| Rachel Campos-Duffy | |
|---|---|
| Born | Rachel Campos October 22, 1971 Tempe, Arizona, United States |
| Occupation | Television personality |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Spouse | Sean Duffy (1999-present) |
Rachel Campos-Duffy[1] (née Campos. born October 22, 1971) is an American television personality who first gained fame in 1994 as a castmate on the MTV reality television series The Real World: San Francisco, before becoming a TV host, most notably as a recurring guest host on the ABC talk show The View.
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Rachel Campos was born in Tempe, Arizona.[2][3] She has two brothers,[4] one of whom is named Patrick,[3] and a sister[3] named Julie.[5] She was raised in a strict Catholic home.[3]
Campos graduated from Arizona State University in December 1993 with a degree in Economics.[6] She was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Graduate Fellowship, which she had planned to use to attend graduate school, with the goal of being a college professor.[7]
Campos was cast on The Real World: San Francisco in January 1994, and lived in the house on Russian Hill in San Francisco with her six housemates from February 12 to June 19.[8] The season premiered on July 6, 1994.
Although the castmates were informed ahead of time that they would be living with someone who was HIV-positive, they were not informed which housemate it would be.[9] On the cast's first night in the house, Campos’ housemate, AIDS educator Pedro Zamora, informed the housemates that he had AIDS by showing them his scrapbook of his career as an HIV educator. Campos felt uncomfortable and initially distanced herself from Zamora, stating that she wanted to know how his health status would affect her. However, she said nothing to the other housemates for fear of appearing homophobic.[10] Although Zamora took this as an act of rejection on her part, the two eventually became friends, with Zamora traveling to Arizona with Campos to visit her family.[3]
During her time on the series, she had both a romantic relationship and tumultuous friendship with housemate David "Puck" Rainey.[11] Judd Winick attributed this attraction on her part to her taste for rebellious men, or "bad boys". Campos conceded this,[4] and admitted that she was sometimes an initial bad judge of character, and too trusting.[7] Campos' friendship with Rainey eventually dissolved, as did Rainey's friendship with the rest of the cast,[12] resulting in his eviction.[13] Campos subsequently became best friends with Rainey's replacement, Joanna Rhodes, and the two of them were referred to by Winick as "high maintenance twins".[14]
On the show and in MTV's promotional materials for the show, Campos was depicted as a passionate Republican,[7] whose heroes included Jack Kemp,[15] and as a Catholic, though she conceded her strict religious upbringing fostered within her a rebellious streak that sometimes brought her into conflict with her parents.[3] Her political viewpoints led to conflict with her housemates on more than one occasion, as when Mohammed Bilal ridiculed the Republican housing ideas that she expressed in Episode 3.[16] In Episode 12, after Campos invited her housemates to a College Republicans function, self-described liberal Winick[10] opined that the speakers at the function were sexist, homophobic, and racist, a view to which Campos objected as unfair.[15]
Campos later appeared on Road Rules: All Stars, along with alumni of other past Real World seasons, such as Sean Duffy of the Real World: Boston cast.
She twice vied for a role on the daytime television talk show The View. After Debbie Matenopoulos left the show in 1999, Campos competed in an on-air try-out with Lisa Ling and Lauren Sánchez. Ling was eventually hired.[17] After Ling's departure in 2002, Campos, who by then held her own "coffee talk" show with other Wisconsin housewives, again competed in a week-long on-air try-out, this time against Erin Hershey Presley and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Hasselbeck was hired.
Campos-Duffy was also one of ten Real World alumni who starred in The Wedding Video, a Real World parody centered on the wedding of first season alumnus Norman Korpi.[18]
After her stint on The Real World ended, while the fifth season of the show (set in Miami) was being filmed, Campos was in a serious car accident. She sustained injuries to her leg, and the other passengers in the car, including her fiancé at the time, a producer for The Real World, were killed.
Campos later married her Road Rules: All Stars costar, Sean Duffy, They live in Ashland, Wisconsin,[18] where Duffy was the District Attorney of Ashland County and is currently a Republican member of Congress.[19] They have six children:[20] Evita Pilar (October 1st, 1999), Xavier Jack(November 2001), Lucia-Belen (April 2004), John-Paul, Paloma Pilar (May 18th, 2008) and MariaVictoria Margarita (April 1st, 2010).[21][22]
In Pedro, Nick Oceano's 2008 film dramatizing Pedro Zamora's life, Campos-Duffy is portrayed by Karolin Luna.[23][24]