Melissa Howard gets married to her longtime boyfriend Justin Beck

Melissa (New Orleans) who has stepped out of the limelight for a couple of years has recently gotten married to her longtime boyfriend. Late last month, her and Justin Beck officially tied the knot. Melissa, who now goes by Melissa Beck, had the wedding in New York, but it seems that no Real World or Road Rules alum were in attendance. (Update: Coral (Back to New York) did attend.)

Check out:

Melissa's Website
Melissa's MySpace
Pictures of the Wedding

Congratulations to Melissa and her husband!

Melissa from New Orleans has recently posted on her website that she is enaged to the infamous J

If you visit Melissa's (New Orleans) website, you probably know that she has a boyfriend that she only refers to as "J". He's in a band. For a long time, no one knew who he was until Melissa posted a picture of him on her MySpace.

Anyway, Melissa recently announced on her webpage in a long, long, long post that she and J are engaged. The two have been living in Long Island for quite a bit of time and we congratulate both Melissa and J on their recent engagement!

Melissa re-opens her website after a brief time away

After a brief hiatus and a redesign on her website, Melissa (New Orleans) is back. After a brief absence and no page to load for quite a bit, Melissa left some fans in the dark as to where she could've went. But after a short time, Melissa has re-opened her website with a simpler, sleeker design. If you have time, go check out her website.

A new episode of the Gauntlet premieres tonight... Be sure not to miss it, and if you have a chance, submit a review of MTV Overdrive!

Melissa posts about Katrina; Keri, Blair, Theo have roots in the area

After Friday's post about Hurricane Katrina, the disaster seems to have reached more alumni than we thought. Melissa (New Orleans) posted her thoughts on the events over at her blog. She updates information about Lionel Milton, the artist friend who she made while in New Orleans who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina.

Also, we have received various questions about different castmembers who we didn't mention on Friday. Keri (Chicago) was thought to be living in New Orleans with her family. Both Blair (The Quest) and Theo (Maximum Velocity Tour) are also thought to have family and friends living in Louisiana and surrounding areas. Although we have heard no updates on these castmembers, we hope all is well.

To help with relief efforts, you can go to FEMA's website or the Red Cross' website.

Landon opens a new website; Melissa, Trishelle, Mike, Theo, Coral appear on BONRS

Landon (Philadelphia) is the first castmember on his season to open a website. Check out landonlueck.net.

Also, Battle of the Network Reality Stars is premiering next Wednesday on Bravo. The show is getting a lot of attention in recent days leading up to its premiere. The show will feature Melissa (New Orleans), Theo (Maximum Velocity Tour), Coral (Back to New York), Mike (Back to New York) and Trishelle (Las Vegas) as a sideline reporter. Although initial reports had the four teaming up as their own "Real World/Road Rules" team, there are actually four teams of eight contestants, with each team vying for a $80,000 prize package. The classic format should have the cast teaming up according to their own network. However, this seems to be a problem as the show is overrun by CBS castmembers and has only one representative from UPN and ABC each. Other participants? Nikki McKibbin (American Idol), Ryan Starr (American Idol, The Surreal Life 3), Adam Mesh (Average Joe), Charla & Mirna (Amazing Race), Chip & Kim (Amazing Race), Jonathan & Victoria (Amazing Race), Richard Hatch (Survivor), Sue Hawk (Survivor), Mike Malin (Big Brother), Will Kirby (Big Brother), Evan Marriott (Joe Millionaire)... In addition to Trishelle, Omarosa (Apprentice, The Surreal Life 5) will be one of the several others doing the commentating.

By the way, TV Guide's reason not to miss the premiere episode? The collective cast teaming up to dunk Coral (Back to New York) in the water tank because of her "abrasive personality and tiny bikini". It airs Wednesday 9pm/ET on Bravo.

Side note: Melissa (New Orleans) makes mention of an incident that happened between her, Coral and Omarosa. It's a bit of a preview as she plans to update once the show begins next week with a brand new blog. Check it out here. And also, as always, The Miz will be updating you from his online Challenge diary, where he already promises drama and competition.

The GQ Magazine with Coral, Mike, Melissa is on newsstands today

The GQ Magazine photo shoot that we reported on with Mike (Back to New York), Coral (Back to New York) and Melissa (New Orleans) is on newsstands today. They will all appear in Battle of the Network Reality Stars.

