Megan Hauserman, the stupid, entitled, self-righteous star of the now-scrapped reality show “Megan Wants a Millionaire” is getting a second chance at infamy. Megan’s show was taken off the air when one of its contestants, Ryan Jenkins, went into hiding after his estranged wife’s body was found in a dumpster. Jenkins was eventually found dead of an apparent suicide and the show was canceled. Megan then had to resort to staged bikini photoshoots to get a little press.

Radar is reporting that VH1 has given Megan a different reality show in which she’ll star, as a kind of consolation prize to losing her show to a murdering contestant. (Radar states in this story that Jenkins was the supposed winner of Megan’s dating show, but this is the first time I’ve seen this claim and I don’t think that’s true. According to previous reports, Jenkins won the meta-reality show contest “I Love Money 3″, and from what I could tell he wasn’t even in the top two on “Megan Wants a Millionaire.”)

With one of her romantic frontrunners Ryan Jenkins accused of murdering his wife before later committing suicide, Megan Hauserman of VH1’s “Megan Wants a Millionaire” is getting her second chance at reality TV after the network understandably cancelled the show. RadarOnline.com has the exclusive details of her new deal and why the network decided to give her another shot.

“VH1 is giving Megan her own reality show,” a source confirms. When the show was abruptly cancelled “they promised Megan her own show…that’s how they bought her silence.”

As for the show’s format, the source says it will probably move away from a dating-themed show and will unscripted despite Hauserman asking for a scripted show.

Hauserman is not a stranger to controversy. She was the Charm School contestant whose behavior incited Sharon Osbourne to slap her in the face.

The premise of her show with Jenkins had her vying to be a trophy wife. He supposedly won.

[From Radar Online]

I guess we can’t expect much more from VH1. They have contractual obligations to Hauserman. The question remains whether they will try and change the format of their creepy exploitative reality shows after this terrible wake up call. We heard from their casting agent that she hired probable murderer Ryan Jenkins for the show after he hit on her in an elevator in Las Vegas. The requirements for these shows involves having no shame. It’s kind of inevitable that they’re attracting the dregs of society. Maybe the good news in this story is that Megan is gettnig some kind of non-scripted reality show. Does that mean that the days of people taking a dump on the stairs for ratings have ended? Surely Megan will pull her own stunts to get attention, whether someone prompts her or not.

Megan Hauserman is shown on 7/31/09, 7/13/09 and 8/28/07. Credit: WENN.com

Earlier today, Celebitchy wondered how in the world reality shows manage to consistently cast such sleazy people. Well, in the case of Ryan Jenkins, the deceased probable murderer of ex-wife Jasmine Fiore, he was cast on the show “Megan Wants a Millionaire” after he hit on the casting director on an escalator in a Los Vegas hotel. And apparently that’s about all it took. The casting director, Stuart Brazell, basically acknowledged that Jenkins was smooth and glib and cheesy, and that’s the combination she was looking for. I’m sure her casting call was full of douchebags, but obviously this guy really stood out from the pack in terms of how he approached her.

The casting director who chose the late Ryan Jenkins, the alleged killer of his ex-wife model Jasmine Fiore, spoke with Larry King Monday night to explain what she saw in the 32-year-old to place him on the VH1 reality show Megan Wants A Millionaire.

Stuart Brazell said Jenkins “was the ideal contestant for these shows. You want a big personality. You want loud. You want someone that’s entertaining and that’s going to cause conflict in the house. That’s exactly what I looked for and that’s what he was.”

Brazell said she met Jenkins, a Canadian millionaire, on an escalator at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, where she was casting for the dating show, Megan Wants A Millionaire. The show aimed at matchmaking “trophy wife” Megan Hauserman to one in a group of more than a dozen wealthy bachelors.

Brazell said of Jenkins: “First person comes over, baby, baby, baby. He hit on me.” She said that Jenkins, the wealthy son of an architect, married Fiore in a shotgun wedding three hours after meeting her at a Vegas strip club. “He text messaged me the next day and said, ‘I met the love of my life,’” Brazell told King. “This is the woman of my dreams … I would also say that he was happy to marry someone from the U.S., because he was very much looking for citizenship. I think that had a big part to do with it as well.”

