I Love Money is a VH1 reality game show, starring contestants from Flavor of Love, I Love New York, Rock of Love, Real Chance of Love, For the Love of Ray J, Daisy of Love and Megan Wants a Millionaire, who all immediately proceed to have sex with each other. The show is Refuge in Audacity in its purest form.
For a chance to win $250,000 and a couple of extra hours on TV, the contestants must win a series of challenges, hosted by VH1 personality Craig J. Jackson. Much of the show's appeal lies in watching Jackson slowly realize he's taken a wrong turn in his career path: he visibly goes from generic TV host enthusiasm to boredom, then to abject horror, and finally (around season 2) to simply enjoying the show for what it is. By the time the season 2 finale came around, he was really getting in on all the fun.
The contestants, meanwhile, are split into two teams. They form alliances and friendships, fall in and out of love, beat each other up and partake in Fear Factor-inspired challenges such as "the kiss-off", "race around a Mexican square in a rickety go-kart and eat disgusting food while the locals wave tiny flags", and "save the drowning Midget Mac doll". With each new game, contestants manage to disqualify themselves in increasingly idiotic ways: by not understanding the challenge to begin with, by injuring their opponents (or allies), or most commonly, because they're sleeping with the other team. So Bad, It's Good doesn't begin to describe it.
After each season, several contestants got their own reality dating shows, contestants of which ended up in new I Love Money seasons — and the whole cycle would start all over again.
A third season was taped, but never aired because of extreme backstage drama. Specifically, one of the contestants was found dead in an apparent suicide after having possibly strangled his wife of six months to death. Said contestant was also heavily implied to have won I Love Money 3. The entire series now feels Harsher in Hindsight as a result. Season four was already in the can and was eventually aired more than a year later, but the show was not renewed for a fifth season.
For general tropes about the contestants, please see the pages for their respective shows.
This series provides examples of:
- Aesop Amnesia: Buckwild and Smiley didn't learn much in Charm School after all. Averted with Saaphyri, who seems to have genuinely bettered herself since Charm School and even jokes about other contestants' anger issues.
- All the Other Reindeer: Played with.
- It's heavily implied to be the reason Midget Mac was the first contestant eliminated in Season 1. While a few of the other contestants sympathized with him initially, their concern for his mental and emotional well-being vanished when he decided to insult Hoopz and refused to apologize for antagonizing her. This led to Whiteboy and Hoopz mutually assuring Midget Mac would not be voted onto either team.
- Buddha in Season 2 was a zig-zagged case of this. While his being a prime elimination target was also the result of a long-standing feud between himself and The Entertainer from their I Love New York 2 days, Buddha was immensely antisocial and mean-spirited towards the other contestants. His malice ended up causing 20 Pack and T-weed to make a deal to not include him on either team. While 20 Pack kept his word, T-weed didn't.
- Buddha's persistent presence, despite everyone wanting him gone, was such where VH1 had to step in and intervene. Everyone was given a chance to send Buddha home, and the opportunity to do so was taken.
- In Season 4, it is stated to be the direct reason for Blonde Baller getting her check voided.
- And Your Little Dog, Too!: Because Megan carried around a mentally disabled chihuahua throughout the entire first Season of I Love Money, the primary Paymasters who wanted to send her home also made threats to send her dog home, or otherwise enact harm upon her. The Entertainer even went so far as to personally customize a check for said chihuahua - Lily - to void in conjunction with Megan's check. He winds up not voiding Megan's check in the episode where he does this, but it's implied he strongly desired to.
- Arch-Nemesis: Chance and Mr. Boston. They temporarily set aside their differences to pair up for what they thought would be an eating contest. It turned out to be a kissing contest. Mr. Boston was up for it, but Chance wasn't.
- A large majority of I Love Money 2 can be explained to be the result of Tailor Made, Buddha, and The Entertainer all being unable to reconcile their differences from I Love New York 2, and everyone else in the cast getting caught up in their long-standing feuds. While Tailor Made wanted to let go of his grudges, the other two absolutely did not.
