Given the fact that she basically grew up on reality TV, debuting as a model some seven years ago on Tyra Banks’ America’s Next Top Model and later boldly losing weight before a TV audience on Celebrity Fit Club, it was no big deal for Toccara to agree to look for a man with everybody watching.
A fun-loving and practical young woman, Toccara says, “When you finally get the title celebrity, it’s hard to do what everyone’s doing these days, like when it comes to dating. Internet dating or matchmaker.com, eHarmony,” she laments, “I can’t really post a profile!”
Instead, she let TV One do the work for her. Execs from the network invited Toccara to be the star in their successful reality dating series, The Ultimate Merger. Toccara goes absolutely giddy as she talks about the partnership. “They pick the guys, do background checks and filter them out for me and give me a diverse group of men. I thought it was all a win-win!”
Last year The Apprentice’s Omarosa took a turn on the show. This year it’s all about the curvy supermodel. The twist on this show is that there are 14 men from all different backgrounds. They range from models to construction workers to entrepreneurs. While most are African-American — like Toccara — four are not. The producers selected one Asian man and three Caucasian men to round out their stable of eligible bachelors.
“We like diversity,” explains Toni Judkins, Executive Vice President of Original Programming and Production for TV One. “And one of the things that we’ve always said, that when we watch the Bachelorette, there will be that one black guy. He’ll pretty much be gone by episode 3. We really just wanted to open it up and give Toccara as many options as possible.”
As far as Toccara is concerned, the mix of men is perfect. While she had never dated “outside the race” as an adult (“Well, when I was in high school I dated Matt Jones. He had blonde hair, blue eyes. He was cute.”), she is completely open to the idea.
So far, she says the experience has been a lot of fun — and no different from dating African American men. “Well, they’re just people. We’re all just people,” Toccara laughs coyly. “They’re just men.”
Though Toccara downplays the topic, trust that race does crop up on the show as the men vie for her attention. Judkins explains, “If you watch the upcoming episodes, you’ll see that there’s contention with the guys…. We have a room of fourteen Alpha males and all types of things come into play.
There are tensions or dynamics around what people do with her, from what neighborhood they grew up in and yes, their race. So all of these things were fed to the story because they are a part of life and they are a part of things that you would encounter from out there in the world of dating.”
So far, so much fun for the enterprising model. Across eight episodes she gets to dress up and have a blast with a range of attentive men. And that’s not all she’s got up her sleeve. Toccara is currently promoting a fitness DVD, called Toccara’s Fabulous Workout. While she adamantly reminds anyone who will listen that she remains a plus-size model, she definitely has shed a couple of sizes. “I want to be healthy,” she shares, and her DVD was created to help others become healthy as well.
Toccara is also proud of her 14-page fashion feature in Italian Vogue for its historic Black Issue several years ago. “It was the first time a plus-size model appeared in that magazine. Being next to Naomi, a girl can’t ask for better than that!”
Now she offers her personal knowledge of fashion “for real women” in Essence magazine where she has served as a contributing style editor for nearly a year now. When asked about her take on the upcoming fashion collections, though, Toccara goes quiet. “I don’t do the runway. I don’t really look at the runway. They don’t cater to me so I don’t look at them.”
Toccara cautions women in particular about how to view trends. “We all have different personalities and different styles and I mean it’s cool to look at magazines and runways to get information but at the end of the day you have to do what fits you, what fits your personality. Don’t get caught up in the hype.”
So far, Toccara has taken her own advice. And if she gets her way, soon she will be giving advice to plenty more people. After she gets her man through The Ultimate Merger, the ambitious entertainer has set her sights on launching her own talk show.