The women were not aware that the bachelor, Evan Marriott, was in fact a working-class
construction worker.
The Smoking Gun later discovered that Marriott had also been an underwear model. A theme throughout the first season was Marriott's attempt to ascertain which of the twenty contestants were sincere and which ones were simply seeking a wealthy mate. Season 1 was helmed by showrunner and co-executive producer Liz Bronstein, whose vision of the show as a spoof of
The Bachelor and comedic send-up of reality shows was widely praised. The show made a minor star out of
Paul Hogan, the manservant whose role developed, in the words of the network, "into the glue that held the show together". Hogan was not actually the host of the program:
Alex McLeod was the program's host, although she appeared only briefly on each episode for an estimated total of five minutes during the six-episode season. Runner-up
Sarah Kozer received notoriety when the media reported during the course of the show that she had appeared in
bondage videos while she was attending law school. A scene from the show implied that Kozer and Marriott engaged in a sex act while out for a walk together. Marriott and Kozer claim no sex acts occurred. In the
VH1 program
VH1 News Presents: Reality TV Secrets Revealed she alleges that her statement, "let's go somewhere quiet" was in fact spoken while she was receiving a back massage from another female contestant and that the producers dubbed it in during post-editing and added suggestive sound effects and subtitles. The show's editors corroborated this fact later in an interview for
Radar magazine. Zora Andrich was the last woman to be chosen by Marriott, and they split a bonus prize of $1 million. Their relationship did not last.
Joe Millionaire was filmed primarily at the
Château de la Bourdaisière in the countryside of the commune of Montlouis-sur-Loire in the
Indre-et-Loire département in France. Marriott is said to have made upwards of $2.5 million between Fox Networks payout, personal appearances, and commercials. In 2004, he hosted the less popular
Game Show Network show
Fake A Date. Marriott went back to contracting in Orange County, California, and started his own business. In hiring a bachelor, Marriott explained that Fox "needed a guy that was in construction but didn't have kids, hadn't been in jail, wasn't on drugs." The series was highly successful for Fox; the two-hour season finale was seen by at least 34.6 million viewers, which made it one of Fox's highest-rated entertainment programs to date. Fox stated that, excluding
Super Bowl lead-outs, it was the highest-rated entertainment program on television since the
first season finale of
Survivor in 2000. ==
The Next Joe Millionaire==