- Batman Gambit: In Season 2, 20 Pack throws a challenge specifically to force Tailor Made's alliance to go on their word. What this ends up doing is revealing that Tailor Made doesn't have as much authority over his alliance's actions after all.
- Call-Back: All of the challenges I Love Money implements are based either on iconic events from the past "of Love" shows, or on general behavioural quirks the contestants from those shows took on. It gradually becomes a recursive element, exaggerated for humour; even continuity from I Love Money 1 and I Love Money 2 gets used to give the contestants of I Love Money 4 something to do.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder:
- There’s a lot of backstabbing on this show.
- There was a challenge in I Love Money 1 which involved throwing daggers behind the backs of mannequins created of the contestants who made it far enough to participate in said challenge. As a result, this trope was parodied.
- A similar challenge was present in I Love Money 2, but the objective was to throw the same mannequins "under the bus" so they could be run over.
- Deliberate Under-Performance: In the I Love Money series, this is known as "throwing the challenge." The main motive for deliberately underperforming is often because of something related to an alliance in the house. In most circumstances, everything ends up going pear-shaped for whomever throws their respective challenge.
- Devil in Plain Sight: Megan plays this for all it's worth, in I Love Money 1. She's heavily implied to be the reason, be it direct or otherwise, for most of the other contestants' respective downfalls. She quits, when this has potential to blow back in her face during a trial by jury.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Most of the girls, but most notably Megan and Myammee, try to avoid elimination by wearing as little as possible. Megan also charmed Whiteboy to get into the Stallionaires alliance, but ended up actually liking him.
- Frank is disqualified from the butt-kissing contest when, after having his lips on 20 Pack's ass for a good ten minutes, he slaps it.
- The Ditz: It takes it to whole new levels.
- Dysfunction Junction: Implied to be the main draw of I Love Money.
- Failure Is the Only Option:
- Frank appears to be framed as having this trope afflicted upon him. From the very beginning of Season 1, The Entertainer was seen as "a loser" for his eccentric mannerisms and for still living in his parents' basement. This at least gave him a clear motive to have the $250,000 cash prize, as he wanted to cut ties with his parents and improve his life. This winds up giving him an "underdog" persona in I Love Money 1, as most of the other contestants rapidly grew tired of his shenanigans. He still endeared himself to Destiney, Heather, and 12 Pack, all of whom he allied with and tried to help however he could. When Frank recognizes he erred in sending Heather home instead of Megan during elimination, he tries to make the best of his mistake by being more competitive. His aspirations are dashed due to the Pole Riders In The Sky challenge, which was one he could not have hoped to prepare for. He realizes he's screwed; rather than allow any of the remaining contestants to void his check, he deliberately chooses to be the Dead Last Loser, which is played for tragedy.
- Smiley is a dramatic version: As was said to her in Charm School, she's simply comfortable being the loser. She doesn't last long.
- Funny Background Event: So the two teams are in the vault, and... wait. Is Heat wearing KISS makeup?
- Glasses Pull: 20 Pack tries this for extra drama, showing his Manly Tears behind his sunglasses. Slightly undercut by the fact that his mascara was running.
- Guy Liner: 20 Pack.
- He's Back!: This is personally invoked by Frank the Entertainer in Season 2, as he did not take his loss in Season 1 lightly. He's also implied to have taken a level in badass in the interim between I Love Money 1 and I Love Money 2, though his increased ruthlessness in the latter is noticed to such a degree it borders on Took a Level in Jerkass and is also responsible for his downfall in the second season.
- Heat also tries to invoke this in I Love Money 2. He lasts long enough to be pivotal to the victory of a few challenges, but he is still eliminated early and in much the same situation as in I Love Money 1.
- Downplayed in Season 4 with 20 Pack. He only lasts two Episodes.