Mike, Coral, Melissa, Theo, Trishelle will be on Battle of the Network Reality Stars

OK, we been sitting on the info for Battle of the Network Reality TV Stars which will air on Bravo this summer. Filming begins tomorrow and the participants are... Mike (Back to New York), Coral (Back to New York), Melissa (New Orleans) and Theo (Maximum Velocity Tour). Trishelle (Las Vegas) will also be participating as one of the co-hosts.

The latest Pit Stop in the Amazing Race was the site of the Battle of the Sexes; Coral, Mike, Melissa spotted doing a photo shoot

For those of you who are Amazing Race fans and caught the finale last night, you might have recognized the 11th pit stop in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Why is this Real World/Road Rules news? Because that hotel and villa was the site of Battle of the Sexes I. That's right, the Race had the Round Hill Resort as their pit stop for the 2nd to last leg of the race.

Also, I'm getting emails from several different people saying that they saw Coral (Back to New York), Mike (Back to New York) and Melissa (New Orleans) on Hollywood Blvd. doing a photo shoot. It's unclear what it was for, but it appears not to be directly related with the shows. More info to come on this soon.

Also, here are several different articles on the Austin season:

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

Melissa says that the next Challenge with be Naughty vs. Nice

An idea of Jonathan Murray, mentioned by Melissa (New Orleans) on her website, it looks like the next season will be Battle of Naughty and Nice. A group of sixty castmembers have appeared on MTV.com asking you to vote castmembers either naughty or nice. Check it out yourself. It's on the BOTS2 Main Page.

VOTE TODAY!

Mike accepted his award last night from the Challenge; Melissa is not a co-host for the Challenge

For those people who doubted that Mike (Back to New York) was ever on this upcoming Challenge... he accepted his Reality TV Award that MTV aired last night from the Vista Clara Ranch. Thanks to Chris for that info.

Plus, we can also confirm that Melissa (New Orleans) is not co-hosting this Challenge along with good ole' Johnny Moseley.

Don't forget to check out Jamie's (New Orleans) latest project, Reality Road Trip: Bahamas and our store which opened a few days ago.

Melissa makes Maxim's Hot 100 List for 2004

Congratulations to Melissa from the Real World New Orleans. She made Maxim's Hot 100 List for 2004 at #92. Pick up a issue at a newsstand near you.

Colin refuses to do appearances with Julie in the future, Melissa and Coral are moving in together

New news! Yes, yes... Apparently, the appearance that we told you about with Colin (Hawaii), Lori (Back to New York), Nathan (Seattle), and Julie (New Orleans) didn't go as well as they wanted to. Apparently, Colin will not do any more appearances with Julie claiming that her on stage "creates a bad end-product". This having to deal with Julie's lies about spirituality, abstinence, drugs, and her 9/11 ordeal... It is unclear what that means exactly, but obviously Colin did have a problem with Julie. However, Colin is still giving away copies of his book... And he's going to be filming some upcoming appearances. Go to his website to keep up with him.

Also, some news with other castmembers. If you follow any of Melissa's (New Orleans) rants on her webpage, you know that she and Coral (Back to New York) are great friends... So much so, that the two plan to move in together soon! Both Melissa and Coral moved to Los Angeles after their stints on the Real World.

And rumor has it that both Coral (Back to New York) and Julie (New Orleans) have been both asked to do the next installment of the Challenge (after the Gauntlet), which will begin filming in October.

And today was Rachel's (San Francisco) last day on ABCs The View. She is trying to get a spot on the show as a co-host. SUPPORT RACHEL! Read yesterday's post to see how exactly to do so! Congratulations to Rachel! She did wonderfully, even as Star Jones seemed to take a shine to her! Good luck!

Rumors beginning about San Diego cast; Melissa is in Maxim Magazine

Sorry for the delay in the updates. There has been serious difficulties within the past few weeks. Hopefully, updates will become more frequent in the next few weeks. Well, there has been news here and there, but I wouldn't say anything to really "freak out" about.

Speaking of "freak", catch Janet (Seattle) in Disney's latest movie, Freaky Friday. She plays a doctor in the film. The movie stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Mark Harmon, and Lindsay Lohan.

San Diego is set to start filming at the end of July, the beginning of August. There is word buzzing about new castmembers. And also another piece of good news for the Real World... After The Osbournes rise as MTVs #1 show... The Real World: Paris has regained the top spot as MTVs #1 show, with Osbournes ratings steadily falling. Here's to another 13 years!