Jenkins was wanted on first-degree murder charges after Fiore’s body was found mutilated and stuffed into a suitcase in a Buena Park, CA. dumpster on August 15; he was found hanged Sunday evening at the Thunderbird Motel in Hope, British Columbia, less than four days after being charged in the killing of Fiore.

[From Radar]

So who approaches a casting director on an escalator and hits on her to get a role, then turns around and gets married to a near stranger three hours later? Someone with compulsive behavior issues – and a whole host of other ones, I’m sure. It turns out Jenkins was a diagnosed sex addict who’s rage was often triggered in tandem to rejection. In 2007 he was convicted of assaulting a girlfriend in Calgary. Jenkins got 15 months probation along with counseling and sex addiction treatment. He also hit Jasmine in June while in Las Vegas and was charged with misdemeanor battery. And Radar has another interesting story from a friend of Jenkins who says all he ever talked about was sex, and he stripped naked in front of a room of people and then freaked out when two strippers wouldn’t have sex with him.

He was a jealous, controlling man who became a murderer before killing himself and now RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively that at least part of Ryan Jenkins’ rage was triggered by sexual addiction and problems.

“Sex was constantly on his mind. It’s all he talked about,” the friend told RadarOnline.com. Police says Jenkins murdered his ex-wife Jasmine Fiore and disposed of her body in a suitcase before hanging himself in a Canadian hotel room. The 32-year-old had been a contestant on the reality show Megan Wants a Millionaire.

A longtime friend of his told RadarOnline.com that Jenkins’ scary temper surfaced during his 30th birthday party. His perversity was on full display as he hired two strippers and then ripped off all his clothes in front of partygoers. After a failed attempt to be with both girls, he flew into a rage.

“He was drunk and nasty,” the friend added. The party quickly ended after a display of temper that now in hindsight was a chilling sign of the emotional problems Jenkins clearly suffered from.

[From Radar]

Casting director Stuart Brazell also mentioned there was a big pr0n convention going on in Vegas when she met Jenkins. All of the pieces are falling together. I’m betting anything Jenkins had a serious drug problem too. Obviously he had no idea how to handle his temper, and that “sex addiction treatment” didn’t do any good. It’s upsetting that this guy managed to get on at least one VH1 reality show (possibly two), and passed whatever they do for background checks. He was a Canadian citizen – wouldn’t common sense tell them to also check his record there? I’ve never seen “Megan Wants a Millionaire,” but Jenkins, a man with a history of assault and documented sex addiction, was presumably left alone with women. That’s incredibly dangerous. It’d be nice if this at least led to the end of reality T.V. I’m sure it won’t. But if nothing else, shows need to really re-examine their safety precautions and start looking at cast members as people and not just profits.

Here’s Jasmine Fiore in 2006 at an ffter party for the Bull Run cross-country rally in Los Angeles. Credit: WENN.com

VH1 has done the right thing, at least temporarily, and canceled all reality shows featuring now-deceased murder suspect Ryan Jenkins. Jenkins, 32, was found hanged over the weekend in a motel outside Vancouver, British Columbia. His death was an apparent suicide. The Canadian native was the subject of an international manhunt after his ex wife’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase. Jenkins competed for the affections of reality veteran Megan Hauserman on the reality show “Megan Wants a Millionaire,” which was airing right before the murder. He was also reportedly the winner of VH1 reality competition show “I Love Money 3,” a detail which VH1 has not confirmed or denied.

In the wake of the murder investigation, VH1 indefinitely postponed airing the future episodes of “Megan Wants a Millionaire,” which was finished shooting in March. They released a statement yesterday after Jenkins’ death that the show is now canceled, and that it, and “I Love Money 3″ will never air.

