Renee Alway Puns

So, I recently rewatched C8 and found Renee's story very confusing. I remember seeing that she was from Maui and thinking that was pretty cool because my mom grew up in Hawaii. But...then she very rarely brought it up (contrast with Anya C10). There was also a lot of inconsistencies in her stories.

So I decided to look up where Renee is actually from. Which led me on a wild goose chase through criminal/civil records all over the United States. Literally every time I looked up one thing, I'd find other things via public records. All. Over. The. Country.

Another thing is that a lot of Renee's family members are very public on social media, as they are in sales/lifestyle careers. I am not going to use their names bc I'd feel gross doing so, but their info is fairly public.

Another thing I wanted to get out of the way is that I have extended family that is caught in the addiction/poverty/prison/violent crime mess. I had assumed this was the case with Renee's family. It definitely isn't. She is the only person that I could find who's been involved in violent crimes (discounting her father who was abusive). The rest of her family is regular-degular middle class/upper middle class. Very strange.

Renee is a very unreliable narrator throughout all of this, even in her prison/ post-prison statements. I definitely feel empathy for her, but she also seems extremely manipulative and like she often plays the victim. Obviously addiction is a terrible disease, but the vast majority of drug addicts don't end up in prison for multiple violent felonies.

Cycle 8

The filming dates for this cycle were October 23 – December 13, 2006.

I was super confused at Renee's story, especially where she was from. She said:

1. She listed her hometown as Maui, Hawaii
2. She lived with her mother in Palm Springs at the time
3. Her husband (Jason) lived in Hawaii and was homeless at certain points
4. Her son lived with her husband's mother somewhere on the mainland
5. Her son was only 7 months old at the time of her audition
6. Another mystery is the fact that she used Dewitt as her last name. That is not her ex-husband (Jason's) last name, nor does it appear to be a family name. Jason did use it as an alias at one point, but the source of this name and her reasons for using it instead of her real name are unclear.

Her story is all...inconsistent. Not necessarily that it seemed like lies but just it was confusing.

I initially found Renee interesting because my Mom grew up in Ha

So where we left off with our....hero? antihero? ,Renee, she was sentenced to 12 years for multiple felonies. Lots and lots of felonies. She relinquished custody of all of her children and since there was some confusion in the last post Renee has three biological children.

Her BIL posted that the sentencing was unfair and the system was making an example out of her. Which like...ok but she did a lot of bad things.

I also want to take a moment to distinguish and draw the line BIG between her and Jael, and for the vast majority of addicts for that matter. Jael's behavior was so primarily self-destructive, and I would say that the majority of people who end up addicted to drugs are mostly, primarily self-destructive. Like, when in active addiction they can't see how their behavior is hurting others because it's not super obvious, or their behavior that might hurt someone else is small and petty and usually to get by on survival mode or something. Like some crimes Renee did sounded like "survival mode," but I have had a lot of friends with drug addiction not somehow resort to crimes involving firearms.

OK YEAH DRUGS WERE INVOLVED BUT RENEE WAS BASICALLY GTA'ING IN PALM SPRINGS WHILE PREGNANT. I am not saying this to shit on her, because I think no matter what you do you are still a worthy person and everyone can be redeemed in some way. But...this is not a typical "life on drugs" story. Like, there's also an attraction to violence/risk/ lack of regard for life that I think we really need to think about here. And it's not a typical drug addict thing, I don't like the whole, "Well drugs happened," while they have 24 charges, with multiple involving firearms, etc.

**2015 Prison Interview (**Renee is in prison in this interview, and has been for about a year)

• Renee keeps saying she "made choices" and says she chose drugs as an outlet and it's a slippery slope. Credits drugs but also "flaws within her character" to be where she is (which is pretty big for someone to do)
• The interviewer definitely didn't do her homework she's like "People saw you on TV, you had thousands of fans, is this just a side they didn't see of you?" UHHH DO YOUR RESEARCH AND STOP SENSATIONALIZING!! People liked Renee because of her talent, NOT because of her personality. We definitely saw a sketchy ass side of Renee. Other articles referred to her as a "fan favorite," and like....yeah DESPITE her personality. She was only a favorite (for anyone) because her photographs were bo

From After The Bell: https://open.spotify.com/episode/296GKvWoYlqumByVKJlyGb

Also, it was a really fun episode to listen to, these two are great friends.

Side note: Was, obviously, recorded before Renee's positive test for COVID-19.

For sure!

Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t get why they are always compared, they aren’t even that similar apart from both of them being quite sassy and not having kids living with them. Naturally we wouldn’t get as attached to Renee as the other characters since she was only around for two seasons but that doesn’t mean she was a bad character.

I’m kind of late to the party on this, but Renee was arrested again in September 2019 after being released early from her 12 year prison sentence back in 2018. (The 2019 arrest has been categorized as “Domestic Violence.”)

She was charged with “assault with a deadly weapon (not a firearm,)” “causing corporal injury to a spouse/cohabitant,” “terrorism threats,” and “violation of parole.”

I can’t find anything about a sentence following that arrest. Does anybody know if she’s back in prison? I had such high hopes that she was going to turn everything around for herself after her release.

Even though she's from Texas...

Why do the girls always purchase their dresses at Ms. Renee’s shop versus a typical bridal shop? She always creates 5 custom options for them and I can imagine that must be super expensive. Why not just purchase dresses that already exist, and not have 5 options made? Any known reason for this?

It just seemed like a lot of it wasn't adding up.

She said that she was 11 dollars away from bankruptcy yet at the same time her husband didn't want her to win ANTM or Modelland and didn't seem worry at all about possible issued with finances when they interviewed him on Modelland. Also, Renee signed with a major agency after cycle 8 and yet when she was on "Modelland" she said she thought her career was over until Tyra called her with this possibility. Again, not adding up.

Also, when telling her story on Modelland, it sounds like she was renting an apartment in LA (in a dangerous area apparently) while keeping a house in Maui where her husband was living. Yet she emphasizes the point that she was in that apartment, I hate to say it but I think she may have been purposefully misleading than.

I don't think she outright lied about her past like Courtney in cycle 23 but it definitely seemed like she was stretching the truth at points. Anybody else feel this way?

Also, I find it odd that Renee said she wanted to win the challenge at top 10 (the posing challenge) so badly so she could sell the necklace for money. Yet on Modelland when she wins a diamond necklace she didn't have the same plans.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

No matter what option I take, I seem to lose face points when Renee interviews me in career mode. I chose the "respect is earned" option rather than "they're all jealous" and somehow became less of a face.

Is anyone else having this issue, am I somehow doing something wrong here?

(Also having to wait for those horrible unskipable silent animations to end is torture).