- Heel Realization: In Season 1, after having eliminated Heather, The Entertainer quickly recognizes his mistake and tries to redeem himself in her eyes, by trying to win challenges henceforth. Likewise, he promises to get revenge on Megan for having manipulated him into voiding Heather's check. Unfortunately for him, the next challenge - Pole Riders In The Sky - was one he was in no way prepared for (even by his own admission). Because he was not equipped to handle Pole Riders In The Sky, he began contemplating things and recognized he was not going to last much longer after this challenge. He deliberately fell in the water, conceding he was "going back home" to his Jerkass parents and accepting his role as Dead Last Loser of the challenge. As a consequence, his check winds up getting voided outright by CJ. He surprisingly takes it in stride, though part of his graceful defeat is in recognizing how much he screwed up to begin with.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Brandi C hopes to make one for Megan. VH1 screws her out of it, and the act is later mocked by contestants on I Love Money 2.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: 12 Pack and Heat were this during I Love New York, but they had a falling out after the show. Their friendship on I Love Money is strained at best.
- Buckwild and Saaphyri became best friends during Charm School, and were inseparable on I Love Money.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- As hostile as Buckwild and Saaphryi were in this season, they were right about how Leilene was focusing too much on finding love in a competition setting. They were also right about how Buddha was just trying to manipulate Leilene.
- On the reunion for the second season, Buddha was right about how Leilene always tries to fill a void with the wrong type of men.
- Kavorka Man: Frank. He manages to bed Destiney, Pumkin and Buckwild.
- Large Ham: Frank the Entertainer.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Virtually none of the contestants featured on I Love Money 1 won their respective "of Love" shows or their corresponding spinoffs, with the exception of Hoopz.
- Heat and The Entertainer failed to win I Love Money 1, thus their respective returns on I Love Money 2.
- 20 Pack failed to win I Love Money 2, thus his return on I Love Money 4.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Would you admit to having been in love with Flavor Flav?
- Love Triangle: This is a constant recurring trope in each of the I Love Money seasons. In each, however, it's deconstructed: none of the Love Triangles involved last particularly long, on account of problem members being eliminated quickly, often with good reason.
- Season 1's Love Triangles were:
- Heat, Destiney, and The Entertainer. The Entertainer had feelings for her, but Destiney and Heat were dating at the start of I Love Money 1. Destiney eventually breaks up with Heat, and The Entertainer swoops in. As a result of the breakup and as a result of 12 Pack and Heat distancing themselves from each other, The Entertainer is allowed to eliminate Heat, with minimal consequence. To add insult to injury, alliance-related melodrama causes Destiney to have her check be voided not long after, making the romance between her and The Entertainer short-lived anyway.
- Hoopz, Real and Whiteboy. Real actually proposes to Hoopz, sending Whiteboy into a giggling fit. Whiteboy ends up sending Real home later, because their friendship becomes strained from the ensuing drama caused by the Love Triangle.
- Season 2's Love Triangle was:
- Buddha, Leilene, and Heat. Buddha's emotional manipulation of Leilene is noticed by her friends (Saaphyri and Buckwild), who do not take him lightly and actively scheme to get him out of the house. It's implied Heat was a motivator for her to not quit the show, as was originally planned. On top of this, Leilene is eliminated before Buddha is, both because Saaphyri quickly assesses her priorities for being on I Love Money 2 to not be all there and because Buddha managed to manipulate Milf and others to vote against Leilene anyway.
- Season 4's Love Triangles were:
- Chi Chi, Brittanya, and 20 Pack. Brittanya sleeps with 20 Pack behind Chi Chi's back, though he had not known she and Chi Chi were an item to begin with. When this information is revealed to him, 20 Pack tries to try help Chi Chi see Brittanya's manipulative ways for what they truly were. Chi Chi winds up voiding 20 Pack's check, which was a decision his team ultimately wanted anyway. Though Brittanya and 20 Pack both have solid reasons for wanting the $250,000 cash prize, at least by Chi Chi's assessment, he claims he was more convinced by Brittanya's reasons (and by the fact she has a son). This culminates in 20 Pack leaving in outrage, promising there "will be problems" if either of them are in Chicago and encounter each other there.
