DC ExtraTime: The Original Real World Heartthrob

BY DC CUEVA                      

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

This summer as the channel's has experienced a new renewal, MTV announced a new production initiative that will see it embrace new territory in a new media world. The MTV Studios unit will focus itself on developing new series and reimagined versions of its most iconic hits and franchises, not only for the MTV channel itself but also subscription video on demand and other lineal outlets, including Netflix. Among those in the mix are new takes on MTV's groundbreaking animated series Daria and Aeon Flux and the coming of age series Made, plus new docuseries The Valley, set in a border town between the U.S. and Mexico during a pivotal time in this country.

   Another series that is being rebooted in the time of them in the television business is the one that started it all for MTV and for an entire genre: The Real World... the show invented modern reality television, established the channel's leadership in the genre, and set the stage for the current monster that is The Challenge. After diverting to embracing the kinds of themes that its spinoff and other series embraced that took away its thunder, the series will return to the format that made it famous in the first place: seven strangers picked to live in a house, cameras filming them 24/7 and watching what happens "when people stop being polite and start getting real."

During Champs vs. Pros last year, DCBLOG offered a look at when two members of the same Season 2 Real World cast from back in the day got to reconnect with two of those who lived with them when they helped to pioneer the show and a whole genre in its infancy. Beth Stolarczyk and Jon Brennan lived in The Real World Los Angeles house along Venice Beach in 1993 and shared quarters with the two they met last year -- Irishman Dominic Griffin and the show's first cast member to get married Irene Berrera. They, along with all-time reality icon Tami Roman, helped set the pace for the series and for a reality genre that's now part of the entertainment landscape in the digital age.

   And as another L.A. summer neared its end in late August - and in the same house where her reality story began and near the beaches he's spent his entire life, Beth and Real World Boston's Syrus Yarborough had the chance to hang out with one of those pioneers who paved the way for twenty-six years of MTV Reality television and begat the story of one of the most-renowned franchises in the entertainment industry.... one that began when most of the new generation of Challengers and those who are part of the MTV family were too young or weren't even around yet to remember. And in many ways, the subject of this post was a cult figure himself... he is Eric Nies: The Original Real World Heartthrob.

In May 1992, viewers were introduced to a new kind of television that changed the game for an entire industry: creators and producing partners Jon Murray and Mary-Ellis Bunim molded together their passions of documentary filmmaking and daytime soaps, and mixed in storytelling and story arcs in capturing young adults & strangers living together in a different city. The Real World struck a chord with viewers with that memorable first season in New York City, with six locals from throughout the Tri-State Area and an Alabama girl overwhelmed by big city life getting together in a loft in SoHo. And things were never the same, as the series began reality television as it's taken for granted now.

   A short letter was mailed to the first class of seven strangers that set down the laws of the land for this new venture. For Heather B., this experience saw her music being exposed to a larger audience and who still entertains folks everyday a quarter-century later on Sirius XM Radio. For Norman Korpi, him being the series' first gay roommate set the pace for the Real World/Challenge franchise to fully embrace the LGBT community - right up to Big Brother export Jozea on Final Reckoning. Kevin Powell became a noted writer, columnist and state legislator, but viewers remember him for getting into an argument on race on the streets with Julie Gentry while attention was on the Rodney King trial. Becky Blasband committed an early no-no of getting into a relationship with a crew member while on vacation in Jamaica... and there was also long-haired rocker Andre Comeau too.

But the one roommate who shone the brightest in that first season was a 20-year-old down the ways from the Big Apple, in the beachside town of Ocean Township. Eric Nies was born into a family with a mom - Anna May, who spent her days teaching in preschool, and a dad - Jack Nies, who spent thousands of nights roaming basketball sidelines as an 30-year veteran NBA official. This son had been wondering what he had wanted to do next with everything that he had going for him and what the rest of his life would be. But when he found out from his agent about a project that would take three months out of living his normal life, little did Eric know what the future would hold for him.
   His original MTV bio read the following: "Eric is a charismatic young model straight out of Jersey. A guy with a troubled past, Eric deals regularly with trying to do the right thing and trying to make it in New York while still having a good time. In addition to modeling, Eric, who has also done some commercial work, gets a lot of attention because of his strikingly good looks. His volatile relationships with his girlfriend, sister, father and roommates are key stories this season."

Eric on a daytime talk show.

Eric turned out to be the last person to be cast onto the group of seven strangers, and he then became the first to ever enter a Real World house when he unlocked the doors of the new loft on the second floor at the corner of Broadway and Prince Street in SoHo - whose ground floor is now occupied by a Victoria's Secret store. Once there, Eric had ample opportunity to do what those roommates in the first few seasons got to do of pursuing their passions - and for him, it was familiar territory as he had been doing plenty of it before moving into the house.
   There, he got to strip down to his underwear on both a too-hot-for-TV commercial and a TV talk show, and also had many photo shoots with him being shirtless… a sight now commonplace on all reality shows in and outside the MTV bubble. Like what we would then see in RW seasons that were to follow, conflict also got into his head and he had it out with most of the housemates, and also developed a relationship with Julie. And in the season finale, Eric initiated a tradition that takes place off-camera during the final week of filming: him leading the cast to break behind the fourth wall to meet with the crew who works behind the scenes to make the magic happen.

