Josh Clinton: Hey Arissa.
Arissa Hill: Hey Josh. How are you?
JC: Good. How are you?
AH: Good.
JC: Good. So what have you been doing in the last five years?
AH: Oh, hopefully doing a lot of growing up.
JC: That’s always good. Why did you decide to come back for this reunion show for The Real World: Las Vegas?
AH: I went through the biggest war for the first few years after the show ended and I had a few loose ends that I felt like I needed to tie up and come full circle. So for me coming back is like closing those chapters of my life.
JC: I understand. I write for a website called Inside Pulse, and Murtz wanted me to ask you if you remember talking to him awhile back about writing for us?
AH: Murtz?
JC: Yeah, Murtz Jaffer.
AH: Yeah, that name sounds familiar about three years ago.
JC: Yeah, he said it was awhile ago.
AH: Yeah, I remember him a little bit. Tell him I said hello.
JC: Okay, I sure will. From the previews I saw for the show, it seems like there is tension between you and the rest of your roommates. Can you explain how that all came about and where these problems came from for those who don’t know or remember?
AH: Sure. After filming ended for the original show in 2002 we did the whole “Bar Crawl” together. Basically living together with these people and then being on tour with them for a short time, I was basically moving in a different direction with the things I was doing with myself and how I wanted to live my life. It didn’t necessarily coincide with my roommates, because I never really thought it was that big of a deal. There is just some personalities that you just don’t click with. For me, I’m the type of person that avoids those personalities instead of being around them. Why put myself around unesscessary tension unless it’s going to be well worth it. I think that is where a lot of that stems from.
JC: Right. Do you think that sometimes people on these shows create drama for the sake of drama?
AH: To be honest, I don’t think anyone can actively think that living in front of the camera would create real situations. Anyone is going to act unnatural with cameras following them around. There are some people who just hold back a lot of their emotions and then there are some people who overexploit some of their behavioral characteristics because there is a camera there. Then there is the other element of outsiders and how they react to the cameras. So I do believe that the drama that is there is very real, but there are other elements that help perpetuate and perpetrate the extent of the drama.
JC: Is the Arissa we see on TV the same one we would find off of TV?
AH: Definitely when you see me screaming at someone that’s definitely me and definitely real. If you see me yelling at someone, that’s definitely how I am. So I’m not going to say that they cut and spliced that up, but you do have to realize that they are making a TV show. So if I was holding hands with my roommates and singing gospel songs, I don’t think anyone would be watching. On one hand, when I’m in casino and I don’t have a whole camera crew following me, my life is very very normal and very real.
JC: Right. So you have been on a Challenge now and a couple of Real Worlds now. Have you made any friends from the shows that will carry over to your real life?
AH: Not really. There are some people that I do keep in contact with, but at the end of the day I do realize that there are TV shows to be made and I’m not always up to throw myself in front of the cameras all the time. I take my friendships, the ones I do have, for what they are worth, but they are kinda outside of reality television element.
JC: Overall has your reality TV experience been a positive one for you then?
AH: Definitely. Regardless of what they show and what embarrassing things get shown, I think it takes a lot of balls to put yourself out there for other people’s entertainment purposes. You’re not always going to be shown in the perfect light that you would like to be seen in, so therefore I hope that the mistakes that I have made on these shows people can learn from and learn how not to act in certain situations. So I think always that it’s a positive experience. To look at myself at 22 and then again at 27, I can see what I need to tweak now about myself. I think it’s great. I have no qualms about reality television at all.
JC: In the original season, there was a moment where you were talking with Irulan and you both said that you felt like you were living in a house with a bunch of porn stars referring to the threesomes in the hot tubs and all of that. Did you think that this reunion and living with the same people would be the same as before?
AH: **laughing** I wasn’t really prepared and didn’t know what to expect this time. I didn’t know if I would find the same personalities today that I saw five years ago. I was hoping that we wouldn’t be having all types of sexual activity, hanging from chandeliers, and doing it right on the pool table, but you never know. This time I can say that it’s little less seedy, though. **laughing**
JC: **laughing** Right. So you mentioned earlier that you came back to do this show to tie up some loose ends. I know you can’t tell any details, but do you think that everything has been tied up with the conclusion of this show?
AH: Um, yeah. I hope that everything has been flushed out properly. I know it’s hard to convey every single thing that goes on, because there is so much that goes on when you have seven very different personalities. The possibilities are endless. But to be honest I was able to tie up some loose ends that I still had, some that had to do with the cast and some that didn’t have anything to do with the cast at all. It was very liberating for me to go back and do this reunion show.
JC: So what can we look forward to seeing on this reunion show then?
AH: I think you can look forward to seeing a lot of questions answered that you might have had about what we were doing or if we were the same people. I do think that putting these same people back in the same situations will cause certain behaviors to resurface again. So I think it will be interesting to watch how those play out and see who takes responsibility for what and who has different views on things. I’m excited to see how the editors put everything together.
JC: Right. After this show, are you done with MTV or do you want to do any Challenges in the future or anything?
AH: I don’t really think so. I feel like I’m too old for some of this stuff. I would rather not be in any living situation where I had to bunk with a number of individuals, even for a reward of several million dollars. It’s honestly just not worth it.
JC: I understand. So what do you want to do with your life away from TV then?
AH: Right now I’m still finding out certain things that I like away from Las Vegas. I finally have the chance to realize what the hell it is that I like. I’m really now taking the time to see that this reality show has given me a stronger voice to bring attention to things that are going on with more substance than rather or not Britney Spears is wearing underwear or has shaved her head or not. So now I’m using whatever interest there is from my experience with The Real World to bring attention to things like global warming, and the fact that there is no health care for everyone in the United States. There are so many things that are wrong in this country that need to be fixed.
JC: Well that sounds good. That’s all I have for you. I wish you luck with all of that and thanks for your time.
AH: Thanks Josh.
Coming up tomorrow on “The Real World: Las Vegas Reunion Week” is my exclusive interview with Irulan Wilson. Stay tuned…
– Reunited: The Real World Las Vegas airs on MTV on Wednesday nights at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT time starting on May 30.
