The Prague Post

December 11, 2003

Reality television being all the rage these days, it's not surprising that the international celebrity spotlight has fallen on Prague and another classic Czech beauty: Linda Kazdova, part-time model, full-time student and America's newest sweetheart.

This past summer, Kazdova, 25, was sent by her agency, Look Models, to see if her telegenic beauty might land her a spot on the American reality-TV show Joe Millionaire. She got the spot, along with four other Czech women, and was among a total of 14 European women sent to a villa in Tuscany in August to await the potential man of their dreams.

Joe Millionaire was a genuine phenomenon in its first season last year. The premise: A group of young women are told that a man who recently inherited millions will be choosing among them for a girlfriend. They vie for the rich bachelor's attention and affection, and as each episode progresses he whittles down the field to a final choice.

Then the big twist: He is not really wealthy at all. Will the winner still be interested once the allure of money is gone?

The show was a victim of its own success -- for its second season, the producers had to go abroad to find women who hadn't heard of it. When Texan David Smith, aka "Joe Millionaire," first moseyed into Tuscany, the women Eurotrashed the poor guy, deriding his bumpkin predilections. "It seemed like the only thing he was interested in was horses," Kazdova recalls. When they were told that he inherited $80 million (2.1 billion Kc), they started talking with a Texas twang.

During the month the show was filmed, Smith took the women on romantic dates and lavished expensive gifts on them. But it became clear that he was developing a particular interest in Kazdova. "The way he looked at me, I just felt it," she says. Kazdova also began feeling the jealousy of her competitors, though, and the claustrophobic atmosphere of the show. She asked Smith to eliminate her.

Howling protest lit up Internet chat rooms over Kazdova's dismissal. Taken by surprise, the producers of the show began reconsidering -- and they weren't the only ones. Kazdova spent a week of mostly sleepless nights wondering whether she had made the wrong decision.

Smith presented himself as a man of deep religious convictions, which put off many of the European women. But Kazdova was touched by his faith. "I found it exotic," she says.

The juxtaposition of spiritual values with blatant hypocrisy and greed may seem strange. But during her weeklong exodus from the show, Kazdova says she had a mystical experience. "I felt as if he was calling for me to come back," she says. "I really felt that he was in love with me."

When the producers approached her to rejoin the show, with only two other women remaining, she jumped at the chance. And she wound up winning Smith's heart.

Actually, she won more than that. Kazdova was also awarded $250,000 in prize money. She's just finished her degree in economics, so the time seems right for her to take the money and run, probably to Los Angeles. "I would like to travel. I would like to get into TV," she says. "My dream is to be an anchor or to have my own talk show. I don't know if it can happen in the States, because I'm not a native speaker. But I know that modeling is not enough for me."

It was hard to watch the final episodes of the show and not believe there was real affection between the two. Kazdova isn't particularly forthcoming about her relationship with Smith, sharing only that he recently made a trip to Prague and that she is planning to visit him soon in Texas. But she will talk about what else she took from the show besides money.

"I've learned that I should always be myself, that I should say what I think and I shouldn't be afraid to stand out," she says. "I shouldn't be a coward and run away from problems as I did, because eventually I can succeed."

By any measure, that's an all-American success story.