Melissa (New Orleans) is appearing in the August issue of Maxim magazine. Try to catch her. Thanks to several people who emailed that in. You can check her out at maximonline.com in the "Girls" section.

And to everyone who emailed links, I'm working on updating them. The mailbox is heavily backed up. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Julie changes her tune after Melissa calls her out; Sarah is leaving for a Challenge

Julie (New Orleans) changed her post from Melissa from my real world to a girl I know from tv... This is the second time that she's taken Melissa's name off her diary and replaced it with "girl". Check it out here.

Sarah (The Campus Crawl) recently says on her diary that she's going out of town soon. Hmm.... When a castmember says that they're going out of town = Going on the Challenge. When Battle of the Sexes was airing, she made a comment that she was checking out websites to see when the next Challenge was going to be, because she wanted to do it. Is Sarah going to show up in Newport and compete for $300,000? We will soon find out. (Thanks to Dana for that)

Julie and Melissa end up at a Coldplay concert and Julie makes up a story about Melissa getting spit on

So... drama revisited... This is going to be a LONGGGGGGGG post...

Anyway, I wasn't even aware of this until a fan named MSMusic emailed this along to me. It just strikes me as WEIRD. Plain and simple. Not Melissa... But Julie. So a couple of days ago, Coldplay, the band was in Los Angeles. Apparently, both Julie and Melissa (New Orleans/BOTS) visited the concert. It's about the Julie/Melissa drama. If you don't want to read this, skip down to the next post which is about Road Rules. Here's Melissa's entry about the show:

"Sunday afternoon, I was screening calls. You know, sometimes you just can’t take calls. It’s Sunday. I’m waiting for that Jerry’s Famous Deli to hurry up and deliver and I want my Six Feet Under finale. Tangent: Doesn’t that girlfriend of Jayson Blair, the fabricating ass reporter at The New York Times look just like Lili Taylor? That’s where Lisa went! So, I get a message from an old friend, a blast from the past. In it, he says cryptically, “Give me a call back. I’ve got a question…” You see, he has mastered the art of getting me to call back. You can’t say, “I have a question.” And you especially can’t say that after I haven’t spoken to you in 19 years. So, I tried to hold off, wait a couple hours, so as to seem like when he called I actually was busy. I so wasn’t and I’m such a perpetrator. I said “tried to hold off” meaning, I called him back in 20 minutes.

After a weird segue into the actual invitation, he said, “I bought these Coldplay tickets six months ago, and totally forgot about them. Would you like to go? It’s tomorrow…” What a great day, man! Free tickets to Coldplay and I don’t have to drive or park! Why, yes, I’d love to go. During the course of the concert, I felt like I was in an episode of A Dating Story, even though I didn’t think or even know this was, in fact, a date. Was it a date? It couldn’t be! I said, “What’s up homie…” when he came to get me and I don’t think that’s proper date etiquette. Plus, he was 40 minutes late picking me up. Perhaps he didn’t think it was a date either with such reckless abandonment of the time. Time the f*** out! Before we carry on with this story, know that I know how dumb it is to speculate about whether or not a planned event with a dude, that is a friend, is a date. I know it's a hang out thing, I'm just saying. I’m a grown ass lady, I know. And yes, I’m about to tell a story like I am not the person telling the story thus using my own name in third person, a practice I hate in real life.

So, I present The Dating Story featuring Gary* and Melissa.

Gary is a working actor in Los Angeles. In his spare time, he enjoys photography and staining his mantle. He is both genuine and nice – two strikes against him already, as we all know girls love assholes for some reason. Will he finish last? His turnoffs: Tall, mean girls. His turn-ons: Short, nice ones. Melissa is a geek off the streets that isn’t really keen on this whole dating situation, as you will see. Her turn-offs: Dudes that use hair products excessively, lisps (sorry), improper use of homophones and anybody that says “for all intents and purposes”. Her turn-ons: I don’t know that she uses that terminology. (Gary doesn't have a lisp, and he doesn't use lots of gel and he knows the difference between peace and piece.) On this date, we’ll see the band Coldplay, and more importantly we hope to see a Miss Gwyneth Paltrow swaying side to side with her eyes closed, perhaps a lighter in hand, “feeling” her boyfriend’s love through his music.

