The Big Flop - I Wanna Marry "Harry": His Royal Lie-ness with Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt | 55

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

In 2013, a British TV producer named Danny Fenton brought 12 American women to England to take part in a new reality dating show. The yanks were led to believe that they had a chance to marry one of the most eligible bachelors in the world: Prince Harry of the British royal family. There was just one problem: the guy they were competing for was actually a Harry look-alike. Even though Fenton spent a princely sum trying to gaslight his way to ratings gold, the show wound up being one of reality tv's most embarrassingly king-sized busts.The Bachelor franchise's own Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt (Bachelor Happy Hour) join Misha to dethrone one of the most manipulative reality shows of all time.Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. British TV producer Danny Fenton is working on his latest reality dating show. Today, that means he's hiding in the woods. Danny is trying to avoid being spotted by his chose lead, a fresh-faced, young, red-haired British man named Matthew Hicks, and one of his potential winners. The red hair is key because the women competing for his love have been led to think that the man they're dating could possibly maybe be Prince Harry of the royal family of Great

Britain. The contestants don't know any of this, but some of the women are getting suspicious. And now, Matthew's date is asking too many questions. Does she see through his royal ruse? Is it time for Danny to come clean? Admit that the show is one big tall tale and give up on his dreams of becoming reality TV royalty? Hell no! Cue the fake paparazzi! Quick! Go! Go! Go!

From the network that brought you Joe Millionaire comes a series with a royally wicked twist. Only in this fairy tale, it's the prince who's hiding a secret. You see, underneath all the trappings, he's not a prince at all. Just an ordinary boy who looks a lot like Prince Harry. Late last year, 12 American single ladies flew out to a country estate in England to spend weeks trying to impress this guy, the world's most eligible bachelor. You're not Prince Harry, are you? No, he sure looks like him though. This is Matthew Hicks.

So you didn't, for one second, you didn't believe it the whole time you were there? I'm not going to say that. There was a point where I was like, maybe? You got brainwashed. Yes. It's so bad, and I want to marry Harry was so bad, canceled almost instantly. We are on a sinking ship. From Wondery and Atwill Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs,

fails and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and podcasting royalty at Don't Cross the Gay Man. And today we're talking about I Wanna Marry Harry, the reality show starring a bogus prince that was dethroned and sent into exile after only four episodes. On our show today, I'm so excited everybody we have experts on reality TV love. we have experts on reality TV love. You might remember them from The Bachelor,

Bachelorette, and Bachelor in Paradise. Give it up for the hosts of the one and only official Bachelor Nation podcast, Bachelor Happy Hour, it's Jo Amabile and Serena Pitt. Hello. Hi, thanks for having us. I'm so excited. So before we get into the reality show,

I want to marry Harry. Serena, I have a question for you. When you and Joe started dating, how did you try to figure out if he was a royal imposter or not? Totally. So that didn't cross my desk, but now maybe it should have. I have some regrets for sure.

But thankfully, no imposter clues yet. I think the Chicago accent canceled me out for that. Yeah. Sure. Did you happen to see I Wanna Marry Harry when it came out? No. We know about the show, obviously, because we're here today, and we were doing a little digging on what it came out. No, I mean, we know about the show, obviously, because we're here today and we were doing a little digging

on what it's about. But I actually don't remember the show at all when it came out with everything that went down, but a very interesting concept. Yeah. So today's episode is all about the 2014 reality show, I Wanna Marry Harry. Now the series, British creator pulled out all

the stops to trick a bunch of American women into believing they had a shot at marrying Prince Harry, all in the hopes that the show would be a princely hit and take the U.S. by storm. But it wound up being a king-sized bust that made Americans reach for their remotes. It may or may not be the worst reality show of all time, but it's arguably the one that features the most gaslighting. Now, the show was created by British producer Danny Fenton, whose previous credits include World of Compulsive Hoarders, Football Hooligans International, and a show called My Bare Lady,

in which American porn stars are brought to London to see if they can make it in the world of British theater. What is this guy on? That's out of control. So, I mean, with the background like that, you know that I Want to Marry Harry is going to be two things. very British and very not classy. Totally. Totally. Now, apparently, the idea for I want to marry Harry came to Fenton in his sleep,

which is the thing that makes the most sense about this whole story. Yeah, that adds right up. Well, doesn't it feel like it's the UK version of Joe Millionaire? Oh, yeah. That was the remake of Joe Millionaire. It was like this construction worker, handsome guy who made like $17,000 a year and everyone thought he was a millionaire. Well, according to Fenton, he woke up and literally the four words came into my head.

