January 6 marks the debut of Joe Millionaire, and it's the Fox network's first reality dating show of 2022. Fox is reviving the series after nearly 2 decades by putting a new twist on an old idea. The show will be a reboot of the network's 2003 hit series, and it will feature 20 single women competing for the affection of two men. The twist is that one of them is a millionaire and one of them isn't. The contestants will not know which bachelor is the millionaire until the finale.
The first season of Joe Millionaire coincidentally also premiered on January 6 in 2003. This first installment was in the vein of The Bachelor, with the female competitors vying for a bachelor who was a millionaire. The catch came in the first episode, as the audience discovered that Joe Millionaire (AKA Evan Marriott) was secretly just an average "Joe" construction worker from Virginia. Evan's financial status remained under wraps until the final episode when his chosen love Zora Andrich had to decide if she would stay with Evan despite his blue-collar salary. She did, and the couple was given a million dollars to divide between them.
Unlike some of the iconic reality TV couples out there, Evan and Zora from Joe Millionaire didn't get their happily ever after. They didn't go the distance like The Bachelorette's Trista and Ryan. Evan and Zora split very soon after the finale aired, and both have shied away from the spotlight since appearing in the breakout hit. This means that finding updates on either of them is difficult. No relationship updates are available on Evan, so most fans assume that he's still single. He has started his own contracting business and is grateful to be back doing what he enjoys the most. In an interview with People, he said, "This is where I should have been."
Zora is now a mother of two and a foster mom to a one-year-old baby. She works in healthcare and teaches yoga on the side. While the two didn't stay together like some of their Bachelor in Paradise contemporaries or other reality duos, they are still friends, despite their failed relationship. According to an interview with the New York Post, Zora revealed that she and Evan do stay in contact with one another. She remarked that they will always share a common bond, despite their differences. She stated, "We share an experience of which few others can relate."
Joe Millionaire was mostly panned by critics, who felt it was built on a premise of deception and beefed up with filler. However, the ratings for the first season were the highest that Fox had seen for any of its programs in three years. Each of the 8 episodes brought in an average of 20 million viewers, and the finale was seen by over 40 million people. This made Joe Millionaire the top-rated entertainment program, aside from Super Bowl lead-out programs, on any network in all of 2003.
Compared to its successor, The Next Joe Millionaire, which premiered as part of Fox's fall lineup later in 2003, was a huge flop. Each of its 9 episodes only drew in between 5 and 6 million viewers, while the finale pulled in a disappointing 7.6 million viewers. In the franchise's defense, it was a concept that was nearly impossible to replicate, based on a hoax that could only successfully be pulled off once. Now, Joe Millionaire critics (and the audience) are curious. They wonder if the new twist will be enough to recapture what made the original Joe Millionaire such a phenomenon.