In the finale of NBC's For Love Or Money 3, a strange thing happened: love won out over money. But two of the discarded contestants, who already share a mutual dislike, will get to share a second chance to find love ... or money ... as the stars of NBC's For Love Or Money 4, which will debut on July 12.
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Rachel Veltri, a 26-year-old flight attendant from Chicago, and Andrea Langi, a 28-year-old "party planner from New Jersey" who is really a sometimes actress and former Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader (shades of Melana Scantlin), have been cast as the leads in the latest twist on the FLOM format. In this edition, Rachel and Andrea will compete against each other for the affections of 15 men. The woman who can convince the final man to pick her will get to choose between him and $1 million.
As an added trwist, Rachel and Andrea haven't liked each other since a dinnertime dispute during the second episode of FLOM3. Their dislike became so intense that Andrea insisted on telling Preston Mercer, the bachelor on the show, all about it during the fourth episode, one of the reasons she was ejected shortly thereafter, while Rachel reached the final two.
Rachel told both the viewing audience and the Chicago Sun-Times that, despite her "I'm-in-it-for-the-money" image, she would have chosen Preston over the money had Preston chosen her. "They didn't show it but I had real feelings for him," she said. "[But] they cast me as the evil character. The evil character can't be a real person, can't have a heart."
The check that she would have tossed aside turned out to be for $1 million. Even for a real person with a heart, $1 million is a lot of money to pass up ... but Rachel was spared the heartbreak of victory and will instead get a second chance to earn the cash (or maybe even find love).
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Considering that Andrea was the only woman to look at her original check (even though Rachel was shown as the "money-grubber") in FLOM3 and that Andrea has been involved in a real-life scandal, we think the odds on Rachel finding a happy ending (either financially or emotionally) seem fairly good.
Rachel also told the Sun-Times that she had been worried that airline passengers would be "throwing food at me and saying I was evil" when she returned to work after the way she was portaryed on FLOM3. Instead, they asked for her autograph and "said I was so sweet." We think Rachel may have learned one of the fundamental truisms of TV, from soap operas to sitcoms to reality-competition shows: a successful series generally needs a villain who still has the possibility of being reformed.
We'll see if Rachel's reformation will begin in For Love Or Money 4.