MTV's 'Barkers' are back for amour
Mom Shanna is an actress and erstwhile Miss U.S.A. from Rhode Island. They have three kids: Atiana, Shanna's 6-year-old daughter with Oscar de la Hoya; Landon, 2, and Alabama, 4 weeks.
The Barkers are just like a lot of married couples - except for one important distinction. They're in love. Really, really in love. Like head-over-heels, cow-eyed, you're-the-only-person-in-the-universe in love.
"I met Shanna in the middle of a divorce," Travis said yesterday during breakfast with the love of his life at the SoHo Grand. "I never expected to meet anybody. I never expected anything. But I did meet Shanna and I did fall in love with her and I did have children with her six months later and that was fate."
"I reeled him in," joked Shanna.
The second season of MTV's "Meet the Barkers" (original episodes air Tuesdays at 10 p.m.) follows Shanna's pregnancy. A third season, said Travis, has yet to be determined. But with the show's second-season premiere earlier this month pulling in 2.5 million viewers and topping the first-season launch by 48%, another whirl is certainly not outside the realm of possibility. The couple is open to a third season on its own terms, which includes a little vacation from the production crews.
"We just got the cameras out of our house a week ago," said Shanna, "so right now it feels good to be able to get up and not have to worry about putting on makeup or go to the bathroom without a microphone on."
Season one closed with a priceless gotcha moment: the (positive) results of Shanna's home pregnancy test. And the couple said they'll probably be ready for a third child together in about three years.
Right now, they have their hands full with the children and work. Shanna is working with her husband on the skater-inspired clothing line he started in 1999, Famous Stars and Stripes (www.famoussas.com). She's designing the women's line, which includes camouflage pattern minis, baby tees and fitted hoodies.
"It was organic," said Travis referring to Shanna's entree into the business. "She can draw like ridiculously. I saw her stuff one day and I was like, 'Wow! This is good.' So it wasn't like, 'Hey, you're my old lady - why don't you design my line?'"
When it premiered, "Meet the Barkers" was positioned as the anti-"Newlyweds." But with the breakup of Nick and Jessica's marriage, Travis and Shanna have emerged as the epitome of stability and family values. It's an old-fashioned paradigm and just a bit ironic for the youth-centric cable channel.
"He's such a good father," said Shanna. "And he's a hopeless romantic. He writes me poems."
He hides love notes all over their Westwood home so that Shanna is constantly finding amorous bons mots tucked in her underwear drawer.
The couple met by chance three years ago at the bar at L.A.'s Standard Hotel.
"I was purely going out to have a good time, and I met her," says Travis.
"We just it hit off," she added. "The first night we just stared at each other for an hour."
Like most 20-somethings, neither of them was looking for a love connection.
"I just kept waiting for it to be over," said Travis. "And she kept waiting for it to be over or feelings to get weird or for me to mess up and cheat or hurt her, and none of those things happened."
"We're each other's home," said Shanna so sincerely and so sweetly.
"We are," said Travis. "I've never felt like that with a girl. I felt like that with my mother - you know, there's something like home or a comfort level - but not with a girlfriend or a wife. It's crazy."
- By By MARISA GUTHRIE (DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER)
Inoltre ci sono molte foto di Travis e Shanna al "Nigo & Pharrell Present A Bathing Ape NYC 1st Anniversary Celebration" su WireImage, FilmMagic e Getty Images.