The Millionaire Matchmaker contestants who turned out last night to celebrate the show didn’t have much to say about the people they’d been set up with. But they jumped at the opportunity to give their thoughts on Patti Stanger, the Millionaire Matchmaker herself.
Predictably enough, some of their descriptions of the controversial matchmaker weren’t too flattering.
“I think she has no idea what she’s talking about,” said Jason Teich, who went looking for love on the show earlier this season. “She set me up with somebody who wasn’t for me, and it was a terrible match.”
Teich told Niteside he felt Stanger had been “tough” on him.
“I didn’t take her advice and I felt her wrath because of it," he said. "She called me a Brooklyn no-name punk. I don’t think she’s qualified to call me that. I don’t know where she’s from. Maybe New Jersey? I think it changes every episode.”
Doug Kepanis, another millionaire who appeared on the show, seemed more impressed with Stanger’s credentials. Yet like Teich, he questioned her approach.
“She definitely knows what she’s doing, but I think she shouldn’t be so derogatory about it,” Kepanis said. “She should be more constructive and stop yelling.”
Kepanis said that Stanger’s attitude wasn’t manufactured for the television cameras.
“That’s just her personality,” he said. “Once the cameras stopped it was the same Patti -- she didn’t change.”
Robin Kassner threw the party at The Grace Hotel to celebrate her appearance on the show. She said that while she didn’t meet the love of her life, being on ‘Matchmaker’ was an “interesting experience.”
With respect to Stanger, Kassner was less negative than her fellow contestants, even though during the episode, Stanger called Kassner “delusional.”
“Patti is tough as nails,” Kassner said. “She’s very direct and she tells it like it is.”
Like contestants on other reality shows, the Millionaires complained about selective editing that they said made them appear in an unflattering way. Neither Teich nor Kepanis were particularly happy with the way they were portrayed.
“They painted me as an alcoholic, pretty much, but the producers encouraged me to drink,” said Teich. “And then Patti set me up with a girl who didn’t drink at all.”
Kepanis, meanwhile, had a different concern.
“They made me out to be a sex maniac,” he said. “I did talk about sex on the show, but they edited it to look like that’s all I was talking about. Instead of, you know, other interests that I have.”