- Mindy, Francisco, and Brittanya. Mindy had feelings for Francisco, and they start to talk to each other rather cordially. However, these feelings are proven to be one-sided on her part. Later on, Brittanya and Francisco hook up, much to Mindy's outrage. While Mindy tells Francisco exactly how she feels, there's no elimination which directly exploits this Love Triangle - it ends up being a non-entity, as Francisco is eliminated by Punisher for outside context reasons entirely. Brittanya gets Dead Last Loser in a weight-gaining challenge and is eliminated, the very next day.
- Francisco, Brittanya, and Punisher. At around the same time Brittanya and Francisco hooked up, Punisher had also been seeing her. While Punisher is vocally disappointed, because he thought he and Brittanya had something special, he does not pay much mind to her hooking up with Francisco in the long run. In fact, Punisher later eliminates Francisco because of their past rivalry from Megan Wants A Millionaire, a reason having virtually little to do with Brittanya at all. Furthermore, she gets Dead Last Loser in a weight-gaining challenge and is eliminated by default.
- Season 1's Love Triangles were:
- Manly Tears: 20 Pack, several times.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Discussed with It in the second season's finale, to where even the promos promoted the idea. While the other contestants are unconvinced, It re-iterates his oddball behaviour was just an act during the Season 2 reunion.
- Off the Rails: I Love Money 2 was supposed to have Buddha be the first contestant eliminated, because his strength as a contestant and his generally unpleasant behaviour were both highly frowned upon. However, T-weed recruits him anyway, in an act of sheer arrogance. Not only does the plan get derailed, but it takes roughly four people's checks being voided (including T-weed's) and VH1 intervening to normalize the game state as a result of these plans being derailed.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Played with:
- None of the girls from Rock of Love 1, except Rodeo, had nicknames to go by in the first place.
- The Entertainer gradually grew comfortable with going by his real name, though there were moments where he slipped up and referred to himself as The Entertainer. He reached a personal compromise, and has generally been referred to as Frank the Entertainer.
- Averted for Leilene, who initially went by Smiley but chose to stop doing that. She only goes by her real name, which was a direct result of the personal growth invoked in Charm School.
- Saaphyri never got a nickname, due to being disqualified before she could get one in Flavour of Love 2. In I Love Money 2, this sticks.
- Buckwild is referred to as "Becky Buckwild" by everyone, including Jackson and Frank.
- Lampshaded with Milf, whose nickname crosses over into Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep". Jackson actually calls her a "Mother I'd Like to F***".
- Jackson himself tries to get people to call him CJ. It's halfway successful.
- Only Sane Man: Averted, as part of the Dysfunction Junction caused by having different contestants from prior "of Love" shows compete against each other. Either the contestants' antics are amplified to such degrees that they are seen as The Loonie by everyone else at least once, or they themselves deliberately play up their quirkiness (as was the case with Mr. Boston in I Love Money 1) as a persona meant to confuse and confound the others.
- Pet the Dog: Buddha is lot nicer to Leilene on the reunion than he was on the show.
- The Prankster: Rodeo. She poured flour over Real while he was in the shower, and generally gained a reputation of being fond of pranks.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: A trope directly invoked in I Love Money 2, where a kissing challenge was twisted to make fun of how people on the "of Love" shows show sycophantic behaviour towards more powerful players.
- Really Gets Around: Brittanya had sexual relations with almost all the men in the house.
- Revenge Before Reason: This trope is implied to have caused a majority of the ensuing problems in I Love Money 2.