I want to marry Harry. And we woke up and literally the four words came into my head. I want to marry Harry. And we sold the show off those four words. So Fenton claims he immediately called his agent and they were able to find a buyer for the show in under an hour. What? I mean, I'm pretty sure that's not how that works. There's no way. Who's giving you this information?

Him himself? Him himself. Yeah. He wrote you this for sure. Yeah. He's like, I had a dream, I woke up, it was 3 a.m., I called somebody, show's greenlit, we're ready to go. Instant hit. Instant hit.

And Fenton, he does have a good reason to hope the show could be the start of big things in the U.S. Because Fox decides to spend $15 million to get the American rights to the show, and Ryan Seacrest is also involved as a producer. Now, there's not a lot of information about what Seacrest did for the show, but that also makes sense, because if I produced the show,

I wouldn't want to talk about it either, so... Yeah. So the premise of I Want to Marry Harry is this. 12 American women are brought to England to appear on a bachelor style dating show and are made to believe that the man they are wooing is Prince Harry of the British royal family. But here's the twist. In reality, Prince Harry is just some random guy who kind of looks like the real McCoy. Excuse me. In this case, it should be the real Windsor. It's weirdly similar to My Bare Lady.

The guy just loves bringing Americans to England for some reason. And as the show goes into production, there's a huge amount of secrecy involved. Even the show's director wasn't told what the premise was. So if you're not even bothering to tell your director what the show is really about, that's a sign that you probably aren't super concerned

with the overall quality of the show, in my opinion. Yeah, that feels like a huge problem. Like, he should definitely have been told what was going on. For sure. So, this is probably obvious, but Fenton also doesn't bother to even try and get permission from the royal family to do this. In fact, the royal family, they were fully unaware

and in no way involved in the making of the show. Now, how do you think the queen RIP would have reacted if Fenton had tried to get her permission? I think she would have died a lot earlier. I think she would have died on the spot. On the spot, she would have been like, I'm done, I've had enough. Yeah.

Oh, now, Fenton gets to work and auditions 100 actors to play the sham prince. And eventually, he settles on a man named Matthew Hicks. Now, the fact that his last name is Hicks, the least princely name ever, is just icing on the fake royal wedding cake for me, but... And like such an American last name too. Yeah, Matthew Hicks.

I watched the trailer on YouTube, and the guy does look like Prince Harry, but he's so clearly not Prince Harry. But the women in the house thought he really was Prince Harry. And thank God for those women, because without them, that would have been canceled day one. Well, Hicks is just some guy who works at an environmental consulting firm. He's never acted before, but he has done some Prince Harry lookalike gigs. Even Matthew initially doesn't know what the show is about.

I mean, maybe he just thought he was going to be on a singing competition, like American Idol for celebrity lookalikes. I don't know. But we've been talking about how closely he resembles Prince Harry. So let's take a look at our lookalike and see how convincing he is. Prince Harry.

Prince Harry. That's him. That's him. Now here's Matthew Hicks. No, wait, maybe I didn't see a photo of this guy. Yeah, he really... I mean, I don't think I would be cool. If you like tone down the ginger, like pull that back a bit,

and like he always stands like kind of like 10 feet away, you might've been able to convince me. No, I think you would've felt for it. I think Mo, I honestly think without social media, because in 2014, I mean, Prince Harry, it wasn't like you turned on the TV and he was constantly on our television, especially in the States.

So I do think majority of people could fall for that. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like until Prince Harry was dating Meghan, his face was not really around as much. Oh yeah. It was the other brother. It was the other brother.

