He used charm, others’ personal tragedies and fake celebrity endorsements. How Christopher LaVoie cast his reality show and reeled in successful entrepreneurs like David Finchey—and how he, too, was duped, according to Finchey.
It was the summer of 2013. Christopher LaVoie’s life had become intertwined with the creation of a new show on the TV cable network HGTV, “Happily Divorced,” a show about divorced couples trying to make their marriages work.
“I had gotten married by then,” said the actor, 33. He had two children, ages 8 and 2.
His marriage had ended in divorce. His wife had turned to drugs, gotten custody of their children and was in jail.
“But it was a good marriage, at least from Christopher’s point of view,” said David Finchey, a co-producer on the show. “Christopher never wanted a divorce. He wanted to do everything he could to make their marriage stronger.”
So when “HGTV” contacted the LaVoies in February 2013 to pitch an idea about couples with the same marital history who were being separated or divorced by choice, Lauren, the couple’s daughter and one of LaVoie’s real-life girlfriends, was excited by the idea.
“There’s no question I was really excited by the idea of a show where you bring these couples together and have them discuss their marital problems,” Lauren said, even though she had recently discovered on “Ellen” that women were rarely asked about what was happening in their personal lives.
“I had no idea about the kind of ‘Happily Divorced’ we were going to shoot,” LaVoie said.
The “Happily Divorced” concept that aired in February of 2013 wasn’t
