don't watch much TV. When you're on the road, you sleep in the truck a lot."
He had never been to Europe. "I was like, 'Do they speak English?' I don't know anything about European women." What he discovered: "The women are all different. A German woman is different from a Swedish woman, and Italian women are different from Czech women."
One thing they had in common was an interest in his wallet. "They were very straightforward. They were like sharks just coming at me."
Smith is much more familiar with horses. He has been riding bareback rodeo for about five years. "I'm in good shape," he says. "I try to exercise a bunch and eat healthy."
He knows, however, that dirt-digging by the tabloid media is part of the deal. "I think I've been a pretty good kid. I've never been married and I've never been in jail, but I am human. There's no telling what's going to come out."
In fact, this week, Smith is denying a National Enquirer report that he left behind a fiancée when he went off to do the show. He says the story is wrong. There was woman he dated for a while, and she did live on his parents' ranch. But not with him. And, he says, "we were never engaged."
As to whether he found true love in Europe, he can only say, "There's definitely connections that were made."
One thing we can say: His skill on horseback will make the opening scene in which the bachelor rides up to meet the women go a lot smoother. (Marriott fumbled his opener.)
But Smith says his horse, Hurricane, whinnied just as he made his entrance, as if on cue. "It was perfect. I fell in love with Hurricane for sure."
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Source: USA Today | |