It was his time to shine. It was their time to shine. But you know, Serena, I'm with you though. How crazy the red hair is, that would have given me like undercover boss vibes. You know, when they go undercover and you're like, that's clearly a wig. It looks like it's been dyed. And the royal family, I believe like,

they can't like dye their hair. They don't like get their nails done. He should have shaved his head because then he could be like, yeah, I just look a little different because I shaved my head. Yeah. That actually wouldn't have been bad. I know. I know. Joe's like, let's bring it back. All direct. Yeah. When we do the reboot. Yeah. So he's less of a look alike, more like a look, a kind of like, but it was enough to convince

producer Ryan Seacrest. So let's look at a clip of an interview between him and Matthew. And they said, we've got this guy that looks like Harry, we should do the show. And I said, I mean, how are they going to believe that it's really a prince? And then you saw him and said, okay. I'll see the hair doesn't look so crazy in that interview. It looks better in that interview. And he actually does look a lot more like Prince Harry there. Oh, see, the hair doesn't look so crazy in that interview. It looks better in that interview. And he actually does look a lot more like Prince Harry there.

Yeah, he looks like him. Well, clearly identifying royalty is a completely different skill set from hosting New Year's Rockin' Eve, Mr. Seacrest. But once he's been cast, Fenton and company put Hicks through a Prince Harry boot camp so he can even more effectively guess like the women who he'll be dating on the show. Now, I'll read in my most posh British accent a quote from an interview with Hicks. They put me through learning everything there was to know about him.

From his schooling, his history, his military career, his friends, where he hangs out in London, previous scandals, ex-girlfriends. That was good. Thank you. I'm impressed. I mean, a good British accent could truly sell anything. It's true. You were like, am I on the podcast with Prince Harry himself?

He also has to learn the types of skills a prince would have, including horseback riding, etiquette, ballroom dancing, fencing. Now, what would be the most important skill to have if you were trying to impersonate royalty? I think just like information. Like if they didn't know people's names or titles, that would be... If they didn't know how to fence, they'd be like, it's okay. Like maybe they... He just skipped his lessons. I think confidence, because if you're lessons? I think confidence.

Because if you're handsome and charming and very confident, I don't think they're going to question you if they're just so in awe with you. So I think you go in there just guns blazing like, this is me, I'm Prince Harry. And fuck you if you don't believe me. That's how I would do it. For sure. Well, now that he's found his prince and put him through a princess diaries level of royal training,

Fenton starts casting the women who will be competing for Harry's phony hand. Now, one of the women they cast who will be keeping an eye on is Kimberly Birch. She's 23 years old. She's an aspiring actor. Now Kimberly is initially on the fence about auditioning, but a friend convinces her to give it a shot.

It's like your mom always warned you, if your friend jumped off a bridge into a weird British reality show, would you jump too? And she would. That's the answer. And she would. And she did. Yeah. Now, another contestant is Rose Bricklin. One important thing to note, Rose has relatives who live in England. So if anybody is going to be able to catch on to the ruse, it might be her. At the very least, once they get to the UK, she'll know what side of the road to drive on.

That's good. That's important. Very. So Fenton and the producers are very vague when describing the premise of the show to the women they're casting. According to Kimberly, she basically thought it was going to be a knockoff of The Bachelor. And at this point in the reality TV ecosystem, you probably could get a show greenlit that was just pitched as The Bachelor, but British. So in the defense of these contestants, I guess,

you know, they're creating the show as it goes. So maybe there's like, oh, it's a new show. Like, and if the director didn't know, then I don't think there was ever really even an answer of what it was. So, yeah. So with his fake Prince and contestants cast, Fenton has all the elements in place. And the stakes are high with $15 million from Fox and Ryan Seacrest's cred as a producer on the line. How do you think they go about convincing the contestants that this guy is actually Prince Harry?

