“Do you think he escaped the Taliban?” – Patti Stanger
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Heinz Holba & Paul Murad: cold open
- Patti Stanger receives a wedding invitation for Ken and Cynthia, which Patti Stanger seems thrilled about. In fact, when two people get married who belong together, Patti says “it’s like an orgasm.”
- Hilariously – and I mean hilariously – Patti riffs on how the matchmaking business isn’t about the money, because “it’s God’s work.” Reminder that Patti is the CEO of a business called The Millionaire’s Club.
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The Millionaire Matchmaker, Heinz Holba & Paul Murad: client intros
- Paul Murad, 31, introduces himself via video intro as being in the real estate business. At this stage of The Millionaire Matchmaker, the last names are literally blurred out of whatever weird tape the clients are asked to make, as though this is the witness protection program and not a matchmaking service.
- Paul is from Azerbaijan and emigrated to the U.S. at 16. “Isn’t that Asia? Isn’t that near Afghanistan?” Patti asks. Then, even more bizarrely: “Do you think he escaped the Taliban?”
- Meanwhile, one of Patti’s assistants announces the next client as Heinz Holba, 50, thus blowing the obfuscation of the last names thing out the window. He’s from Austria and is the CEO of a talent company called L.A. Models. They handle models and actors.
- In his intro video, Heinz says that he’s a lowkey dude who is always the first one to leave a party.
- Heinz says one of the driest, funniest things I’ve ever heard on The Millionaire Matchmaker when he says in his super lowkey manner, “I don’t know what my net worth is… anyone who knows what their net worth is must not be worth that much money.”
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Heinz Holba & Paul Murad: Patti meets the clients
- Heinz seems like an affable, quiet, and intelligent guy, which places him outside the norm of the eccentrics and outright obnoxious blowhards that are often The Millionaire’s Club clientele.
- Patti finds Heinz “hard to read,” so she wants him to talk to “relationship expert” Shannon Fox. When they meet later, she tells him that he has to let his guard down and “bring something to the table” in order to be able to form a strong connection and relationship.
- Paul tells Patti he’s looking for someone who is smart, beautiful, and educated, and doesn’t feel like he can find that living as he does right of the Las Vegas casino strip.
- Paul’s celebrity crush is Ivanka Trump. I will pass on commenting on this.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Heinz Holba & Paul Murad: the recruiting session and mixer
- Instead of launching right into a lengthy recruiting session, as is often the scenario on The Millionaire Matchmaker, Patti instead presents “the two frontrunners for Paul and Heinz” to Alison: for Paul it’s Cidney, a Jewish part-time model who “looks like a shiksa,” and for Heinz it’s the Marcela, who also has a son like Heinz, and is from Eastern Europe. She’s an ex-model so will feel very comfortable in Heinz’ world.
- We then cut to the mixer, where there’s a bunch of women present in addition to Sydney and Marcela.
- It’s pretty funny when one woman at the mixer tells the camera that she’s really just looking for love, but if the guy happens to be a millionaire, then that’s “just a really nice bonus.”
- Related, from Cidney: “Because I grew up in Beverly Hills, I’m used to nicer things and I would hope that he would be able to do the things that I’m accustomed to.”
- During the mixer, I got really distracted by Paul’s eyebrows – it looks like he spent some time and/or money grooming them. No judgment there but one you see it you can’t unsee it, if you can dig.
- For the mini-date round, Paul selects Cidney and Courtney, while Heinz opts for Vicki and Marcela, who is a travel agent from the Czech Republic. Honestly, I got distracted during this part because while Heinz is chatting with his mini-dates on a balcony, you can see a billboard for Hotrod, the rad 2007 comedy starring Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, Isla Fisher, and Danny McBride.
- Heinz ends up selecting Marcela for the full-blown date, while Paul picks Cidney, who went to UCLA and was also Miss Los Angeles County at one point.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Heinz Holba & Paul Murad: Paul and Cidney’s first date
- Paul picks up Cidney in a limo in Las Vegas and takes her to eat at a dinner called Tao. Over dinner, they have an easy rapport and it’s clear that both are quite serious about settling down and finding the right romantic partner to start a family with.
