Q&A: Melissa Howard
‘Real World’ alum is behaving badly and loving it

By T.J. DeGroat

The ride hasn’t always been smooth, but four years after achieving reality TV stardom, “Real World” alum Melissa Howard is exactly where she wants to be.

Howard, 27, has spent the past two years fooling unsuspecting victims on the prank show “Girls Behaving Badly,” one of Oxygen’s flagship programs. The girls have tricked people into believing they were eating cheese made from breast milk and mortified delivery men who thought they were handling boxes containing mail-order brides.

Cameras have been a ubiquitous part of Howard’s life since 1999, when reality super-producers Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray cast her as one of seven strangers living together in a New Orleans mansion. Sometimes controversial, always hysterically funny, Howard was one of that season’s breakout stars.

Her subsequent move to Los Angeles and the trials and tribulations that come with working in Hollywood have provided comedy gold for Howard’s Web site, www.princessmelissa.com, where she writes about embarrassing moments, celebrity sightings and offers up other hilarious vignettes. She shared some of those stories and her thoughts on twentysomething success with Hatch.

First of all, congrats on the new car [Howard recently wrote about buying her first luxury vehicle].

[Laughs] Wow. Thank you. I’ve never been happier. I can’t explain it. It’s really like getting a master’s degree. To finally have air conditioning shouldn’t be that big a deal, but it is amazing. Luxury, after all of these years.

That’s sort of a rite of passage for twentysomethings. You move up the corporate ladder, start making some decent money and reprioritize, realizing it’s all about status and luxury. Any tips you can share with our readers?

On going to the dealership? It is a total rite of passage and, for me, a passage into womanhood [Laughs].

In terms of tips, know somebody who knows somebody. If you want to buy a luxury car, you have to do your research. I spent days and days and days reading as much as I could. Why buy a really expensive car when you can spend less for the same quality?

Exactly. So, how did “Girls Behaving Badly” come to you?

I just went to an open audition about two years ago. They put you in a room with three other girls and have you bounce your ideas off of each other. I think I got to say like two sentences. I didn’t think I’d get it. Unless you’re someone’s kid it takes like 200 auditions to book something here. So, I’ve been really blessed and I’m in a really good space.

The show is insanely funny. How hard is it not to crack?

It’s very difficult not to crack. Sometimes you just do, so you pretend you’re having a coughing attack or something. After doing it for so long, the writing has gotten much more extensive and complex, so it’s difficult. But oddly enough, people have gotten increasingly gullible. We did one sketch where we had a dream-analysis session and tried to convince gay men they were really straight. And they were believing it! They were getting really upset.

Have you ever really pissed off anyone?

Nobody gets really pissed off. When you say, “You’re on TV,” they’re like, “Hell yeah!” There was one take where it took the dude a minute and then he was cracking up, laughing hysterically. It’s amazing the power being on TV has on you.

You’ve spent your post-college life in front of cameras. And you have this really high-quality Web site you use to share some pretty hysterical personal moments. We all know Google is pretty unforgiving, so is there any fear of putting out too much info or of anything coming back to haunt you?

Yes! That’s why writing a personal Web site is a very delicate science. It’s giving out info about yourself that you’re willing to hear again. You have to be careful. But I can’t just stop now. There’s a legion of cubicle dwellers who would get pissed. People count on me. If I don’t post for a week, I get hate mail, straight up. I’m part of the demise of corporate productivity and I love it.

It was really therapeutic post “Real World,” to get my side of the story out there. And sometimes I wanna stop. I don’t want everyone to know that my card got rejected at McDonald’s, but it’s a funny story.

Twentysomethings tend to stress about achieving success. These days there’s reality TV making stars out of young people and everywhere you turn there’s a “Mickey Mouse Club” alum or a Disney Channel star pulling in another million. Do you think our generation is facing more pressure to achieve success early on?

You just can’t get caught up in that. I’ve looked at TV before and been like, “Bitch can’t even spell and she’s writing checks for millions.” I get pissed. But you can’t hang on to it. These young people who are making insane amounts of money and doing series and getting Neutrogena ads, you can’t believe it’s a common thing. My idea of success is knowing I have four fresh Klondike bars in the freezer. And that makes me happy.

What do you think about the quarterlife crisis phenomenon?

I believe it. At 25, I was trippin’. I was in L.A. I had spent a year going on auditions and having everyone give me great feedback, and then nothing happens. I have a degree in journalism so I have something to fall back on. But 25 can be a terrible place to be because magazines profile young people making insane amounts of money.

How much pressure did you feel, or did you put on yourself, to achieve something greater, because it seems like it would be awfully tempting to live off of “Real World” for as long as possible.

Yeah, man. I learned very, very quickly. You come off the show and people treat you like you’re gonna be the biggest person ever to come off “Real World.” Agents are coming at you left and right. You’re 22 and your anonymity was there 24 hours before and now it’s not and you can’t just go back to your job because you hear, “Are you the girl on ‘Real World?’” every five minutes. It’s very detrimental to the progress of your life. I had no choice but to come here to L.A. It’s cliché, but I’m glad I did it.

When you come off “Real World” you have to get humble really quickly. I did a [production assistant] job on “The Jamie Fox Show” and someone asked me to get the bagels. I turned around like, “Are you talking to me?” But I did it. This is when my show was on the air, at the height of popularity and I’m getting Gladys Knight some Jamba Juice. Reality TV doesn’t mean shit unless you work twice as hard to prove yourself. That job was the hardest thing I ever did, but you just get over it.

That really translates to corporate America and the life of the average twentysomething. A lot of times you can’t just jump right into the perfect job; you may be filing or doing something less glamorous.

It’s hard but you just have to do it and get out of your ego. I had to swallow so much ego when I started. I was driving a ‘98 Honda Civic with no A/C. People were rolling up and asking, “Aren’t you Melissa from ‘Girls Behaving Badly?’” as I was fanning myself in the drive-thru.

But that’s OK because 2004 is gonna be the year for me [Laughs].

You spent a lot of time touring colleges and talking to students. What stands out about this generation of college kids? Are we gonna save the world? Because I know nobody else will.

That’s the truth. When I go to colleges, the freshmen, I mean, just are so grown. The things they’re talking about, the smart ones, amaze me. They’re traveling, they have plans. They’re using their parents’ money well. I don’t really believe that the stoner college kid movies represent the norm at college campuses. They’re really into politics and shaping the world. Young kids today are on a good path.

And young kids are pissed off enough to do something. You have this automatic rage when you go to college. That’s essential for changing this country. You really have to get angry. I don’t really think people are that apathetic. This generation is very much together.

Well, I know the show is great and I’m sure you’d like to stay with it for a long time, but what is your ultimate career goal, maybe 10 or 20 years down the road?

Wow, 10 or 20 years? That would make me 37 and 47. I would really like to have a body of works published. The Web site is a really good exercise for processing the fear of having your words out there, finding out whether people like them or not. So, I would like to publish something. I would like to continue doing TV work. I really like hosting. The process of auditioning, although really scary and ulcer-inducing, for some reason, I like it.