I don't think it would have taken that much from being honest. Actually, yeah. I mean, how did they do it? They just show him a photo and be like, this is the guy you're going to be dating. He's famous in Britain. They're probably like, oh my God, it's Prince Harry. Yeah, I don't know. I'm actually very curious when it binges the show after this podcast. Same. after this podcast. Yeah, same. Well, when filming finally starts, initially at least, no one on the show explicitly tells the women that the man they're going to be dating is actually Prince Harry. The women are told only that they're going to be seeing

an eligible bachelor. And Matthew is only ever referred to as Sir, not Harry or Prince anything. So while nobody is outright saying that the Bachelor is the Prince, at least not yet, Fenton and the producers go to great lengths and great expense to very strongly suggest that this is Prince Harry.

For one thing, the women are all taken to an estate in the country, a very regal setting. The Harry may be fake, but Fenton has found a very fancy location that is the real deal. So, let's take a look at a photo. This is the Englefield House, the estate where the show was filmed. Oh, wow. I saw that on the YouTube clip.

It's beautiful. Oh, my gosh, it's gorgeous. I would do the show just to stay there. 100%. Yeah. Could you describe it to the listeners? It's giving almost like countryside, castle like very, very huge, lots of windows.

It's like massive. Like that's where the royal family lives. Like wherever you picture the royal family living. Other than Buckingham Palace. Yeah. This is our vacation home. If you're from a family living. Other than Buckingham Palace. Yeah. Mm-hmm. The certification, oh. If you're from a small town, all of you can fit there.

Yeah, exactly. You know? And that's not the only bit of Fenton's budget-inflating fakery. On the first day, Matthew, our phony Harry, arrives at the castle in a helicopter, and when he emerges, he's surrounded by security guards, who are also, of course, played by actors. In the third episode, Kimberly gets chosen to go on a one-on-one date with Matthew,

and during a romantic stroll in the woods, Fenton has a fake paparazzi swarm them to create the illusion that there's a real tabloid feeding frenzy going on. And in the middle of a different date, Fenton and the producers also fake a security alert and have the bodyguards rush Matthew away to safety. Yeah, see like that, those would be giveaways for me. Like I would be like, this is so fake.

Like this is all, especially at 2014 going on a reality show, you were like, really like, don't believe anything. Yeah, but think about it. This is like 20 year old girls from the US, like they're not casting experts on the Royal Family because they want them to believe it. They're probably just like, I guess this is what it's like in Britain. Like, yeah, but I will say, I feel like, what's the other guy's name? Andrew Prince Harry and Prince William? Prince William. See, you would definitely fall for this. You don't even know

his name. I know what they look like. And I feel like they were constantly on the cover of Star magazine and People Man. And that's where people got their news. I guess. Their pop culture news. Yeah, I don't know. Joe, if there were no expense spared, how would you try to convince them with some expensive trickery? I would bring in like a hypnotist or something. Just have it hidden in their contracts

that they consent to be hypnotized. Well, what I would try to do is I would attempt to get approval from the royal family. And then I would bring in the actual Prince William and like be like, hey, just have a conversation and then be like, oh, then that's him. I truly believe that what they're doing is more than enough to convince 40% of the population.

No, I think the less the better, little conversations. You even dress a woman up. It's so easy to look like the queen. You have just the gown, the white hair, a little hat. So you want a whole family of impersonators. You don't want just Prince Harry. You want Queen Elizabeth being impersonated. Yes, but just for small moments and they never even have a conversation.

I'm sorry. So you're going to say paparazzi is doing too much. Need the entire royal family up in this bitch. Okay. Well as it is, Fenton is sparing no expense to create the illusion that he's hoping will turn into ratings gold. And even Fenton's lower budget tricks are still quite elaborate. He and the producers mock up fake tabloids about Prince Harry

looking for a wife and just leave them all around the manor. And Fenton and the production team also have people stand outside the contestants' room and whisper loud enough for the women to hear them about Buckingham Palace and how upset the royal family is about the show. That I don't hate. The whispering outside the door I don't hate, but like leaving little magazines.

I would never fall for that. The whispering, I would be like, if I was quarantined in my room and I heard people like whispering out the door, I'd be like, ooh, I'm intrigued. I'm believing this. But as for Matthew Hicks, fake Harry, he later said that he really wanted to avoid out and out lying to the women.

