Greg Halstead lives in Murphree Hall with 350 other UF students, but he said nothing prepared him for living with six roommates on MTV's "Real World: Hollywood."
Halstead, 21, of Daytona Beach, is a cast member of the show's 20th season, which premieres Wednesday at 10 p.m. The show puts seven strangers in a house for three months and films the tensions, conflicts and love triangles that tend to arise "when people stop being polite … and start getting real."
"It was definitely a challenge," Halstead, a UF criminology junior, said of the experience. He returned to UF in January after the show's filming wrapped up.
Usually, MTV officials select all cast members, but this year an online competition let viewers select the seventh member.
With almost 3 million votes, Halstead beat out more than 20,000 other contestants for the spot, according to an MTV news release.
To compete for the casting, he created an MTV profile in April 2007, calling himself "PretyBoy" and posting blogs and videos about himself.
After listing his athleticism and "intriguing" personality as reasons why he should be on "Real World," he added, "Oh yeah! AND BECAUSE IM A GATOR!! AND IF YOUR NOt a GATOR…..you already know."
In a telephone interview Monday, Halstead said he's always been a "Real World" fan, and he wanted to be on the show to debunk some of the stereotypes generally represented by black cast members.
He said the online voting process was fun, but it led to conflicts when filming began.
"It was just kind of peculiar that (the other cast members) knew who I was before I knew who they were," he said. "There was a lot of prejudging."
A copy of the first episode released to the Alligator shows that the drama began right away. Halstead's references to female friends as "associates" offended Sarah, one of the other cast members.
"Everything that Greg says irritates me," she said on the show. "He just thinks that he's, like, God's gift to the planet, and he's not."
By the end of the episode, many of the other roommates expressed similar feelings for Greg in the "confessional," a room where cast members share their thoughts at the end of each week of filming.
The house also saw the first fight of the season on the premiere when Halstead made fun of one of the male cast members for wearing a T-shirt in the hot tub like a "cheerleader."
Halstead wasn't able to say much about other house issues.
Despite the conflicts, Halstead said he still had a good time on the show.
"I just feel like I enjoyed myself for the most part," he said.
He said his favorite memories came from outside the house, though, such as when he participated in a fashion show.
Halstead said he initially went to Hollywood to pursue a modeling career, but he mainly wanted to "have a good time" and be "drama free."
At UF, he's involved in Faces Modeling Troupe, he said.
His status as a Gator came up a few times during the show. The episodes were filmed during the fall semester, so he tried to watch UF football games as much as he could, he said.
"I did watch the LSU (game), which made me very, very, very angry," he said of UF's 28-24 loss in October 2007.
He said he's grateful for the opportunity to appear on the "Real World," which most viewers only dream about, he said.
Still, being followed by a camera 24/7 wasn't always easy, he added.
"It's a love-hate relationship," he said. "I feel like there is pros and there's cons, and I'm pretty sure once you watch the show, you can probably see what those pros and cons are."