The NY Times had an article late last week before Jenkins’ death that questioned whether VH1 would continue running sensational and arguably exploitative reality shows in the wake of this scandal. Reality shows have never featured a known murderer up until now, but as RealityBlurred editor Andy Dehnart states, they thrive on questionable characters to create such obnoxious television. Denhart doesn’t think that’s going to change at all in light of the failure of their vetting process:

“Obviously, if the company had been given a full picture of his background, he would never have been allowed on the show,” 51 Minds said in a statement. The company said it was investigating the case and “taking steps to ensure that this sort of lapse never occurs again.”

While it is true that producers are responsible for vetting cast members, Andy Dehnart, the editor of realityblurred.com, a popular Web site about reality television, said that VH1’s “abdication of responsibility is totally disingenuous.”

“The network has built a brand on unstable, crazy people interacting on these idiotic and mindless dating shows, and can’t pretend to not have anything to do with it,” he said.

In a statement Friday, VH1 said its “ultimate responsibility is what’s on our air, and in this case we immediately took the show off the schedule as well as off of our digital platforms.” The channel added: “Everyone has a role to play in the hundreds of hours of original programming that we develop each year. Something went wrong here, so we’re all looking at the process to make sure it doesn’t happen again…”

Mr. Dehnart said the case’s impact on VH1 and the production company would be minimal, “since the crime appears to be mostly unconnected to the show, and because reality TV has a long history of contestants with sketchy backgrounds.” He noted that as early as 2000, when dating shows were first beginning to appear on network television, the star of the Fox show “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?” was revealed to have had a restraining order filed against him.

[From NYTimes.com]

I guess you can’t really find handfuls of normal, non-troubled people who are willing to do outrageous shaming stunts like pooping inside a house with witnesses and cameras rolling. I don’t know what’s more disturbing – that someone is thinking up these ridiculous concepts or that we’re accepting it as entertainment. (I’m just as guilty of this as anyone and am not blaming you if you find this crap interesting. It appeals to us like a car crash – it’s hard to keep from looking away.) Having a murderer in their midst won’t make producers question the programming, and they probably think it’s enough to eliminate the specific shows he was on. This type of shock TV isn’t going to change after one horrific incident. It will take more than just one dead woman to change the rotten culture of “reality” television.

The strange story of the murdered Playboy model and the fugitive reality show contestant has come to an end. 32 year-old Ryan Jenkins, a murder suspect and contestant on postponed VH1 reality show “Megan Wants a Millionaire,” was found dead of an apparent suicide on Sunday in a motel outside Vancouver, British Columbia. The strangled and mutilated body of his ex wife, Jasmine Fiore, 28, was found in a suitcase in a dumpster in Orange County, CA on August 15. Her teeth and fingertips were removed, and she was identified by the serial numbers on her breast implants. Jenkins, a Canadian native, was the subject of an international manhunt.

The search for a former Calgary man accused of killing his ex-wife — in a case that captured international headlines — has ended after the discovery of his body in a motel in Hope.

Ryan Alexander Jenkins, 32, was found hanging from a belt in a room at the Thunderbird Motel.

Jenkins was found dead Sunday morning when a motel manager decided to check on the room rented three days earlier.

Jenkins had been charged with the murder of his ex-wife, Los Angeles swimsuit model Jasmine Fiore, on Thursday.

The same day, a woman checked into the Thunderbird Motel, saying she needed a room for at least three days, maybe longer, and paid cash through Sunday. Outside, a man waited in a silver PT Cruiser with Alberta licence plates.

Kevin Walker, the manager at the secluded budget motel, couldn’t remember the woman’s name and said RCMP have seized the slip of information she filled out for the hotel room. He could see there was a man in the vehicle but thought nothing of the fact he didn’t come in, he said.

After entering unit two, a single room with a double bed, the mystery woman stayed for about 20 minutes, then left.

Walker said he never saw her vehicle again.

In the days following, Walker said he saw a man walk past his own balcony at the motel — a man who would later turn out to be Jenkins.

“But he didn’t look like the Ryan Jenkins I’d seen on TV,” he said. “He looked like a man at the end of his rope, not the muscle-bound macho man you saw on TV.”

The man, he said, had a sunken face and looked thinner than Jenkins looked in the photos released by the police and others that appeared on television news programs.