He is told by Fenton and the producers to just be vague about his background. So if any of the women started asking him questions that were getting too close to the truth, either truth, Hicks strategy was to flip things around and ask them questions. So the shoot lasts five weeks and that entire time the women also aren't able to get on the internet. Oh my gosh, the horror. Now all the effort and expense would be for nothing and Fenton's dreams of regal ratings

would be over if the contestants were able to even do one quick little Google search. What's the longest you've ever gone without internet access? When I filmed The Bachelor. The Bachelor, yeah. Which would have been, I was there for seven weeks? Two months? I've probably five weeks for me. Four to five weeks.

Yeah. Yeah. But honestly freeing. Yeah, honestly. But here's a question as our resident experts. When you are in that kind of bubble and without all of the outside distraction, how does that play into, like, you overthinking this, like, everything that's going on and being hyper-focused on just, like, the situation that you're in?

Like, these women would have been with a fake Harry. Oh, you definitely, I would say, it makes it easier to start believing everything that you're hearing. I also think when you don't have any form of entertainment, like books or you're not going to the gym usually, like anything, all you have to do is talk. So you talk, you talk, you talk. And then it's pretty easy to talk yourself into...

I can see sitting with other girls, you talk for seven hours straight and all of a sudden you've all convinced each other that this is Prince Harry. And even like in paradise, the dumb shit that we found entertaining because we were just, we didn't have- You're just so bored. Yeah, you have no content from the outside world.

And all you have to do is talk about what's going on with the people around you. So as all this is going on, the producers also have to contend with the skepticism of contestant Rose Bricklin, the one with family in Britain. Rose, she didn't buy the whole Prince Harry thing for a second. She says when people first started saying they thought it was Prince Harry, I right away was like, oh my God, no, you can't be that dumb. Well, first of all, shame on casting.

Like, there's millions of people, millions of women out there. Why are you casting someone that has family in England? Well, we do have a piece of the puzzle a little later on that makes me think that they did want a little bit of drama in there with people who didn't quite believe. Yeah, OK. You know how they create things with editing. So Rose says she tried to find one-on-one moments

with other contestants to try to convince them of the truth, including when they were alone in the bathroom together. And Fenton was reportedly not happy about that. So I can understand wanting a little bit of drama, but not the drama going around and trying to spread that around everybody else. Yeah, he's like, keep your opinions to yourself. Like shut your mouth and keep it to yourself. When filming isn't going on, the contestants are reportedly forbidden from talking to each other. Perhaps

a strategy to stop Rose's suspicions from spreading. Kimberly even claims that the production brought in a fake therapist to have a talk with anyone who started to suspect what was really going on. That's wild. Like impersonating a therapist, there's got to be some like repercussions for that. Well I bet you it's in the contract. I bet you in the contract, it's like everyone on set is an actor, but like it's probably just in the middle of a 65 page contract. Well, as the show goes on, Fenton has to go to even more trouble and spend even more money to keep up the ruse, which means the show gets even more bonkers.

The biggest close call of the series involves Kimberly and it comes when the show is down to the final three contestants. While out in London, Kimberly sees a Prince Harry mask in the window of a souvenir shop and guess what? The mask bears absolutely no resemblance to the guy she's been going on dates with for the last four weeks. If you're a producer on the show, what would you do? I would just be like, shut up. We're filming a show. Just go with it.

We're so far. We've gotten this far. Just go with it. Just go with it. He's not going to pick you. Yeah. Just stick around until he sends you help. Yeah.

Well, Fenton comes up with an idea and credit where credit is due, it's actually pretty brilliant. That night, he has a new mask made based on Matthew's face, puts that mask in the same shop window and the next day sends the women back to the shop so they see the new, more convincing mask to reinforce the deception. That is messed up. That is some psychological torture. That is gasoline like I've never seen before. Like so crazy.