Before the alleged date, Gary calls Melissa. She is in the waiting room at a doctor’s office with her friend Coral. She steps outside to take the call. Gary asks, “What kind of food do you like? At The Hollywood Bowl, everyone usually picnics.” Melissa responds with, “Oh wow. Okay. Um. I don’t really like food that is supposed to be hot but just can’t be because you know, it’s been in a basket all day. I like fruit. May I have some seedless grapes, a mango or two, some sliced watermelon? I also like candy. No blue candy or sour candy though.” Now that Melissa has given the impression that she eats candy for breakfast and is the most negative person alive, she ends the call with, “So, is 6 still good for the swoop-me-up?” He now says she must be ready by 5:45 p.m. but says “a quarter to” which is another small, not devastating, peeve of Melissa’s. Why can’t it just be 5:45? This is not good, but she happily agrees. She goes back into the doctor’s office, recounts the story to Coral who says, “Well, shit what are we going to do to your hair? Did you ask for some chicken? I like chicken.” At this point, the two nix the flat-ironing session, and Melissa says, “Nobody cares about your predilection for chicken, man” as she points to her messy bun of knotty hair.

It’s now 6:17 p.m. and Gary calls Melissa. “Hey, I’m late” he says. We all know this. He says it will be another 10 minutes. Blind Date is on the TV and so it’s hard to actually care that he’s late.

Oh wait, I’m forgetting the outfit decision part of A Dating Story. Coral says, “Oh God, I need to see his outfit…” I say, “Yeah, I hope he’s not wearing bowling shoes or a Coldplay t-shirt…” Melissa opts for a precious long red skirt that she’s worn on television more than a few times (ewww) and a nude colored camisole tank top. She would normally wear heels, but there’s climbing and walking involved, and since this isn’t a date, she wears her nice flip-flops. She packs a pashmina, a pack of Starburst and some lip gloss. Gary shows up, late as can be, with an acceptable t-shirt and some acceptable jeans on. When Melissa looks in the back seat, she sees a jean jacket draped across the seat. She asks about the weather and whether or not she’ll be okay with just a pashmina and he says, “If you get cold, I’ve got that jacket.” She says, “You weren’t planning on wearing that jean jacket yourself, were you? You know denim on denim is punishable by like, death right?” He says, “I totally know that. I’m wearing this” and he points to a brown leather coat. Okay. They’re in business.

They park 768 miles from the destination. They walk through Hollywood & Highland, only the biggest tourist attraction this side of the Mississippi. Melissa is clearly embarrassed that people are shouting, “Ruthie!” and “Real World. Fuck yeahhhhhhhhhh!” as she passes through. Gary acts as if this is okay, and he understands. After all, he is in every deodorant and hardware store commercial on TV. Did you catch him on 24? You may have seen him on The Parkers or 8 Simple Rules. If you didn’t see him there, you probably saw him in a movie about college kids doing outrageous things. He’s been the wacky innkeeper and the haphazardly goofy detective. You’ve seen him. Hey, they even see Marcellas from Big Brother going down the escalator as they are going up. “Hi Marcellas! Did you see our pictures from Norm’s party?” she asks. Marcellas smiles and waves and they agree to call each other. Gary wonders aloud whether or not these reality TV people are in a cult.

They have trouble finding their seats. Aisle U Row 3 Seats 13 and 15. What happened to seat 14? They find the seats, make jokes about the opening band, and Gary pulls out that said picnic basket. Not too shabby. He’s got cherries, strawberries, grapes, wine, cheese, chocolate, crackers and even some napkins. He admits there’s a part of him that is “gay.” Melissa doesn’t know how to respond, so she just says, “Yeah, so um, have you ever seen The Ring, man?”

Coldplay begins. He yells, “Yeah!” She sits Indian style waiting for the songs she knows. She sings along, sips her wine, collects their garbage (it’s so terrible to litter in an outdoor establishment) and they have fun.

Gary’s Post Interview: I think Melissa is, for all intents and purposes, a nice girl. She’s a little negativo, if you know what I mean. She’s okay, I guess. I kept telling her she was super tiny. I don't know if that went over well. I like her earrings. She’s not normally my type. I like bubbly blondes, but she’s cool I think? She told me to say nice stuff about her. Can we start this over?