On Friday and Saturday there was very little activity at the room, with Walker noting that no one seemed to be coming and going.

Then on Sunday, when no one came to check out by the required time of 11 a.m., Walker went to the room.

“I thought maybe they left the key in the room and just left,” he said.

After knocking and saying ‘hello’ without a reply, he used a second motel key and opened the locked door, just a crack.

He saw an open laptop sitting on the bed and a few other things, said the still-shaken man.

“As I was pushing the door open, I smelled death,” Walker said. “And then, as I kept opening the door, there was death staring at me.”

He said he saw a man “hanging from the coat rack by a belt.”

Walker reeled back from the horrific sight, returned to the office to call the police.

“After I swung the door open and saw him hanging there — I didn’t notice anything after that.”

Even then, he wasn’t sure who the man was, going back to his own room to scan newspapers to see if the face of the dead man in the room matched those of the fugitive from Calgary.

[From VancouverSun.com via WeSmirch]

People Magazine has some quotes from a friend of Megan Hauserman, the star of the show in which now-deceased Jenkins competed to date her, “Megan Wants a Millionaire.” The show has been postponed indefinitely, and Megan is said to be “devastated” by the news of the murder. The source explained that “She got to know Ryan through her show, and she is shocked and saddened by the week’s events.”

Jenkins was convicted of assaulting a girlfriend in Calgary in 2007. He was sentenced to 15 months probation and ordered to undergo counseling and sex addiction treatment . VH1 issued a statement after the murder that they use an outside firm to run background checks on all contestants and that Ryan wouldn’t have been chosen for the show if they were aware he had a prior conviction. “Obviously, if the company had been given a full picture of his background, he would never have been allowed on the show.” Maybe these reality shows will tone it down in the future, or maybe they’ll just make sure they use contestants who are based out of the US and easier to trace.

This is a very sad story and one that seems unfinished in a way. Fiore’s family will not be able to see justice served now that her assumed murderer has committed suicide.

We heard this story yesterday but none of us really wanted to cover it. Ryan Jenkins, 32, a contestant on the VH1 reality show Megan Wants a Millionaire, is wanted for the murder of his new wife, 28 year-old Playboy playmate Jasmine Fiore. Fiore’s body was found Saturday apparently strangled and stuffed in a suitcase in a dumpster in a suburb of Los Angeles. Jenkins married Fiore in Las Vegas on March 18 after knowing her just a few days. It’s hard to tell if Jenkins was married while he was on the dating show, or if he got married immediately after being eliminated. VH1 states that production was completed on Ryan’s show at “the end of March”.

Jenkins is a millionaire real estate executive from Calgary, Canada, and is said to be worth $2.5 million. He’s now a fugitive. Federal agents were monitoring the US/Canada border near Washington trying to prevent him from fleeing the country, but it’s thought that he’s already escaped to Canada on foot.

To make this story even stranger, Jenkins reportedly won the $250,000 grand prize in the VH1 meta reality-competition “I Love Money 3″ in which contestants from various VH1 reality shows go to a tropical location and compete Survivor style. That was also filmed in March, and hasn’t aired yet. The show Ryan stars on, Megan Wants a Millionaire, premiered on August 2, but VH1 has decided to pull all future episodes due to the murder investigation. People Magazine has the most complete explanation of this sad story, below.

Nearly five months ago, Ryan Alexander Jenkins, a contestant on Megan Wants a Millionaire and I Love Money 3 – and a real-life millionaire from Canada – impulsively married Playboy model Jasmine Fiore in Las Vegas.

Their move to Los Angeles, with the blond and buxom Fiore, 28, hoping to work in real estate or as a personal trainer while Jenkins, 32, traveled North America competing for money and another woman’s attentions, could have been a reality show of its own.

But now the story has taken a deadly turn from escapist television fare: Fiore has been murdered, the Millionaire show has been pulled off the air, and Jenkins is an international fugitive.

“Her death is a tragedy,” Buena Park, Calif., police Lt. Gary Worrall tells PEOPLE. “Our investigators have been working around the clock. Many of them haven’t slept in a while.”

