“She’s a stripper teacher. Let’s call it what it is.” – Patti
The action pops off with Patti Stanger’s friend, Mary Miller, stopping by The Millionaire’s Club office. Mary shows Patti a “booster support pack,” which is supposed to “find the imbalances in your system and correct them.” She then mentions something about electricity and salt crystals.
Who knows what kind of new age-y product placement this thing was supposed to be about, but Patti seems pleased with it.
Check out our full and snark-tastic Millionaire Matchmaker episode guide and updates! Trash and treasure in equal increments, we promise.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “The Plastic Surgeon & The Pole Dancer”: the clients & intro videos
It’s morning at The Millionaire’s Club, and Rachel introduces Frank Stile, “a big time plastic surgeon.”
Patti jumps right in: “What’s wrong with him?”
“Control, control, control,” Rachel answers.
“We’re gonna break that control, because that’s not reality,” Patti declares.
In his intro video, Frank lets us know that he’s 44, lives in Las Vegas, and is a “cosmetic plastic and reconstructive surgeon.” And in that capacity, he does “some super human s—.”
“He’s got a God complex,” Rachel says, and this reminds me of the best part from the 1993 movie called Malice, when Alec Baldwin says, “You ask me if I have a God complex? I am God,” and everyone’s like whoa…
Frank also has a laundry list of requirements for his romantic partner, including that she wake up with him at 5 a.m. daily (including weekends).
“It’s like I’m so great, I’m so great, I’m so f—ing great,” Patti says.
Destin then introduces Emma Ridley, a “38-year-old British former child star that’s been married three times. She’s kind of a mess.”
As soon as Emma starts talking on her intro video, Patti blurts, “She needs a makeover. Need to fix that hair of hers.”
Emma tells us that she owns and operates “two fun dance fitness facilities, and we pole dance for fitness.” More interestingly, Emma says that she (somehow?) got married in Las Vegas when she was 15 with a 30-year-old. And then when she was 25, she doubled down once again, literally, by marrying a 50-year-old.
“She’s a stripper teacher,” Patti says. “Let’s call it what it is.”
Emma now has a 15-year-old son named Otis, who lit his bedroom on fire during her divorce with Husband #2.
Husband #3 then swooped in by way of being the contractor who fixed up the burned up house. No word on whether or not he was twice Emma’s age at that point.
Patti assesses that Emma is “crazy wild” and has “too much masculine energy.” Patti then opts for setting up a “two-way mirror” where she, Destin, and Rachel can “control the situation” for Emma versus the typical mixer scenario that The Millionaire Matchmaker sets up. And also: a full makeover for Emma is on tap.
“Let them do a whole U-Haul on her,” Patti says.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “The Plastic Surgeon & The Pole Dancer”: Patti meets the clients
Frank stops by The Millionaire’s Club office first, whereupon we learn that his net worth is over $10 million from the plastic surgery-ing and such. He enjoys collecting watches and cars, and prefers a “regimented” lifestyle that doesn’t coincide with the “basically retarded” women he observes while out and about.
Patti gets right to it, asking Frank: “Are you a breast, legs, ass man, or all three?” Frank goes with the latter, but then adds, “Personality’s important.” Patti sems to have more initial disdain for Frank than her average… disdain, I suppose, and then asks, “What do you thinks wrong with you?”
Frank admits that he has a fear of commitment and “control issues,” and Patti declares, “We have to break that.” To do this, Patti tells him that she will bring in someone to help “clean you up, guy to guy.” Also: no mixer for Frank as well.
And then they end with a hug, which I always find both very LA and very funny.
Patti then heads to meet Emma at her Goddess Fitness Dance studio from what I can tell. Emma tells us that her net worth is “somewhere between $3-$6 million,” which… seems like a really wide range, I guess? She’s from London, was a child actress, and “ended up in the party life.” And the three husbands life and counting too, I suppose.
“I was the Paris Hilton of Britain in the ‘80s,” Emma tells us, as we see her sliding down a stripper, er, goddess pole.
Emma’s best quality in the early going is that she’s very open that she has been bad at picking men and is looking for help from Patti to get some better choices. Patti feels that Emma has been “too aggressive” in the past and “needs to learn to act like a girl.”
So… maybe it’s debatable in terms of whether or not Patti is Emma’s last, best chance here, but that’s all part of the fun of The Millionaire Matchmaker.
A long and not very interesting segment follows in which Patti bullies Emma into getting a haircut and style makeover where the major theme is Emma being resistant and whiny about getting “conservatived up.”
Meanwhile, Frank meets with Matthew Bennett: Life Coach with the goal of kicking Frank “of his bad control habit.” I enjoy the way that it’s being treated like Frank is trying to quit smoking, as an aside.
Maybe there’s a control issues patch or something?
Matthew tells Frank that when it comes to relationships, he is “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” and that he “has to break the mold.”
Patti declares the session a success to Matthew and Frank’s face, but then immediately tells the camera that she doesn’t believe that Frank is really open to changing.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “The Plastic Surgeon & The Pole Dancer”: the recruiting session
The “two-way mirror” session has Patti, Destin, and Rachel interviewing potential dates (plus snarking on them, as per usual) while Frank and Emma watch on from behind the mirror and then pick out the dates they want.
Seems like maybe this is also a great way for the show to skip the entire typical mixer scene and consolidate some steps in the show’s process, but that’s just one blogger’s wild speculation.
Highlights of the recruiting session included:
- Patti interrogated one young woman: “Are you in rehab? When’s the last time you had a DUI?”