She's told everyone probably I saw this mask. It doesn't even look like him. They all go back and they're like, girl, what are you talking about? It looks exactly like him. Straight up lying. Yeah. Though it appears to work on the show, behind the scenes, Kimberly says that this is the moment when she realized that it was all a bunch of royal BS. Now it must have been pretty tiring to figure out exciting new ways to gaslight the contestants because eventually Fenton completely runs out of ideas and just flat out lies to the remaining women, telling them that it is actually Prince Harry. Also, come on, couldn't you come up

with like one more elaborate ruse, hire an actress to pretend to be the queen, like Joe said, come on, use your imagination. Like after all of this, just gonna give up at the end and be like, all right. But despite this all out deception, things continue to go off the rails as the final episode approaches. In a scene in the second to last episode, our skeptical contestant Rose Bricklin confronts Matthew and calls him out saying,

I know you're not Prince Harry. She's still here? She's still here. Top three. Come on, Queen. She's known the whole time. Mm-hmm. Now Hicks admits that she's right and because she knows the truth, Rose gets sent home. But just like that pumpkin that got turned into Cinderella's carriage, things are not what they appear to be. To make things even more confusing, apparently that entire scene was

deceptively edited and Rose never actually confronted Matthew. Oh, what? Jesus. That's a lot of work. This show sucks. So to recap, we have a fake prince being called out for being a fake in a scene that itself was fake. I mean, this is truly an inception of deception. Yeah. Let's take a look at a clip of that scene. Oh, amazing. I really like you and I really like feel like we have a connection. But I think both of us know the truth. What is the truth? What do you think? I know you're not Prince Harry. No, I'm not Prince Harry.

Prince Arya. That was a lie. Okay. I see how they did it. They used a lot of frank inviting. I mean, it was pretty good to me. It was pretty good to me. It does. I would know. I would believe. I believe that. It looks so real. Music's key. So finally, after a toga party, boot camp obstacle course, beauty pageant, and many, many other expensive and elaborate events, Kimberly is crowned the winner. Matthew meets

with her one-on-one to tell her that he's chosen her. But just a moment after that, he also has to tell her the truth. Now, keep in mind, Kimberly says that at this point she is well aware that this is not actually Prince Harry. So let's take a look at the moment when Kimberly finds out that Harry isn't actually Harry. There's one more thing you should know. Oh no. What? I'm not Prince Harry. He looks so much like him. Oh my god.

My name is Matthew. Are you serious right now? That's the girl I would have expected him to end up with. Good actress. But I guess you don't know until you know. Everyone around you and all these signs are pointing to the fact that he is. Yeah. So even if she's like, I think it's not him until someone actually says no, it's not him. He's going to have a little bit of doubt. She's probably still

deep down hoping that she's getting engaged to Prince Harry. Who wouldn't? So after the revelation, Kimberly says she doesn't care that he's not a prince and she's going to stay with him. And after that, there's one final twist. Because Kimberly and Matthew have found true love, or at least were smart enough to fake it for the cameras, they both get $125,000. Nice. I love that. Yay!

Now, frankly, I think Kimberly should have gotten all of the money because she had to put up with way more. But Ryan Seacrest, at least, was convinced this would be a classic TV moment for the ages. Let's take a look at a clip. I knew the ending, and then I got the footage of the ending, which is really... The ending is so beautiful. It's spectacular.

And it's the most... It was like one of those great, great, priceless, priceless television moments. I couldn't stop watching. I don't think Ryan Seacrest is as into the show. I think he's just doing his job as a producer trying to create press. He's a salesman. But we've really raised the bar on reality TV from what I'm picking up on after watching this, like... Oh, my God. For sure. Jeez. I have to agree with you that he can't truly believe

what he's saying because in terms of classic TV moments, how would you rank this from zero to ten, with ten being the moon landing? Like a 0.2, yeah. Like zero. Like, there's... Like, it's a good moment, but we're not incorporating this into history. Yeah.

