The Rebel Billionaire, Episode 6: Lovesac vs. a Model Marriage

On last week’s show, our band of billionaire wanabees discovered the world of Virgin Records and Rock & Roll. One performed an act no self-respecting job applicant ever should, then suffered the further indignation of being eliminated. It wasn’t the best episode of the series, but the masochists among you can read about it here.

Now, nine remain. The episode begins with the contestants still in London, on a bus back to the mansion. Branson tells them, “Having fun in life is part of Virgin’s way of doing things.”

This week’s challenges center on a theme of “Publicity.” Teams must pick a company associated with one of the people on their team and generate publicity to support it. They have 36 hours to complete their task. Note, it’s Sunday and access to some resources will be limited. Players are again split into two teams by gender.

One of the fun parts of this episode are the ideas that are discarded. The men want to pile up a ton of chesterfields and burn them. The woman want to make a massive pile of uncomfortable underwear… and burn it. Candida nods assent, but in an aside, thinks it’s a little boring.

The men pick “Lovesac” as their company, which is the outfit where Shawn is CEO. So it’s natural that he be the team leader.

Then, Candida comes up with the idea of having two people get married. It evolves into, let’s marry off our resident model, Erica. Erica will be the team leader, and the company they will publicize is “Erica.” Like myself, a lot of people are incorporated, but by the way this is being presented, I think the “Erica” company just sprang into existence.

Candida expresses concerns about the challenge. She thinks they should be promoting a real business. Unfortunately, she expresses it using just a ton of words and her message is obscured. Nicole and Erica just think she’s being a pain.

Steve and Shawn come up with the idea of a Jewish/Muslim soccer match, and a lot of really bad slogans like “The Love-sac Match” come out.

The women create a website “MarryErica.com” to promote their activity. Discouragingly, I must report that it no longer seems to exist.

Candida arranges for a woman to donate a wedding dress, but Erica doesn’t want it because it’s going to take at least three hours round trip to go get it. It looks like Candida and Erica are not exactly on the same page again.

The women find an Internet ad for the guys’ stunt, and they think it’s a bad idea. Umm, we’re in England where soccer is king, it’s the same as a baseball game on this side of the Atlantic. Properly promoted, it could be the event of the month.

Meanwhile, the men are trying to find soccer players for their game. It’s not going well. They also want to get a celebrity referee lined up before they contact the press. Finally, the Internet café owner offers to get an Arabic team together. I hope this is a real team, soccer is a game of teamwork and you can’t just put any eleven guys out there and expect it to look good.

Steve next brags about his extensive rolodex of high-level contacts and offers to get in touch with Bush family sources. Yup, that Bush. He figures, let’s aim high, “we can get Manchester United to come and play if we want to.” Well, I don’t think ManU jumps when Bush speaks, and they’re not Jewish, but whatever. Fortunately, he’s stonewalled, and International Incidents are averted. Kinda reminds you of Sam from The Apprentice trying to sell a glass of lemonade for a thousand dollars, doesn’t it? Gabriel says, “This could be an absolute train wreck if we don’t have the teams.”

Candida has been busy! She’s convinced the lady with the free wedding dress to bring it to London. Not even Erica can turn that down. When she arrives there’s a whole lot of girly giggling during the trying on of the dress. No male can explain this properly, so let’s move on.

Now that the dress is secured, they need a groom. Armed with “Marry Erica” flyers, they hit the streets and begin hustling guys (in a good way) and handling out the flyers. Initially, pickings are slim, but soon dozens of fellas are on board for tomorrow’s event.

The men are starting to think about arranging for publicity. Steve lines up some contacts, and they head out to meet with them. But Shawn has the attention span of a cocker spaniel puppy, and when they come across Abbey road, he insists that they take a couple of minutes to recreate the Beatles’ famous album cover. Kids, an album is like a CD, only way bigger. The point is, his team notes Shawn’s lack of focus when there’s a ton of work to do.

The night is ending and the men are still short one Jewish soccer team. Steve heads out alone and lo and behold, he pulls it off. He finds a couple of Jewish lads who promise they can deliver a team. God only knows what kind of team they will be, but at this point if they’re Jewish, they’ll do.