Nev Schulman spent a decade walking into the homes of strangers and earning their trust as the host of MTV’s “Catfish: The TV Show.” Now, in the wake of the show’s cancellation, he hopes to do the same in his surprising new gig — as a real estate broker for Coldwell Banker Warburg.
After nine seasons of “Catfish” and nearly 300 episodes, Schulman found out the show was dead on Monday from reading Variety. “I had the sense the show wasn’t going to get renewed, but there was never anything communicated to me,” he says. The most recent season aired through July 2024, and, amid the Paramount Skydance merger, MTV had yet to inform Schulman whether the show would return for Season 10. “I’m not going to sit around and wait by the phone,” he says.
Schulman first found fame as the center of the 2010 documentary “Catfish,” which tracked his online relationship with a woman who turned out to be lying about her identity. The film coined the term “catfish” and led to nine seasons of the MTV show. But after 15 years on-screen, Schulman decided to pivot to real estate. The gig fuses his love of exploring New York City and his knack for dealing with all sorts of people — plus, he wanted to work with his dad, who is also an agent at CBW.
“There are a lot of similarities between falling in love with a person and falling in love with a property,” Schulman says. With years of experience helping people investigate their suspicious online relationships, and come to terms with the person deceiving them, Schulman is well-equipped to ensure his clients don’t get “catfished” on a new condo purchase. “People feel as though they know me from the show, and they do. There’s a comfortability and a trust that’s been built because I’ve been in their homes, I’ve been on their TV screens.”
But the reasons for his career switch are more than that. “TV is unpredictable,” Schulman says. “If I’m being perfectly honest, as a responsible adult and father of three children, and someone who takes my role in this family as the provider very seriously, I thought I should have another source of income.”
“Catfish: The TV Show,” spanned several corporate regimes, launching as MTV was the jewel of Viacom cable channels and then continuing through the CBS merger and the company’s rebrand as Paramount Global. It could not, apparently, survive the Paramount Skydance era.
But as Variety reported on Monday, MTV is allowing the producers of “Catfish” to shop the series elsewhere. Schulman says he doesn’t own the rights to the series — that would be his brother Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost and Andrew Jarecki — but there is “definitely interest to continue making the show.”
“We feel strongly that the show still holds a tremendous value culturally,” Schulman says. “There’s certainly no shortage of loneliness and people looking for love.”
Reacting to the cancellation news, Schulman posted a video on Instagram alongside Max Joseph, his co-host for the first seven seasons of “Catfish.” Joseph let it slip that, before the show’s cancellation, he was planning on returning to the show for the first time since his exit in 2018.
After Schulman’s most recent co-host, Kamie Crawford, departed the show in 2024, he reached out to Joseph to see if he would rejoin him to shoot the remaining episodes of Season 9. “I was excited to have him come back, but then we never ended up filming more of those episodes,” Schulman says. “The whole merger with Skydance happened, and that slowed everything down, and nothing ever happened.” If “Catfish” does return, Schulman says Joseph would certainly be a part of those conversations.
Looking back on his 12 years on TV, Schulman says his favorite part of hosting “Catfish” was traveling to small towns on the forgotten edges of America and immersing himself in different communities. He remembers shooting a Season 6 episode, “Alante & Nevaeh,” which brought him to Saginaw, which is dubbed the most dangerous city in Michigan. While Schulman and Joseph helped Alante, someone in his circle invited them to a party in the neighborhood.
Schulman pulled up to an abandoned house with no furniture except for a mattress on the floor and a PlayStation in the living room. “Many of the young men at this party had guns,” Schulman recalls. “I could see someone else in this situation being very nervous or intimidated … but it was such an eye-opening moment for me.”
While the atmosphere was a far cry from Schulman’s privileged upbringing in New York City, he credits “Catfish” with pushing him outside of his comfort zone and allowing him to connect with people from wildly different backgrounds. He spent hours at the party taking selfies and hanging out. “So many neighborhoods and communities get portrayed in a negative way,” he says. “These are good people — sweet young men that — if given the right opportunity and the right access to education — could do anything.”
Schulman’s foray into real estate was meant to be a second job separate from the world of entertainment — an additional income stream to “hedge my bets,” as he puts it. The irony is that, in the three weeks since he announced his new gig, numerous production companies have contacted him about making a real estate TV show.
“I’m taking the meetings!” Schulman says. “I’ve fielded a bunch of interest and put together some concepts for what a real estate show would look like.” Whereas for series like “Selling Sunset” and “Million Dollar Listing,” the obstacle for producers is turning real estate moguls into on-screen personalities, Schulman presents the opposite challenge: Could a television star become a star broker?
If he does end up selling homes on television, Schulman wants to cast his dad, too. “My father is such an interesting and unique guy, and I think he’d make for a great TV character,” he says. “There’s been some discussion about whether that’s something we want to pursue, and we’re definitely interested in it.”
Regardless of his real estate career, Schulman has a few other ideas he’s ready to pitch around Hollywood. He’s working on two unscripted series — one about classic cars and the other a newsmagazine-style program. And he’s co-directing a documentary about training for an Ironman with his friend who is blind.
Schulman is excited about the projects, but after 12 years on “Catfish: The TV Show,” he has emerged into an entertainment marketplace that is nearly unrecognizable. “The TV landscape has changed a lot,” he says. “Making a career in just television is a little trickier. Budgets are smaller, people aren’t tuning in the way they used to. When ‘Catfish’ started, it was still a predominantly linear television-watching landscape where people tuned in for appointment television. That’s mostly gone now.”
Schulman knows how rare it is for his first effort in entertainment to be a smash hit. “My entrance into TV was handed to me on a silver platter,” he says. He notes that even if he does get a new show off the ground, “Eventually, I’ll have to potentially find work elsewhere.”
It’d be a shame if “Catfish” never returned. With artificial intelligence making digital deception easier than ever, the show has never been more timely. “Now, you can create literal people that think and look and act like real humans,” Schulman says. “And real humans are more vulnerable to being catfished, because we continue to isolate ourselves and limit our in-person physical experiences, which makes people less comfortable interacting in real life.”
“That trend will continue, and I’d love to get back out there and help people again,” he adds. “But I’m also finding new paths and new shows and pursuing new interests. So either way, I’m happy.”