Pete Rose is joining the reality TV world.
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Pete Rose and Kiana Kim Family Project, the show's working title, will feature the engaged couple attempting to make a long-distance relationship work with plans to wed in their near future.
Rose, a 71-year-old who holds the record for Major League Baseball's all-time leading hitter but got banned from baseball for gambling on games during his Cincinnati Reds managing gig, and Kim, a former Playboy model in her 30s, live in different cities under separate roofs.
Rose currently works and resides in Las Vegas where he reportedly makes public appearances and signs sport memorabilia, while Kim is raising her two children in Los Angeles -- a lifestyle which has forced Rose's family to become skeptical of their relationship -- with the hopes of bringing the family together.
"She's got younger kids and I've got [four adult] kids, and we go through the same things everybody else does: taking the braces off, making sure they get their education and they go to basketball practice or acting class," Rose told Entertainment Weekly.
"It's not going to be classless -- like it seems like a lot of reality shows aren't really reality, but our reality show is going to be funny, entertaining, and real."
The show will also chronicle how Rose's past further complicates the couple's lives, as Kim and her family know little about Rose's controversial history or his side of things, and Rose considers appealing with the commissioner again to discuss reinstatement into Major League Baseball backed by much support from his friends, family and fans. If Rose gets reinstated, it would mean he'd be eligible for induction into the sport's Hall of Fame, which his 1989 banning has prevented.
"Pete is one of sport's most controversial characters, and his life is even more fascinating off the field as it was on," TLC executive Amy Winter said in a statement.
"This series will open the door into a very modern family dynamic of trying to blend families when your kids are no longer children, and when your private life is in the public spotlight."
TLC has ordered five episodes of Pete Rose and Kiana Kim Family Project, which is being produced by Creature Films Inc., to air later this year.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
