For those who are unfamiliar with the name, Patti Stanger is an American businesswoman who runs a matchmaking service for millionaires called Millionaire’s Club International, Inc., which is featured on her reality TV shows The Millionaire Matchmaker and Million Dollar Matchmaker. However, it should be noted that there are plenty of reasons to suspect that the picture painted by the reality TV shows might not be such a faithful representation of the truth.
Why Patti Stanger Isn’t the Matchmaker that We Are Supposed to Think She Is
First, Stanger was the one who pitched a reality TV show based on her business to the TV studios. At the time, her business bore little resemblance to how it is shown on the reality TV shows, consisting of just Stanger and her former right-hand woman Chelsea Autumn working out of her home. In other words, the office was something set up for the reality TV shows, while the rest of Stanger’s employees were brought on for the same purpose. While reality TV shows often have something of a tenuous connection to the truth of things, this was stretching it even by those lax standards.
Second, the people who appear on the reality TV shows are not actually representative of Stanger’s clients. In her own words, Stanger has stated that her clients are a much more reserved bunch of people, meaning that they would not be interested in showing up on the TV screen. Instead, both the supposed millionaires seeking love and the women looking for millionaires are chosen for the reality TV shows, which has had some rather mixed results. This can be seen in how one supposed millionaire named Michael Prozer who had claimed to be worth $400 million because of a South African version of Paypal was actually a convicted fraudster who had been sentenced to 8 years in prison at one point in time.
Third, the people who appear on the reality TV shows don’t seem to be shown in a truthful manner. Granted, this is based on their complaints about what has happened to them because of their choice to appear on the reality TV shows, but considering the sheer number of complaints out there, it seems possible that there could be a real fire behind the smoke. More than one of the people who appeared on the reality TV shows looking to find love have claimed that they were set up by the crew to make them look worse than they actually are and increase the chances of a confrontation between them and Stanger on the screen.
Fourth, some of the matchmaking recommendations seem to be rather questionable. For example, the reality TV shows have shown Stanger recommending women to straighten their hair because that is what the men wanted. However, that seems like setting up a potential relationship to fail in the long run because of what will happen once the women become sick of having to keep their hair looking a particular way. For that matter, if the men had genuinely been insistent about finding someone with straight hair, the simpler and much more straightforward choice for a matchmaker seems like it would have been choosing a woman with naturally straight hair as opposed to forcing a woman with naturally curly hair to straighten it.
Finally, there is a fair amount of evidence to suggest that Stanger is hard to get along with, as shown by the recordings of the matchmaker screaming at her stylist. Considering the importance of positive personal interactions in relationships, one cannot help but suspect that a short temper might not be the best characteristic to have as a matchmaker.