In order for that to like be like a 10, the actual Prince Harry needed to show up and be in the background like, but I'm him. That would have been crazy. And I'm here for you. I've been watching you the whole, yeah, I've been watching the whole time. Oh yeah. And then she gets to decide, so who do you want? Do you want Matthew or Harry? the whole time. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And then she gets to decide, so who do you want? Do you want Matthew or Harry? Or the money? Yeah. Okay. We're pitching it. We should. So Fenton managed to hold the show together until the very end, and now he's hoping that

this truly blinding amount of gaslighting will pay off big time when an American audience finally gets to see it. And how do you think the viewers in the US respond to the show? Well, it kind of is the whole concept is like Americans are stupid and we're going to fool them. And I feel like that's probably how they felt really badly about it. Yeah, I would say it didn't do well at all. I would say people probably said some horrible things about the contestants, the fake Harry, and the whole show, right?

Yeah. Well, after all the trickery, manipulation, fake hair coloring, I Want to Marry Harry finally premieres in the US on May 20th of 2014, right after American Idol, so a primo TV spot. Yeah. Now, you will probably not be shocked to learn that the reviews are abysmal. One review describes the show as, fodder for the brain dead.

A group of reviewers writes that while watching the show, we just got sad. I Wanna Marry Harry can't even meet the rather low standards of the good bad reality show. It's just bad. Ugh. One headline asks the question, is I Wanna Marry Harry the worst reality show concept of all time? Another describes it as a dating show for sociopaths.

Yeah. I also think if the prince, the guy that they casted as the prince had like, like if he had like a fuck boy personality or something where it was like. Well, like the girls didn't even care. Like even if it's not Harry, I want this man. Yeah.

That's what you needed. Or if he was just like, they needed to cast someone that was like a star and like watching, cause you're like, this guy's so nuts, and he's obviously not Prince Harry, but it's fun, and we're like in on it with him. Versus him just being this kind of like lackluster British ginger. You know what I'm thinking? Like, watching the clips of the show

that I've seen, there were no characters to really latch on to. Like, where was the villain? Where was all of the drama, like the flavor of love, and those kinds of things that Americans were so used to just a few years prior to this? It was just like a little doll. They were really hanging their hat on the concept alone. Well, I think it's very season one.

And I think because it wasn't too strong of a concept, and then they had to probably make so many adjustments during filming that it just... And editing it seems like. Yeah, like they probably just couldn't get there. But like, bring it back. They could have easily had Rose actually call him out, but they didn't and then they were like,

we need to add some stuff in here and then they edited it together. So these reviews, they got a sting a bit, but this was never going to be a critical darling. A show like this is all about the ratings. So, how did I want to marry Harry Do with the viewers? Well, the first episode gets fewer than two million viewers. To put this into perspective, The first episode gets fewer than 2 million viewers.

To put this into perspective, almost 7 million people watched the American Idol episode that was on right before. So that's about 5 million people who took one look at Harry and said, no thanks. And in the weeks after, the ratings only get worse. It no longer has American Idol as an intro and by the fourth week, it's down to under one million viewers. Yeah. And this is the time of live TV, right? They're just streaming it. So everyone was just like watching American Idol and then being like, well, I'm just going to leave

this channel on to see what's on next. Yeah. So for them to be like, ew, gross, change the channel, gotta be pretty bad. Yeah. So on June 12th, after just four episodes, I Wanna Marry Harry is pulled from broadcast. The rest of the episodes are unceremoniously dumped on Fox.com and Hulu. After hiring extras, renting a castle and helicopters, and spending so much energy manipulating the contestants, Fenton's work was basically all for

nothing. This frog of a show never turned into a prince, no matter how many times the producers kissed it. So what's more embarrassing if you're a contestant on the show? Having the entire thing air on national TV or going through all of that and on the show, having the entire thing air on national TV or going through all of that and having the show get canceled and put on Hulu, which wasn't even that big of a platform at the time. I would just be like, Hey, you know, new experience. I want to, I want to try it out. Like I think as a contestant, it would have sucked to go through. But then also you've now gotten excited that it's like, you're're gonna watch it back. But at the same time, I'd be like, that's not my fault.

