Matthew Hicks was already in the “fake Harry” business before he got approached to be in the new Fox reality show, “I Wanna Marry Harry.”
Hicks was on a look-alike website for a few months, along wit people who look like David Beckham, Simon Cowell, and other royals and celebrity type-look alikes.
“I put some pictures up as a joke with some friends not thinking anything would come of it and, well, here we are,” he told Vulture. Before getting the show he appeared at nightclubs and took photos with people.
Hicks described what happened when the producers told him the show’s premise (which is that the women vying for his affection are led to believe that he is the prince).
“I was silent for all 30 minutes of the pitch, and then I sat there absolutely speechless. I thought it was hilarious. They asked if I had any questions, the first thing I asked was, ‘Do I get to keep the clothes?’ I thought it sounded like a great idea and a great opportunity,” he said.
“The girls were brought over on the premise of meeting an eligible bachelor. We dropped hints and they were left to come to their own conclusions. And you know what girls are like, they gossip. Some of them believed more than others, and the ones who didn’t believe were persuaded by the ones that did. As long as there was a seed of doubt, that was all we needed to be successful.”
(Dan Hallman/Invision/AP)
“I was to use diversion tactics, to be mysterious, to play it coy,” Hicks elaborated recently. “They asked me about my family, I mentioned I had an older brother — which is true as well so I didn’t have to lie about that. And then if they were talking about their nieces and nephews, they’d be inquisitive, so they’d be like, ‘Have you got any nieces or nephews?’ I’d reply, ‘We just had a new nephew in the family.’ And it just went from there.”
In the show, which airs on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. EDT, 12 American women are flown to the English countryside to stay in a beautiful estate to meet a handsome man, who happens to resemble Harry. Hicks eliminates contestants along the way, and acknowledges his real identity in the end, reminiscent of the 2003 Fox show “Joe Millionaire.”
Hicks added that his friends and family think that the show is “hilarious” but “bizarre.”
He also described how he had to stay in character.
“When you date, you automatically panic. Every single time I opened my mouth to speak, I also had to think what I was saying. I had to remember all the history about Harry, his schooling, his military career, his entire background. I put in as much of my own personal history as I could so I wasn’t having to lie all the time, but it was really difficult remembering (a) what I had told each different girl and (b) sticking to the same story. It was just draining.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
