When fashion merchandising senior Rachel Svetlecic showed up in New York City at an audition she found on Craigslist, she had no idea she would end up going on a televised date with a reality TV star.
Svetlecic said she was in New York this summer because she had an internship with a fashion public relations firm, but it fell through on her first day in the city.
“I was determined to stay in New York,” Svetlecic said. “I wanted to go on auditions, act, model, wait tables, whatever I had to.”
Svetlecic said on her third day in the city, she went to a hotel to attend an audition she had found on Craigslist listed under “gigs” and was shocked to find that she had stumbled onto the set of the Bravo TV show “The Millionaire Matchmaker.”
Before she knew it, Svetlecic ended up on the show.
She said once she was screened by production assistants and the employees of “The Millionaire’s Club,” the company featured on the show, she went before the company’s CEO, Patti Stanger, a woman known by viewers for her harsh words and no-nonsense attitude.
“She asked my age, and when I said, ‘21,’ she called me ‘jailbait,'” Svetlecic said. “But she said I was cute and fun, and she thought I was spunky.”
That’s where the story gets more interesting — especially to Bravo fans.
Svetlecic said the show’s producers told her to show up for another audition the next day. She said when she arrived at the company’s headquarters, she and five other women were immediately taken by bus to The Brownstone, a New Jersey reception hall owned by a family prominently featured on another Bravo television show, “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.”
She said the women were told their millionaire matches would meet them at the venue and while they waited, they’d be waited on by the family’s sons, Chris and Albie Manzo.
But Stanger eventually revealed the true purpose of the evening. The women were set up on dates with the Manzo brothers — and Chris had chosen Svetlecic.
Svetlecic said she was excited to meet Chris’s mother Caroline, one of the women featured on “The Real Housewives,” and his sister, Lauren. She said both women liked her and appreciated her for her Southern upbringing and manners.
But the date with Chris was like nothing Svetlecic expected. He took her to “Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament” restaurant, where they dressed in costumes and watched a jousting competition while eating with their hands.
“If anyone knows me, they know that’s not my type of thing,” she said.
Svetlecic’s friend, elementary education senior Danielle de Mond, said she thought the same thing when she watched the episode when it aired Oct. 26.
“It’s definitely not her idea of a perfect date,” de Mond said. “It was funny to see all her facial expressions.”
Svetlecic said she and Chris didn’t hit it off on their date but have remained friends and keep in touch.
 
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Contact Rachel Warren at [email protected]