   In the book, The Real Real World that came out before the London season in 1995, Eric discussed a unique experience that hundreds of others would then follow:

"Being on The Real World changed my life completely and totally, 360 degrees. If it didn't change everybody else's life, they didn't get out of it what they were supposed to. It was a very serious and very special opportunity for me to work with six people who were nothing like me at all. For me to get on to the show and hang out with six people that are totally different, and be there with them, was like a dream come true for me. It molded me into a perfect human being, and everything that you're supposed to be about."

Eric on The Grind.

Series co-creator Bunim wrote of him, "Eric has charisma to burn. And it was surprising that, as a 20-year-old, he was willing to open himself up to the camera., to be made so vulnerable. But Eric took risks that scared us. He'd hook up behind a bus and rollerblade uptown, or he'd drink and hang out on the window ledge. We were always worried about him. He had a nice relationship with Julie; they were the youngest in the cast. He had a contentious relationship with Heather and with Becky, and had some great discussions and fights with Kevin. He was never boring."
   For someone who was dubbed by his manager as "The Michael Jordan of The Real World," that experience of being part of a group of reality TV pioneers was just the beginning. MTV had a spot available of doing an afternoon dance show called The Grind, and offered Eric that spot of going from being seen once each week at night before bed to now being seen everyday after school. The Grind turned Eric into a bigger star than he can imagine... especially when he had the opportunity to again take off his shirt and do a workout video called The Grind Workout. He then found himself on talk shows promoting those videos, even leading the great Queen Latifah to ask how much they would pay him if he got to show his nipples.
   Eric wrote of his second MTV gig, "I love doing The Grind. It's a lot of fun for me. I love the kids... they got big hearts, they're all working hard. Everybody's smiling, having a good time... and that's what's important to me. I don't enjoy being in uncomfortable situations where people aren't having a good time. That's what I'm all about -- having a good time. Keep a smile on your face, and be happy."
   And it was in 1998 that he was part of the first cast of what would become The Challenge: an all-star Road Rules miniseries with Real World alums in 1998, followed by joining Road Rules OG Mark Long as co-host of the 2002 Battle of the Seasons challenge, and competing himself on Battle of the Sexes a year later.

Eric on Battle of the Sexes 2
with Aneesa, Rachel, Katie
and Theo Von (MTV)

Ask any MTV reality alum past & present, and they'll likely tell you that the fame of being on the so-called "D-list" sometimes gets to them - the stress of getting to do many Challenge seasons at a time, the travel that sees these people sacrifice time with family and friends for the sake of giving us something to be entertained, or when a troll goes after them on social media. Long before Twitter, Instagram and Facebook would help make those who succeeded him become big stars, Eric had to deal with fame just after he had become part of an MTV family that consisted of VJ's, Kurt Loder and a small handful of other shows in a then small cable universe.
   For him, he had to deal as a teenager with what would become substance abuse, all as people were given the impression that he was that perfect guy who had become a teen idol who had morphed into a fitness guru. Behind the scenes was a totally different story, as he told Oprah Winfrey in an episode on the original Real World cast for her Where Are They Now series on her OWN network, things were not particularly rosy: "I had a manager that came into my life, I had no idea what I was getting into. And I was manipulated, controlled, lied to... I was so lost and confused. And after what I experienced, I wasn't excited about being in the entertainment industry anymore."
   There, that manager had extorted him of six figures in a time where the roll call of Real World & Road Rules alums were only a fraction of what the available & ever-growing Challenge draft list is now. And it was there that Eric came to an 8th generation Chinese medicine doctor and grandmaster of martial arts, Mac Dam, to put him in the right frame of mind amidst the madness of what was going on around him. Mac told him that if he stayed on the path he was going, things would never improve... and it was a wake-up call for Eric. After an experience where his body was cleaned out, was taught new things and a newfound process of self-realization, it was a six-year period that totally changed this one-time teen idol, and prepared him for life after The Real World in the true real world.