- Back in the limo, Paul then surprises Cidney and tells her that they’re going to take a helicopter ride around Vegas. Cidney tells him that she’s very afraid of heights, and at the airport calls her mother and her on the phone with Paul. Paul promises Marlene that he’s a “nice young man” and that she has “nothing to worry about.” Paul handles it really well and ends up talking to the mother and the grandmother.
- When the helicopter takes off, Cidney seems genuinely frightened but rolls with it, while Paul is excited to show her where his real estate construction project is located on the Vegas Strip.
- Paul tells the camera that he feels connected to Cidney on “three to four levels” and that it might be love at first sight. They end the date back at his apartment, which itself has a view of the Strip.
- As they’re having a glass of wine on the balcony, Paul tells her that he’s “going to take a big risk” and then asks her if she’d consider marrying him. This is Millionaire Matchmaker history in the making here and an all-time reality TV what the f— moment. “Wow…” Marcela responds, but then says, “I would consider it… but we should probably get to know each other first.”
- Marcela tells the camera that she’s “not sure” but thinks that maybe that she was proposed to.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Heinz Holba & Paul Murad: Heinz and Marcela’s first date
- Heinz has Marcela come to his pretty enormous house in Los Angeles. Marcela tells the camera that it’s beautiful, and that “I feel lucky to being here.” As they take in what’s a pretty spectacular view of Hollywood from the back of the house, their conversation falls off a bit as lowkey Heinz doesn’t seem energetic enough to ask get-to-know-you questions of his date.
- They then head out to dinner, and Marcela’s super easy-going personality seems to loosen up Heinz just a smidge. Eventually – and after a martini – he starts asking her questions like, “So what are your secret desires?”
- Side note that they order cotton candy with their martinis, which I’m not sure is really weird or kind of cool. Maybe both?
- Heinz tells the camera that really likes Marcela after he was able to chill out a bit, and it seems clear that they like each other, but we don’t get to see anything else from their date.
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Heinz Holba & Paul Murad: post-dates upshot
- Patti calls Marcela, who says Heinz is “very sweet and very nice,” and that a second date is already on the books.
- In a strange reality show move, we saw Paul and Cidney call and leave a message for Patti near the end of the date. We pick things up later in the episode with Patti getting the message and learning of the proposal. We then quickly cut to Paul stopping by The Millionaire’s Club office. Patti is completely supporting of the first date proposal but wants to make sure that he will “close the deal” and do all the right things… so we can infer from this that these two crazy kids are indeed engaged. She then jumps to giving Paul advice on how to handle meeting the family over shabbat dinner.
- The end of episode credits then tell us: “Heinz and Marcela have gone on several dates and he continues to loosen up.” And: “Paul and Cidney are living together in Las Vegas and are working on their wedding plans. Paul is currently searching for the perfect ring for his perfect match.” Who woulda thunk it?
The Millionaire Matchmaker, Heinz Holba & Paul Murad: where are they now?
So, I’m not exactly sure what happened next with crazy kids Paul and Cidney, but I am exactly sure that it wasn’t good. Like at all:
Seems the trouble stems from a chat between Patti Stanger and Murad’s ex-fiance, Cidney Dutton. During the conversation (which was reprinted on Dutton’s Myspace page), Stanger allegedly called the millionaire a liar, untrustworthy, broke and fraud. And just for good measure she may have thrown in a little something about Murad’s nationality, religion and sexual orientation. Murad has fired off a cease and desist letter to Stanger.
Some stats and info about The Millionaire Matchmaker – “Heinz/Paul”
TV SHOW – The Millionaire Matchmaker
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 7
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Bravo
AIR DATE – March 4th, 2008
GENRE – Reality TV, Dating Shows, Trashtastic TV