Tila Tequila "found love" via 'A Shot at Love,' not eyeing second season

By Christopher Rocchio, 11/20/2007

If MTV plans on doing a second season of its A Shot at Love bi-sexual reality dating series, it will apparently have to be without the show's first season star Tila Tequila.

"I feel like I found love and right now don't feel like doing another season," Tequila told TV Guide in the magazine's December 2 issue. "If this relationship doesn't work out, then I'll definitely go back and look for love again. But right now I'm happy where I am, sitting in my sweatpants and looking at the sun outside."

The 25-year-old bisexual model -- whose MySpace profile is billed as having the most friends in the history of the social-networking website -- is currently starring in A Shot at Love, which premiered last month. A Shot at Love follows Tequila as she whittles down a group of 32 suitors -- 16 straight men and 16 gay women -- who live together and compete against one another in challenges to win her heart.

"We finished wrapping, and I definitely found love," Tequila told TV Guide. "But we can't be seen out together, so we only talk on the phone. It's pretty hard."

A Shot at Love didn't mark Tequila's first foray into reality television. In 2003, she was a contestant on Surviving Nugent, a two-hour VH1 reality special that required seven city slickers to travel to the Michigan ranch of rock star Ted Nugent and compete in outdoor activities and survival-oriented challenges. The special later spawned a Surviving Nugent: The Ten Commandments reality series sequel that aired the following year. Earlier this year, Tequila also appeared on an episode of NBC's Identity game show.

"I knew that working hard would pay off," Tequila told TV Guide about her celebrity status. "But it's mostly my fans helping me get there. They've known me for so long, it's like seeing their best friend succeed. My friends and people who know of my character want to see me become more successful."

Tequila apparently viewed A Shot at Love -- MTV's first serialized reality dating show -- as a good platform to increase her celebrity status.

"I don't care about fame," she told TV Guide. "I turn down a lot, like record deals and TV shows. But the media twists it into, 'Tila Tequila's fired because she's talent-less!' But it's like, I'm the one who quit!"

Tequila is ultimately unsure about whether her A Shot at Love persona is really real, claiming she'd be "a little more feisty" on the show if she wasn't playing a character.

"Sometimes I just want to scream at everybody and say, 'Shut the f**k up!'" she told TV Guide. "But I'm not [VH1's I Love New York star Tiffany "New York" Pollard]. I have a little more class than that. So I let the contestants speak their peace."