“This sounds like a Russian mail order thing.” – Lonnie
“The purpose for The Millionaire’s Club is to introduce successful men to their potential wives or girlfriends,” Patti Stanger tells us.
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No word on whether “successful” equally applies to both those who made their millions from a meager beginning versus those who simply basked in the riches inherited from wealth obtained by prior generations.
We then see a little montage where Patti asks a Black woman, “So you like Caucasian men?” The woman shrugs, says she’s open to different kinds of people, so Patti follows up with, “So you date the brothers too?”
This is all framed as a little infomercial of sorts for Patti and crew’s services.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Lonnie/Patrick”: around the office
We learn a little bit more about The Millionaire’s Club finances as we see Patti somewhat berating her staff to drum up new “leads.” She tells us that her average millionaire spends $20,000 per month, and “in order for me to sleep at night, I need six to ten millionaires a month.”
Therefore, we can estimate that Patti’s target revenue figure for her business is between $1.4M-$2.4M per year, and that’s of course not including overhead and salaries for her staff.
And then, there’s this obvious piece: you have to assume the target revenue is the lofty, ideal goal with the real number being, shall we say, further south than that.
And we also learn that Patti has been in a three-year relationship, “but he’s not easy to close in the marriage arena.”
And we know, of course, what Glengarry Glen Ross taught us.
Coffee is for closers.
“It’s like the cobbler who doesn’t have any shoes,” Patti continues, which makes all kinds of sense… if you’re in the cobbling community.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Lonnie/Patrick”: meet the clients
First, we have Patrick, who is “really nice, a down to earth guy, but kind of a nerd,” via Chelsea. “So he needs help.” And then we have Lonnie Moore, a “charmer, Mr. Sociable.” We also learn that Lonnie owns Dolce Group and is “kind of a player.”
“He goes for the dateless and the desperate,” Patti assesses, and at this point I’m trying not to get distracted by The Chemical Brothers-lite techno track that’s banging as the background music for this scene.
“We’ll break him,” she concludes.
Instead of seeing the clients via intro videos, as is usual the deal, we cut to Patti heading over to meet Lonnie. Patti makes sure to tell the cameras via confessional interview, meanwhile, that since Lonnie is business partners with Ashton Kutcher, that she “has to totally wow him, so that he spreads through the community what an amazing service we have.”
Lonnie introduces himself as being from New York, 33-years-old, and “worth eight figures” as we see him doing stuff at restaurants that are part of the Dolce Group, such as Geisha House in Las Vegas.
Perhaps more revealingly, Lonnie tells Patti that his ideal woman is a “young girl… big fake gazoongas.” Side note that Lonnie reminds me a bit of Sean Hatosy circa Leaving Providence, though not as bright. He also wants an “aggressive” lady in his life.
Patti diagnoses Lonnie with a case of TPT, which stands for “trailer park trash.” However, Patti is determined to “show him the way.”
Then things take a truly strange turn. Lonnie questions Patti’s legitimacy as a matchmaker since she’s not married, and Patti counters by “promising” Lonnie that when she’s done with him, he’ll have a woman that he’s thrilled to come home to at night, a clean house, dinner on the table, and “great sex in the bedroom.”
I’m most focused on the clean house and dinner on the table in the above statement.
Lonnie, perhaps showing more wit and verve than I initially gave him credit for, asks Patti if she’s running “a Russian mail order thing.”
But then Lonnie proceeds to negotiate to get Patti to produce “18 to 22-year-old girls” so… uh, yeah.
Patti then heads over to meet Patrick, “the geeky millionaire we’re going to turn chic.”
Patrick tells us that he’s a financial advisor and “self-made millionaire.” And also a real estate investor.
These guys always seem to be in real estate “also.”
Patti meets Patrick and tells him that “actually” he’s kind of cute, and also confirms that he’s a “certified” millionaire.
Patti then tells that camera that Patrick has a “stale personality, like day old bread.” She wishes he had more “edge” to him. She then goes on to complain how much work Patrick is going to be to work with.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Lonnie/Patrick”: the recruiting session and mixer
Patti is going to hold an “exclusive upscale event” for her two millionaires.
As part of the recruiting process, Patti is looking for “unique spinner types.” Yes, that’s a direct quote. And then later, Patti assures the camera that her clients are seeking the “most intelligent” women she can find.
Patti goes on to explain to some of the women attending the recruiting session that showing off cleavage is the “gateway” to true love, but I wasn’t completely following, to be honest.
Most hilarious moment: Patti ends the recruiting session by telling the small group of women, “Let me escort you out.” And by escorting, she means pointing at the exit door, which the women then walk toward and leave.
Right before the mixer, Patti has the young women practice the “five second flirt,” which Patti demonstrates: it’s a frozen mask of Los Angeles-drenched desperation. At least, that’s one blogger’s assessment.
Patrick wears a suit to the mixer, which displeases Patti – who seemed very on edge to begin with, to be fair. “Wall Street doesn’t fly in L.A.,” she notes.
During the mini date round, Brianne quickly and rightly assesses that Lonnie is “a little bit full of himself.” Also: “I think he’s a little bit of a player.”