- Emma was distracted and talkative while Frank was focused and took notes. Emma suggested that she wanted to, uh, motorboat one of the potential dates for Frank, and Frank seemed a bit annoyed with her overall.
- Patti on Emma: “Emma is a total freakshow.” And: “She’s a giant British pain in the ass.”
Frank wound up selecting Natalie, a 28-year-old music business assistant with a Russian/Lebanese background who is both from Las Vegas and open to having kids. And meanwhile Emma seemed solely interested in Kellly, a 38-year-old from Hawaii who has a surfing accessories business and already has two kids of his own.
Patti seems genuinely pleased with both choices, but is irritated with Emma about her resistance to changing her clothing style. Also, according to Pattie, Emma “needs to leave her penis at home and let Kelly plan the date.”
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “The Plastic Surgeon & The Pole Dancer”: Frank and Natalie’s first date
Frank flies Natalie to Vegas, and picks her up at the Red Rock Hotel, coffees in hand… and it turns out that it’s not yet 7 a.m. local time. “This is by far the earliest first date I’ve been on,” Natalie says.
The pair head to an MMA gym that displays “Prepare to Suffer” over the door, and are greeted by Danny the trainer. It’s an MMA training class of a first date, which as we all know is the key to romance.
The next “surprise” is that Frank sends Natalie into the fighting cage to spar with one of his female friends… Michelle Gutierrez, who is a professional MMA fighter.
“Initially, I didn’t think that Frank was for real,” Natalie tells the camera. To her credit, she quips that if her nose gets broken, at least Frank is a plastic surgeon. Also to her credit: she admits that she was terrified at the prospect of fighting a pro MMA athlete.
However, things tend to go surprisingly well, or at least not disastrously.
Dinner is then at one of Frank’s favorite Italian restaurants. Natalie puts Frank on his heels by asking what seem like perfectly reasonable first date questions, and then they discover that they are far apart in terms of the getting up early thing when Frank reveals that he’s a 5 a.m. daily riser.
“You sleep when you’re dead,” he tells her.
Natalie tells the camera that Frank seems controlling and a little bit overwhelmed by her personality.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “The Plastic Surgeon & The Pole Dancer”: Emma and Kelly’s first date
Kelly – who seems like a super normal and together guy in comparison to the off-kilter weirdo energy that Emma brings – has set up a date that includes a romantic dinner.
However, upon meeting him for the first time, Emma immediately drops a “surprise” on Kelly by having him watch her perform a pole dancing-meets-burlesque-meets… something show for him. The show includes other dancers/performers.
Kelly, an audience of one, seems pretty freaked out by the experience. “The whole stripper thing really took me for a loop,” Kelly says in a measured way.
The pair then head to get sushi, and Kelly expresses his genuine discomfort and surprise about Emma’s profession. Things then take a new turn when Emma reveals that she’s been married three times.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been more impressed with a Millionaire Matchmaker participant as when Frank then says, “I’m just not feeling it.”
“Kelly was a real gentleman, but not a real man that can handle me,” Kelly says.
“I will probably never see Emma again,” Kelly tells the camera.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “The Plastic Surgeon & The Pole Dancer”: post-dates upshot
Patti calls Kelly, who relates the details of his dud of a date. Patti’s first reaction about how handled the date: “she’s crazy pants.” Emma then stops by the office, upon which she gets defensive about how she handles the date.
“Have a nice life,” Patti says in kicking her out of the office, and it’s pretty funny in that Emma seems like she takes it as a compliment. “You too!” she says.
Natalie then gets on the horn with Patti, and the latter latches onto the early wake up time and MMA training session. “That’s not romance,” Patti says.
“Would you like to go out with him again?” Patti asks.
Pause. “No.”
In the office, Patti tells Frank that Natalie thought he was “too guarded” and doesn’t want to date him again. Frank admits that he has to work on himself more, but Patti – who seemed pretty disgusted with him from the beginning – says she is finished with him as well.
The end of the episode captions tell us: “Emma and Kelly never went out again. She is enjoying being married to herself.” And: “Frank and Natalie have not spoken. He’s still working on his control issues.”
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “The Plastic Surgeon & The Pole Dancer”: where are they now?
I’m not sure what’s going on in his personal life, but I was able to dig up this YouTube video heralding the expertise of “world-renowned cosmetic surgeon Dr. Stile.”
And meanwhile, Emma Ridley does have some IMDB credits, but almost nothing after her appearance on The Millionaire Matchmaker in 2011. It’s slightly interesting that she appeared on an episode of Boy Meets World in 1997, I suppose.
Some stats and info about The Millionaire Matchmaker – “The Plastic Surgeon & the Pole Dancer”
TV SHOW – The Millionaire Matchmaker
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 5, Episode 6
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Bravo
AIR DATE – September 22nd, 2011
GENRE – Reality TV, Dating Shows, Trashtastic TV
STARS – Patti Stanger, Destin Pfaff, Rachel Federoff, Frank Stile, Emma Ridley
GOOGLE PLAY DESCRIPTION – Patti’s first client is Frank Stile, a 44-year-old plastic surgeon from Las Vegas. He is a perfectionist with a God-Complex so Patti calls in life coach Matt Bennett to break Frank of his out of controlling ways and bring him back down to earth. Patti goes toe-to-toe with her second client, millionairess Emma “Wild Child” Ridley, a 38-year-old pole-dancing instructor that has been divorced three times. She wants to meet a secure and nurturing man, but Emma’s stripper moves and outrageous personality get in the way. To transform her into a classy lady, Patti gives her the ultimate makeover no one will forget.