Melissa’s Post Interview: Yeah, man, Gary is good people. He is a picnic basket-packing fiend. I appreciated those fresh cherries. Coldplay was cool. Somebody was smoking some weed in our section. Did you smell that? I’d hang out with Gary again. I mean, when he’s not too busy acting his ass off. He’s been in hella shit, man. He’s got a resume for days. That’s really cool for him. A working actor. Ain’t that some shit? Hey, are you going to edit out that part where I nearly fell on the way to the bathroom? That Merlot had some kick, huh? I can’t really come strong with footage like that floating around. You know, you look out for me, I look out for you…

The screen at the end of this Dating Story reads: Gary called Melissa the next day. Will he be left in the Cold? Or will he get some Play? They’ve yet to set another date…

*Names have been changed so that I can write with true poetic license and so that my friend “Gary” won’t actually hate me after he reads this. Hi Gary. I truly did have a most wonderful time at Coldplay. Coldplay! Yeah! I must say the offering of the jean jacket was super duper nice."

So that's hers. She seemed to get every detail in. (Even some Real World fans recognizing her.) Now, here's Julie's entry:

"The other day, Gabe took me to see Coldplay in Hollywood. It was such a good show! We had a great time. While we were there, I saw Melissa from my real world behind us. It was at a distance but I was pretty sure it was her. I decided I wanted to go say hi because I feel bad that things got all messed up between us. While we were in Jamaica, I think she tried to apologize off camera by one of the vans, but I just walked away. Then Jamie told me she felt bad, and I felt like a total jerk. I know it was a big messy misunderstanding, but I should have been more open to talk about it at the time, even if it had to be off camera. I guess at the time I resented that she said a bunch of bad stuff about me on camera, but then wanted to make it right off camera. I guess I shouldn't have been thinking like that. After all, it doesn't matter what happens on the silly show. What matters is leaving things un-discussed.

Anyway, so I figured that by now it would be cool for me to say hi and see how she's doing. Since we are both probably over it, I figured maybe I could get her # or something and call her, so I got up and started walking over there. She was talking to the boy she was with. Suddenly these two punk kids snuck up behind her. One of them spit in her hair, and then they ran off laughing. I didn't know what to do. I thought about saying something, but instead I just went back to my seat. I felt pretty bad about it. It sucks that some people are so rude. Luckily, I don't think she noticed, but still.

I wish I'd still said hi at least, but after the whole hair spitting thing, I felt weird. It made me realize how powerful the media can be. These two kids don’t even know her, but they think that it’s okay to spit on her just because of something they saw on TV. It’s sad every time people come up to me and tell me that so-and-so from the show sucked. I just wish people could understand that just because someone does something on the show, it doesn’t necessarily reflect who they are. It was dumb. I should have said something. Oh well, I figure I'll probably run into her again, I hope. It's probably okay though. Just in case she is still all worked up about hating me, I didn't want to put a damper on the concert for her. Coldplay was really good. I've never really been to a show like that before. It was mellow, but still really full of energy. I don't usually go to really big concerts, but I was really glad Gabe took me to Coldplay. It was a good time."

OK, a couple of things wrong with Julie's entry. We know from the show (Melissa's line about how the only way she can have fun was to send the bi*$( home.) and other things (Melissa's messages on her site, more than six months later after leaving Jamaica, still blasting Julie about her lecture appearances, that Melissa did not feel bad about the way she treated Julie. Melissa never had second thoughts about singling Julie out. Julie even makes it seem that she was the instigator back in Jamaica in this article. Now here's the thing:

The person who emailed me about this saw Melissa at the concert. They were right behind her. This person had Melissa in eyesight the whole time and they can verify that no one ever spit in Melissa's hair. This isn't the first time there's been a spat between these two. Everyone's familiar with Julie and the college circuit issue from the show. What people don't know is that there has been an online spat since the Battle ended. Julie has posted things about Melissa that Melissa didn't like. Coral (Back to New York) even got into the mix when Julie wrote something about her review of BOTS castmembers at MTV.com. Julie even told us in an interview that Melissa was going to pose in Playboy. Then she referred to people who pose in Playboy as "jack-off objects".

Interesting. Check out both of their sites: Julie and Melissa.

Mike and Lori rumored to be a part of the new Challenge; Melissa and Danny get into a car accident

It seems that Mike from the current Real World season will be joining the cast of the new Real World/Road Rules Challenge! We're also getting conflicting reports as to the female joining the cast, but we think it's Lori! We might be wrong! But we're almost sure that we're right! LOL... That's it for today kiddies. Got to go. Oh yeah, I've been getting news that the Challenge is still having problems signing people... hopefully that'll work out.

Melissa also got into a car crash with Danny of the New Orleans season. They aren't hurt, but someone else was injured along with them. Read about it at Melissa's site, Princess Melissa.