I will be the first to admit that I love reality television. I guess it stems from my love for documentaries. I mean after all, what is reality television if not just a glorified documentary?
But what happens when reality television goes too far? We all know there have been several reality television couple break-ups – Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro, Travis Bakker and Shanna Moakler, Danny Bonaduce and his wife Gretchen, and most recently Hulk Hogan and his wife Linda. While divorced or divorcing, they are at least all still alive.
News broke this week about Svetlana Orlova. She was a Russian woman appeared on a Spanish talk show that featured a surprise guest – her ex-boyfriend. While Svetlana thought the surprise guest was her mom, she was probably not happy to see Ricardo Navarro, a man she had taken out a restraining order against a few weeks prior to the show. Now I was thinking what kind of show brings a guy like this on, but the news reports say the show wasn’t aware of the restraining order. Huh?
Anyhow, Ricardo came on the show and asked Svetlana to marry him. She turned down his proposal and four days later, she was dead. She was found in her home in Alicante Spain with her throat cut. Ricardo is being held by police on suspicion of murder, but he claims he is not guilty.
There are many unanswered questions about the murder and it seems that Ricardo’s friends aren’t talking. Svetlana’s mother wants to bring her daughter’s body home to St. Petersburg, but it is unlikely that she will be able to afford it, so the Russian community within Alicante is trying to raise the money to fly Svetlana home and give her a proper burial.
One final sad footnote to this story is that Svetlana leaves behind a five-year-old son.