Body in a Dumpster
It began, police say, when a nude female body was found stuffed in a suitcase in a Dumpster behind an apartment complex in Buena Park, an Orange County suburb south of Los Angeles, on Saturday, Aug. 15. That night, Jenkins called the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to report Fiore missing, and by Monday the Orange County coroner confirmed the victim as Fiore, apparently strangled.

Now, police in the United States and Canada are scrambling to find Jenkins, a Calgary real estate salesman considered a “person of interest” in the murder.

“We are aware that he is from Canada and there’s a potential for him to go there,” says Worrall. “We’re concerned he might flee the country.”

Worrall says that he was aware of some media reports that a representative for Jenkins promises he’ll turn himself in; however, the police have received no such offer.

Although not a familiar face, Jenkins does live on the fringes of fame. Worth over $2 million, he appears in the current season of VH1′s Megan Wants a Millionaire, in which wealthy suitors compete for the affections of Megan Hauserman a young lady with expensive tastes who has appeared on previous VH1 series Rock of Love 2, Charm School and I Love Money.

Show Goes Off the Air
In last weekend’s episode, Jenkins won a one-on-one date with Megan, drove her in an Aston Marin DBS Coupe to an intimate dinner – and picked up the $1,500 tab. The pair also shared a passionate kiss. A “battle royale” between the finalists was scheduled to air this weekend.

But on Wednesday, VH1 had shut down most of their Web content connected with both shows, and pulled Megan Wants a Millionaire off the air.

“Given the unfortunate circumstances, VH1 has postponed any future airings. This is a tragic situation and our thoughts go out to the victim’s family,” says a statement from the network.

According to some media reports, Jenkins won $250,000 on I Love Money, in March. At around the same time, Jenkins met Fiore at a strip club, and the two were married two days later – on March 18, according to the Clark County, Nev., Recorder’s Office (although Fiore’s mother told reporters she doesn’t believe a legitimate marriage took place.)

A Plea for Public’s Help
Fiore, who also goes by the name Jasmine Kinkade, has modeled for radio personality Howard Stern, for Las Vegas hotels and for Playboy. Her mother told reporters her daughter also was interested in selling real estate and starting a personal training business.

Jenkins and Fiore were living in Los Angeles at the time of the murder. Worrall says he knows little about the nature of their relationship – only that they were last seen together Friday evening at a poker tournament in San Diego.

According to TMZ, Fiore texted an ex-boyfriend that evening, offering to meet him in Las Vegas. Later that evening, the ex got another text from Fiore’s phone that said: “Suck it.” The site also reports that Jenkins was convicted in 2007 of assaulting his girlfriend at the time.

For now, though, the case is a manhunt, with police calling for the public’s help in finding the reality star fugitive or a luxury car he may be driving: Fiore’ white Mercedes CLS550, with custom black trim including a black logo, or Jenkins’s own black BMW X5.

[From People]

Jenkins has a history of domestic violence that was easily uncovered by TMZ. The incident prior to his reality show stint happened in Canada, which may be why he passed whatever background check VH1 does. He was convicted of assaulting a girlfriend in 2007 in Calgary and sentenced to 15 months probation, counseling, and sex addiction treatment. He was also charged with misdemeanor battery in Las Vegas in June for hitting Jasmine, but that was after the show had wrapped.

Does this mean that VH1 and all the other networks are finally going to tone it down with the outlandish reality shows or are they just going to do more thorough background checks and make sure all their legal ducks are in a row? There was a huge scandal in 2000 when it came out that the guy on Fox’s one-off competition “Who Wants To Marry a Millionaire?” had a restraining order against him for domestic violence. The fact that a reality show contestant probably committed a murder should make some executives question whether these types of shows are exploitive and unsafe. We can safely assume that significant changes aren’t going to happen unless they’re legally mandated, though.

Here are some photos of Jasmine Fiore in 2006. These are described as “Drivers Richard Rawlings, Jasmine Fiore and Keith Pervite – After party for the Bull Run cross-country rally held at the social club” LA, California, 7/28/06. Credit: WENN.com