From: ggarcia@mipos2.intel.com (Gilbert Garcia)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: THE REAL WORLD: Entertainment Weekly article
Date: 12 Aug 92 21:46:30 GMT


The following was reprinted without permission out of the August 7, 1992
issue of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:

'Real World' Meets the Real World

For the MTV Seven, life moves from magnificent to mundane. 
By Benjamin Svetkey

The cameras stopped rolling on MTV's THE REAL WORLD back in May (the final
episode airs on Aug. 8, following a three-hour marathon of episodes 6 
through 12), but the drama is far from over for the seven young castmates
of the "reality soap opera", who got three rent free months in a dreamy 
New York City loft in exchange for permission to videotape their every move.
Here's what the gang's been up to since leaving loftland last spring:

*HEATER B, 21:  The Jersey City rapper has been polishing her first album,
scheduled for release in late August (no title yet).  Some bad news, though:
Her cat Smokey (a regular on THE REAL WORLD) has disappeard. "I got her the
day before I moved into the loft and she ran away the day after I moved out.
I was really bumming - that cat could have made a fortune doing 9-lives
commercials."

*JULIE OLIVER, 19:  After rooming with Heather in New Jersey for a month, the
aspiring dancer from Alabama found her own Manhattan digs in June.  But she's
still jobless and suffering from severe post-loft depression.  "It's super
hard to see yourself on TV, but still be scrounging under sofa cushions for
quarters.  I've got fame, but not fortune."

*NORMAN KORPI, 25:  The bisexual graphic artist is back in Brooklyn, designing
T-shirts and umbrellas.  Fame has had some odd side effects, though: "I get
phone calls from fans who want to date me," he says.  "I got one from a 
woman who told me her breast size and promised to send pictures.  Then I got
a call from a football player.  He gave me his measurements - 6'4", 240
pounds - and said he wants a date too."

*ANDRE COMEAU, 21:  "The only change in my life is that people don't think I'm
as big a scumbag anymore", says the grunge guitarist.  Since leaving the loft,
he has been living with the members of his band, Reigndance, in their communal
house in New Jersey.  "The band's been getting better gigs and bigger 
audiences" says the Kirstie Alley look-alike.  "But other than that, 
everything's exactly the same."

*ERIC NEIS, 21:  "I've been spending time at home with my mom", reports the
Jersey-born model.  He has also been auditioning for movies and soap operas
and had a modeling gig on MTV's House of Style.  The biggest life change since
leaving the loft: "Missy [who mad a REAL WORLD appearance] and I broke up.
I found out that she was fooling around with one of my friends.  We don't
even talk anymore."

*KEVIN POWELL, 26:  "I'm back uptown in Harlem," says the journalist-poet.
"Along with my writing thing" - he wrote two album reviews for ROLLING STONE
this summer - "I'm really getting into acting.  I'm interested in the whole
spectrum."  Though fame has opened some doors, it has also been a bit of a 
problem:  "The other day I was chased down the street by this group of 
screaming women.  That sort of thing happens all the time now."

*BECKY BLASBAND, 24:  The singer split New York in June to spend the summer 
writing songs in a cabin in Northern California.  She did a TV ad for one of
those plastic cosmetic organizers before leaving the city - "It's just a
bunch of girls putting on makeup in front of a mirror" - and is planning on
moving to Los Angeles in August to find more TV or film work.  "Fame is really
bourgeois these days," she says, disdainfully. "EVERYBODY is famous, but only
10 percent of those peole really DESERVE to be famous."


[Insert includes a picture of all 7 'Real Worlders' holding a globe up
to the camera.]