Ryan Jenkins reportedly tried to cash-in on his reported I Love Money 3 victory before he allegedly fled the country after murdering his ex-wife last weekend.
Jenkins went to Los Angeles offices of I Love Money's 51 Minds Entertainment production company earlier this week and "begged" the company to give him a check for the $250,000 grand prize he allegedly won while competing on the VH1 reality show last month, a source close to production told Zap2it.com in a Thursday report.
51 Minds reportedly declined to pay Jenkins -- who also competed on the 51 Minds-produced Megan Wants a Millionaire reality dating series VH1 had premiered earlier this month -- his I Love Money 3 victory prize, presumably because the show was only scheduled to premiere early next year and reality show prizes are typically only awarded after the show's finale airs.
Given VH1 pulled Megan Wants a Millionaire off the air earlier this week, I Love Money 3 would appear unlikely to ever air now that the 32-year-old from Calgary, Alberta was charged Thursday with murdering Jasmine Fiore, a 28-year-old swimsuit model whose body was found Saturday stuffed in a suitcase in a Buena Park, CA trash can.
Jenkins was still one of 10 remaining suitors vying for Megan Hauserman's heart before the show was pulled by VH1 earlier this week when he was deemed a "person of interest" in Fiore's death.
While Fiore's mom Lisa Lepore claims Jenkins and Fiore had their marriage annulled in May, the two reportedly remained in contact when he left for Mexico in June to film I Love Money 3.
During filming, an I Love Money insider told Zap2it.com that Jenkins was "overheard repeatedly" on the phone with Fiore and described their conversations as being both loving and argumentative.
51 Minds has yet to publicly confirm whether Jenkins competed on and won I Love Money 3, which wrapped production roughly four weeks ago, but multiple media reports of his victory surfaced on Thursday.
However the production company did issue a Thursday statement claiming they were unaware of Jenkins' violent past -- which included a 2007 conviction for assaulting a girlfriend in 2005 and a misdemeanor count of "battery constituting domestic violence" for hitting Fiore in the arm in June.
"Obviously, if the company had been given a full picture of his background, he would never have been allowed on [Megan Wants a Millionaire]," 51 Minds spokesman Allan Mayer said in a media statement.
"The company did have in place what it thought was a thorough vetting process that involved complete background checks by an outside company for all contestants on its shows. Clearly, the process did not work properly in this case. 51 Minds is investigating what went wrong and taking steps to ensure that this sort of lapse never occurs again."
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