Meanwhile, Patrick manages to tell Kelly, a professor, that she’s beautiful but then fumbles for words from there.
For the big “master date,” Lonnie selects Sabrina, even though she found him to be distant – and told Patti that she didn’t think he was looking for anything serious.
Meanwhile, Patrick picks Lola. I found their initial banter to be a little excruciating to be honest. Forced, awkward, with a side of Lola being nice because… well, Patrick’s got money.
Which, I guess is the whole Millionaire Matchmaker gig, but maybe I’m a romantic at heart, you know?
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Lonnie/Patrick”: Lonnie and Sabrina
Before the date, Patti has Lonnie talk to Lisa Johnson, date coach. The only real takeaway from this segment is that Lonnie keeps asking, “When do we get to have sex?” And he’s kind of joking around but really not joking around, if you can dig.
Lonnie takes Sabrina to a fancy-looking restaurant – no word on whether it’s one that he is personally involved with. However, he refers to his server very personally as “Steven” so it seems likely.
Things are going are going fairly well, but my suspicions are concerned when Lonnie suddenly called away to handle some kind of a situation, or “dragged away to the kitchen,” as Sabrina puts it.
He eventually comes back, apologizes, but then gets a phone call a solid eight seconds later. He takes it.
And then his friend Sylvan stops by the table, which is a big Millionaire’s Club no no, as in “don’t bring your dates on the first date.” But dudes like Lonnie transcend rules: they soar like eagles.
Eagles with friends with names like Sylvan.
Oh, and Sylvan literally says, “I have some beautiful babies over by the bar, want me to bring them over?” Like he’s a bit part from the movie, Swingers.
And then Sylvan and the beautiful babies all came over to the table.
Sabrina tells the camera that she thinks that Lonnie wouldn’t mind sleeping with her, but “that’s about it.”
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Lonnie/Patrick”: Patrick and Lola
Patrick’s pre-date assignment is to meet with Janice Bussing, stylist, to “chic” up Patrick’s vibes. I honestly kind of hated the outfit that they ended up selecting for him, but then again, I’m not the one going out with Lola here, I guess?
Patrick rents a really nice yacht for the date and sets up a bottle of wine and a spread for the night. He’s in his special Big Date outfit and is all ready to go but then… Patrick just sits around waiting for what seems like a really long time. And we get to see the gorgeous southern California sun setting over the marina in the background.
Lola eventually shows up with a vague, “You know, traffic…” excuse, but Patrick quickly forgives her. They settle down for a glass of wine and have some decent-ish banter, but I realized that Patrick’s entire vibe is just overly sincere-meets-awkward.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Lonnie/Patrick”: post-dates upshot
Patti sits down with Lonnie and lays out all of the things he handled his date terribly. He promises Patti that he’ll ask Sabrina out again when she pushes him on it, but resorts to joking but definitely not joking that he’ll do it because he hasn’t slept with her yet.
Lonnie tells the camera that he was “perfect,” which has a striking resemblance to a certain former president…
Down at the Millionaire’s Club office, Patrick tells Patti about his date with Lola. Patrick explains that he really likes Lola and already has a second date set up. Patti seems pretty proud of him (and herself, of course).
The end of episode credits sequence tells us: “Not only are Patrick and Lola still dating, they are in a committed relationship. Patrick is thankful to Patti for helping him find his true love.” And: “Lonnie and Sabrina only saw each other one more time. Patti is no longer working with Lonnie.”
The Millionaire Matchmaker, “Lonnie/Patrick”: where are they now?
I couldn’t dig up much on either Millionaire’s Club client, though I did find a pretty juicy nugget relating to Lonnie Moore that dates back to 2012.
Lonnie and another reality TV participant, someone named Mike “Boogie” Malin – who has appeared on Big Brother – was sued by someone named David Hilty for a “long-running, systematic, and pervasive” fraud.
Hilty claims Moore and Malin “siphoned off” millions of dollars from the restaurant group to support their “lavish lifestyles,” at investors’ expense….
Since founding The Dolce Group in 2003, Moore and Malin have used the Dolce Group Entities as their personal piggybank, siphoning off to themselves millions of dollars in corporate funds, to the detriment of the entities and their other investors. Through this and other intentional misconduct, along with their gross negligence and incompetence in running the Dolce Group Entities, Moore and Malin have run several of those entities into the ground.
Maybe the phone call that Lonnie took during his date with Sabrina related to something shady?
Some stats and info about The Millionaire Matchmaker – “Lonnie/Patrick”
TV SHOW – The Millionaire Matchmaker
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 3
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Bravo
AIR DATE – February 5th, 2008
GENRE – Reality TV, Dating Shows, Trashtastic TV
STARS – Patti Stanger, Destin Pfaff, Rachel Federoff, Lonnie Moore
IMDB DESCRIPTION – Patti faces two of her biggest challenges yet – a player and a nerd. Lonnie, a 33-year-old L.A. restauranteur, is not so sure he can join the clue when he hears about Patti’s no-sex rule. Patrick, a financial advisor, is a geek who needs to be turned chic.