Like, I didn't create this show. I didn't cast myself. Exactly, and I feel like I would feel worse if I was the fake Prince Harry because he's technically the star of the show. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

He'd be like, I did all that for nothing? Knowing what you know about the show, and if you had seen the first four episodes, would you have gone out of your way to go watch it on streaming? No, no, yeah, never. No, no, especially not Hulu at the time. Like, yeah, it wasn't that big of a thing. I'm not downloading Hulu to watch this show.

I mean, I'm going to go out of my way now to watch it. But the thing is, we're going to turn it on and in 15 minutes we're going to be like, no, I get it. Like turn it off. I don't know. I'm intrigued. I might binge this whole show right now. So let's do a little, where are they now?

Rose Bricklin is now a full-time mom. Kimberly Birch continues to act as well. And she also got an MA in drama therapy. She and Matthew did not continue a romantic relationship, but they did remain friends, at least for a while after the show is over. I guess the accent wasn't so sexy after all. Matthew Hicks is working on becoming a physics teacher. You remember that lesson from physics class?

A body impersonating Prince Harry will continue impersonating Prince Harry unless an outside force cancels your show. Hicks also still does some work involving his resemblance to Harry. In 2018, he appeared in a commercial alongside a lookalike Meghan Markle. God, I need to see that.

Yeah, good for him. Danny Fenton continued producing. However, none of his subsequent projects, which includes sports documentaries like Ultimate Goal and Player Pranks, had the Seacrest approved high profile of I Wanna Marry Harry. And just this year, his production company

was insolvent and shut down. Damn. Damn. You know what? I was really hoping for a comeback from this guy. Me too. This year, his production company was insolvent and shut down. Damn. You know what? I was really hoping for a comeback from this guy. Me too. He's the creator of Love Island. I'd be like, awesome. That would be crazy. Yeah.

So finally, we could spend literally days trying to recap everything that's happened to the real Prince Harry over the last 10 years. But he did wind up getting married to Meghan Markle, who is an American and also an actress, just like Kimberly. So maybe the premise of the show wasn't so crazy after all. That's actually really a crazy coincidence. So here on The Big Flop, we try to be positive people and end on a high. So are there any silver linings that you can think of that came about from I Want to Marry Harry?

I bet there were moments as a contestant where it was enjoyable. I would say everyone that left that show left with a crazy story. It's like a good fun fact, a good two truths and a lie. It's always going to be like, if you were a contestant, you're like, yeah, I was on this crazy dating show where I thought I was dating Prince Harry

and they were lying to me the whole time. Like that's a great story. I think it's something fun to like show your kids. Like you guys want to see something really crazy? Check out this show. That's your mom. I like it. Yeah.

You know, I was thinking like Kimberly and Matthew, they got some money out of it. You're doing just fine. If someone was going to pay me $125,000 to do that, I would probably do it too. Probably. Yeah. Another thing, this show is so crazy. We've covered a couple other shows from the early aughts of reality television that have been out of control. And there are now efforts being made to unionize reality TV stars to help protect them from, yiddo, being isolated, gaslit, and lied to,

like the contestants on this show. So that's good. Yeah. So now that you both know about I Want to Marry Harry, the faux royal reality show that inspired a revolt among both critics and TV viewers? Would you consider this a baby flop, a big flop or a mega flop? A mega flop.

I would say a baby flop. Oh, what do you think? I guess in the realm of the reality shows that we've covered, this wasn't as bad. The other two have been pretty, they were really horrible against women and they were really horrible against children. This one was people just going on a dating show and thinking they were. Okay, so maybe baby flop.

Same prints, little baby flop. Well, thanks so much to our love guru, Serena Pitt and Joe Amabali for joining us here on The Big Flop, and thanks to all of you for listening. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review. And if you want more flops about truly egregious reality TV, check out our episodes on The Swan and Kid Nation.

Next week, we'll be back with another flop that's probably not for those with a weak stomach. We're talking pink slime. Bye! See you later. Bye! The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and At Will Media, hosted by Misha Brown, produced by Sequoia Thomas, Harry Huggins, and Tina Turner, written by Anna Rubinova and Luke Burns, engineered by Anna Rubinova with support from Andrew Holzberger. Managing producer is Molly Getman.

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