The likes of Johnny Bananas, Cara Maria, Devin, Kayleigh and the rest who have competed on The Challenge, lived in the Real World house, and searched for love on Are You The One and Ex On The Beach all have had the esteemed opportunity to travel the world and expand their horizons beyond the towns they call home when they're not away on adventures for business and pleasure. While he's only participated on three Challenges and traveled in an RV on the very first BMP spinoff twenty years ago, Eric's passport shows more than just Mexico and Jamaica where he competed on what was then The Real World/Road Rules Challenge.
   The list of worldly adventures Eric has embarked on are the ones that will make anyone want to take a second look at their bucket lists. His website lists everything such thrill-seeking journeys as going skydiving, cliff-jumping in Fiji and riding on a paddleboard; to things straight out of Survivor: fasting in a desert for an entire month, shearing sheep down in New Zealand or going deep-water diving in the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador. He's also made all-night treks in the Amazon, chanting with monks in the Himalayas, and braved the cold of diving into the frozen lake to save a puppy's life.
   But at the end of the day, all roads lead to home -- one that now sees him call the island of Kauai in Hawaii his i ka hale. And it was during this time of renewal that Eric found his faithful companion, Iona, while they were on a retreat. It was love at first sight for the both of them, so much so that within a month they decided to move in together and eventually become husband and wife. And in September 2014, they welcomed their first kid - and the magic moment took place at home: they did not trek to the hospital and there was no midwife on hand for the ultimate of life-changing moments... and when OWN cameras visited him, their son had just turned 10 weeks old.

Eric (center) with Beth & Syrus at
RW L.A. house. (IG @SyrusMTV)

More than a quarter-century after he and his original housemates made TV history, The Real World is about to reenergize itself in a whole new platform with a familiar formula - all as the channel that gave birth to a genre is riding a new wave of interest thanks to digging into its proud past - returns of Jersey Shore and The Hills included - and offering a bridge to the next generation of what it does best: giving the world TV's most-talked about reality series. And it was late last month that three alumni who got to experience this one-of-a-kind journey got together ahead of the series' return as part of MTV's dive into binge-worthy television.
   As he has done so many times at countless get-togethers including three reunion specials, Eric got to meet up with Syrus and Beth at the house in Venice Beach where she, Jon, Tami and the rest of the Season 2 cast had the tall task of following up him and Season 1. They had the opportunity to share this mini-reunion with the social media world and with their phones - something that were only pipe dreams during that totally rad decade of the 90's. This marked the first time in 25 years that Beth stepped foot inside her Real World residence - which included the series' very-first hot-tub and confessional room - now standards in every reality house, along with walking through the hallway that saw Tami get into it with David (which led to him being the first RW roommate to be evicted), and soaking in the sun on the rooftop overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
   For some added perspective to this meeting of three OG's - which included a Facebook Live hit, twenty-one of the thirty-two competitors on the current season of The Challenge were alive when Eric's Real World premiered on May 21, 1992. The oldest member of this season's cast, Veronica, and host TJ Lavin were in the last weeks of their academic year in elementary school, while many others were running around in their diapers... and Amanda, Ashley M., Derrick H., Hunter, Jenna, Joss, Kailah, Kam, Kyle, Melissa and Tori weren't even born when Eric unlocked that SoHo loft.

Real world Venice beach house with @syrusmtv @NiesEric #mtv we missed you @TamiRoman @revisiting memories @jonbrennan_com @davidedwards1 @MTVClassic @TheChallengeMTV pic.twitter.com/goM8cWuqlR

— beth stolarczyk (@MTVBeth) August 28, 2018

When factoring in the additional roommates of the most recent incarnations of the twist seasons late in its run, there is an all-time total of two-hundred & forty-one roommates in Real World history. And when you add those who've appeared on the fourteen Road Rules seasons, the seven Are You The One? seasons, this year's Ex On The Beach, the two classes of Fresh Meat and those from Big Brother and Britain who've invaded The Challenge in the past year, and the total of those who've been part of what we call the Trifecta nearly doubles to five-hundred & sixty-nine cast members.
   But there is only one group who truly lay claim to being the originals: the ones who set the bar for a genre and introduced a new form of television that, along with music videos, are MTV's bread & butter. And for Eric Nies, he was one of those original seven strangers on the first season of The Real World who got to take off his shirt, who butted heads with the roommates, became a idol who then showed off his abs on an afternoon dance show, and helped compose the first volume of the channel's ongoing reality story that continues all these years later.
   When Beth came up to him in front of the RW Los Angeles house while he was in town last month, Eric made the bold claim on behalf of his New York roommates, "I started this. I told you, I'm an elder of the tribe." He was one of those who set the trail, and who became the first Real World alum to cross over into another MTV series... a practice that's now par for the course in having last week seen a Real World alum, a girl from AYTO who he met on a Challenge and her baby daughter become the newest members of the Teen Mom family.
   We've had hundreds of incredible personalities who've embraced our screens over the past twenty-six years, but there's only one original heartthrob of MTV Reality television: Eric Nies.

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ExtraTime stories like those above represent a core element in DCBLOG's distinctive look Inside MTV Reality, providing glimpses into the broad history of The Real World/Challenge franchise, the people who are part of this unique experience, and the whole world of ours told through the prism of the shows you love. We also offer traditional weekly episode coverage of recaps, analysis and opinions, but we go a step further offering exclusive running diaries of all the social media buzz and reaction to the episodes every weekend. Bookmark this site for our much-acclaimed, high-caliber content, and share these links with your followers, friends and fellow fans in offering something for everyone... and if you have thoughts, tweet to @DC408Dxtr. Thanks and enjoy.

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