- Neither Buddha nor the Entertainer were willing to let go of their feuds with Tailor Made from I Love New York 2, in spite of him apologizing for the way he acted. This winds up instrumenting their respective downfalls: Buddha's malicious behaviour proved to be enough of a nuisance for VH1 to step in and allow an opportunity for people to vote him out, while The Entertainer's refusal to let go of his hatred of Tailor Made cost him the game in the end.
- 20 Pack was put into a situation where - regardless of who he sent home - he was still sending an ally of his away, thereby diminishing his alliance's chances of making it all the way to the end. He emphasized he did not want to void her check, because he did not want to separate her and Saaphyri, but also did not want to just void Frenchie's check because of how helpful she had been to him. When told to void Buckwild's check because everyone got tired of her antics, 20 Pack complied. Saaphyri quickly turned on if him for that, without recognizing the hell he was going through during the elimination procedure.
- Skewed Priorities: Leilene focuses too much on finding love and she forgets she is in a competition.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In I Love Money 2, this almost happens several times:
- Upon sensing foul play from 20 Pack and T-weed, Tamara almost considers rage-quitting in the first Episode. She is talked out of it, with people having been made assured Buddha would be going home. T-weed's double-cross winds up causing her to go home instead.
- A plan to get Buddha out of the house was cooked up by members of the Green Team, where Leilene would quit so someone else would get their check voided by the Paymaster. Theoretically, the plan was concocted with Buddha being presumably up next after the departure. However, Leilene winds up not going through with the plan, much to her friends' frustration, because she was talked out of it by the aforementioned Paymaster (who happened to be Heat).
- After going through a number of individual challenges, Frenchy expresses disinterest in continuing the game. Much like the other instances on I Love Money 2, she is talked out of it. However, the Paymaster (Prancer) sends her home anyway, because she was much stronger than the other two competitors whose checks were also in the strongbox.
- Skewed Priorities: Saaphyri accuses Leilene of being on I Love Money 2 for entirely the wrong reasons, as a result of the latter falling in love with both Buddha and Heat. As an act of mercy, Saaphyri gets Leilene out of the house to spare her the heartbreak Buddha was putting her through, as well as to tell her off about being on the show "for love," when the entire point was to be there for the money.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Pumkin and Frank. They continued slapping and strangling each other during sex, apparently.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Many of the contestants on I Love Money had grandiose plans as to what to do with the $250,000 reward for winning, and genuinely thought they had a solid shot at the game. It's implied some challengers highly overestimated their own abilities, especially in comparison to some of the most consistent threats.
- Spell My Name With An S: VH1 still isn't sure how to spell Toastee(e) and T(-)weed.
- The Starscream: Many instances of a Starscream are invoked on this show.
- Third-Person Person: The Entertainer refers to himself as this at times.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Saaphryi and Buckwild in season two. The two are more aggressive and hostile towards the other contestants.
- Took a Level in Kindness: In I Love Money 2, Tailor Made still wants to redeem himself in the eyes of the other contestants from I Love New York 2. He tries apologizing for his bad behaviour to Buddha and The Entertainer, though both of them still have long-standing feuds with him which neither were willing to let go. It's also implied to be the reason Tailor Made voided the Entertainer's check; while Tailor Made had changed, the Entertainer had not. Tailor Made's empathy for It and his attempts to be diplomatic with other contestants were clear signs of Tailor Made having become a kinder person.
- Trailers Always Lie: The editing trailer for the first season's reunion teased that Hoopz and Real were going to get married, but on the reunion itself, she made it clear that they were just good friends.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: Megan and Frenchie both seem to have unlimited supplies of bikinis. And not much else.
- The same goes for Myammee, who seems to have an unlimited supply of lingerie. She even lampshades this in the second season.
- Justified Trope: It turns out she During I Love Money 2, Myammee lost a suitcase, and only really had her lingerie and the clothes she came in.
- The same goes for Myammee, who seems to have an unlimited supply of lingerie. She even lampshades this in the second season.
- With Friends Like These...: Buckwild and Saaphryi to Leilene in the second season. They tried convincing Leilene to quit.
