Update on Darva Conger: What’s she doing now?

Now we’re used to reality dating shows and reality show gimmicks in general, but 14 years ago we were all a little green when nurse Darva Conger won the grand prize on Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? and married supposed multi-millionaire Rick Rockwell on the spot.

Even by today’s standards this show would be shocking. It aired a single two-hour show February 15, 2000, and was set up like a beauty pageant. Rick Rockwell was seen by a group of 50 women only in silhouette. After a series of beauty pageant-style elimination, Rick chose Darva, who got an expensive engagement ring and over $100,000 of prizes. The immediate wedding, however, was a disaster of an idea. The couple spent their Barbados honeymoon in separate rooms and Darva told Good Morning America that she was “not married to him. In my heart I’m not married to him.” The marriage was no consummated, and it was annulled April 5, 2000.

It turned out that not only was Rick Rockwell not his real name (Richard Balkey,) and some of the details about his jobs and assets seemed fishy, but an ex-girlfriend had filed a restraining order against him. She claimed that he had assaulted and stalked her after she broke of their engagement.

The next year, in 2001, Darva and Rick reunited for a tense conversation on Larry King. “I don’t understand how somebody could go on a show like that – there is nothing ambiguous about the title of the show,” Rockwell vented.

Conger admitted that “it was a dumb thing to do,” but claimed that she thought the producers had already rearranged for Rockwell to marry someone else. On the show she had given a moving speech to Rockwell, but now said they were words from her heart for “someone else.”

Oprah’s Where Are They Now? caught up with Darva Conger now in 2014. She says she did the show because she had a rough year with her father dying, her mother falling ill, and having her heart broken by a boy. She said she thought going on a TV show might get his attention.

Darve said that she was so shocked and panicked when she was picked and saw Rick Rockwell for the first time that she “didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t do anything.” Afterwards she knew they had to undo what they did, but it turned out he had taken the marriage more seriously and took it hard when she told him her concerns and feelings. “I don’t with him harm. It was tough, though,” she admits. “I don’t think either one of us were at our best at that point in time.”

In the aftermath of the publicity explosion, Darva lost her job, so she decided to accept Playboy‘s offer to cover their magazine when they offered it. In another year, after everything died down a bit, Darva started working as a nurse again. She later got married, and had a son named Cassius, who has autism. The couple divorced in 2008, but Darva says they are still able to co-parent well. She’s also getting ready to tell her son about the Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? debacle before he finds out about in on the internet.

“We’ve all made a mistake. The unfortunate thing for me is that I made a pretty big mistake, or an error in judgement, in front of the whole world,” she says. “I have to turn things around so that people will be able to listen to me without it completely going through the back of their minds that I’m just another bubble-headed blonde on TV posing naked and doing stupid things on reality television. Yes, I did those things. No, they are not who I am. You have to learn from it, move on, and just enjoy life. It’s a great life.”