The Untold Truth Of Pawn Stars

In May of 2016, Austin "Chumlee" Russell landed a plea deal for charges he received after police raided his home in connection with the investigation of a sex assault case. Though he never faced any sex assault charges, according to TMZ, police found marijuana, meth, Xanax, and eight firearms not registered to Chumlee during a raid of his "Chum Chum Room," which is his "party spot" complete with a stripper pole. But the Pawn Stars regular's lawyers were able to negotiate down to just two charges: felony possession of a firearm and felony possession of a controlled substance, both of which "will eventually become misdemeanors once he completes probation."

And it's not the first time Chumlee has been involved in some shadiness since becoming a reality star. In 2012, cameras captured Chumlee in a brawl with an unidentified man who approached him and a group of friends while they were hanging out on Hollywood Boulevard. He later insisted he was fighting in self-defense, and that the man was a stranger who asked for a ride and then threatened the group with a gun. It's unclear what happened to the man who was beaten and badly bleeding when Chumlee and his friends fled the scene, but it's probably a good guess that he didn't get an invite to the "Chum Chum Room."

Given that attempting to film the actual day-to-day life at a pawn shop would result in some pretty boring television, it should come as no surprise that the items you see brought into the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop on the show have been vetted beforehand. Granted, this doesn't mean that the items are plants from producers. In fact, longtime shop manager Travis Benton told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that his brokers "spot unique items and show them to producers who decide if they are worthy of broadcasting."

Another shop employee, Rocco Landi, said, "Once an item is deemed 'possible TV material,' its seller is coached on how to act while on camera. Some people have a great item to sell, but they appear nervous on film. It can take several tries to get it right, depending on the person. ... Producers have cut items from the show because the seller could not 'pull it together' on camera, but it doesn't happen often."

Executive producer Brent Montgomery even admitted that the staging goes a little bit further than that. In an interview with Odyssey, Montgomery said that they have "really smart scripters to feed the characters organic information," and that he's coached the guys on buying stuff they wouldn't otherwise go for if they weren't doing the show. He also said the production team pre-negotiates pricing with the potential sellers off-camera "to make sure that these people will actually sell the stuff at a reasonable price, otherwise they're just trying to be on TV." That's understandable to a certain extent, but it definitely sheds a new light on Harrison's infamous — and regularly parodied — negotiation tactics.

Parts of the World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop temporarily close to the public when the crew shoots an episode of Pawn Stars. This can sometimes mean a real interruption of business, according to shop manager Travis Benton, who told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that "sales can suffer because of the show." Benton also estimated that "one out of a hundred" people who pass through the shop are actually there to do business. The rest are just there as fans of the show. "Filming takes place two to five times per day, Monday through Friday," Benton said, and he doesn't know until the night before, "usually around 6 p.m.," what the TV crew has planned for the following day.

But before you start thinking that GS Pawn is in danger of going out of business, keep in mind that the store draws 4,000 to 5,000 visitors a day. Not to mention Harrison once told Las Vegas Now, "I'm at a point in my life where, if I don't like it, I don't have to do it."

Calling himself a "media whore," Rick Harrison says he always knew TV exposure was good for business. That's why he agreed to put the show on Comedy Central's Insomniac in 2003, as well as starred in a 2001 PBS documentary before coming up with the idea to pitch an entire show based on the daily ongoings of the World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop.

According to The New York Times, the original concept for Pawn Stars started on HBO, but after a disastrous pilot and the expiration of his contract, Harrison turned to Leftfield Productions, the company that still produces the show today. "I figured that a show would mean free publicity and free publicity would mean more business," Harrison told The Star-Telegram, adding "But everyone told me that no one wants to watch a show about four fat guys in a pawnshop." Fourteen seasons and millions of dollars in profits later, whoever turned Harrison down couldn't have been more wrong.

After Harrison wed legal worker Deanna Burditt in 2013, tabloids reported that the lovebirds were embroiled in a legal battle involving Burditt's ex-husband, Richard Burditt, who was free on bail while awaiting trial for a variety of sex-related charges. Not surprisingly, Harrison didn't have great things to say about his wife's ex, or "all the bureaucracy" of the legal system that he felt took too long to bring Burditt to justice.

Speaking with Glenn Beck on his radio show (via The Blaze), Harrison claimed that Burditt plead guilty to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl but had his sentencing delayed for four years while he awaited "his psycho-sexual evaluation." Harrison continued, "It's the insanity of our legal system," adding "[Burditt] would've spent more time in jail if he got a DUI." Burditt was eventually sentenced to 1 to 15 years in prison for his offenses, which included "forcible sex abuse and third-degree felony dealing in harmful materials to a minor."

When you deal with the public for a living, you really never know what's going to happen. Harrison was reminded of this the hard way in 2014, when his store was sued for melting down a collection of gold coins that the former owner, David Walters, alleged had been stolen and sold off by his niece. According to UPI, Walters claimed that his niece received $12,375 for his $50,000 gold coin collection. And although pawn shops in Nevada are required to hold onto items for 30 to 90 days in case the owners want them back, gold coins aren't subject to that law. Unfortunately for Walters, that meant his collection was gone by the time he tracked it down.

Shop spokeswoman Laura Herlovich offered a pretty unsympathetic view of the situation, telling UPI, "If the grader is not someone we trust, the cases are cracked open and the coins are sent out to be melted down. That was the case here. I don't know for sure, but I believe a majority were melted down. They weren't worth what he [Walters] thought they were worth." We're sure that devaluation takes the sting right out of being ripped off by his own family.

Reality TV can be fickle, so credit is due to Harrison for striking while the iron is hot and using his fame as the foundation for a business empire that now includes "Pawn Plaza," a shopping center made out of old shipping containers that sits next door to the store.

But the rollout of the spinoff shopping center has been a little rocky. Shortly after opening its doors, Pawn Plaza saw five tenants leave in 2016 alone. One of those tenants was Rita's Italian Ice owner Paul Weinstein, who told KTNV that he felt "slighted and betrayed" by unrealistic promises of heavy foot traffic. Weinstein also says he was "forced out" after Pawn Plaza doubled his rent "knowing that it (the rent) was more than we were making a month."

Speaking with KTNV (via Eater Vegas), Harrison addressed the issues with his side gig as a landlord, saying, "I've gone above and beyond for every tenant I've had." Not mentioning Weinstein specifically, Harrison also said, "I've had a few people moving out. One guy was getting on the news and saying it was my fault. ...There is no such thing as build it and they will come. There just isn't." And Harrison kind of has a point, doesn't he? If you can't sell Italian ice in the middle of the desert, is that really your landlord's fault?

Sadly, no one lives forever, despite Chumlee's fondest wish. On June 25, 2018, TMZ reported that Richard Harrison, more commonly known to fans of the show as "The Old Man," had passed away at the age of 77. His son, Rick Harrison, broke the news to the world: "'The Old Man' Harrison passed away this morning surrounded by those he loved. He will be tremendously missed by our family, the team at Gold & Silver Pawn and his many fans the world over.

"He was my hero and I was fortunate to get a very cool 'Old Man' as my dad."

Of course, without the Old Man, we never would have had Pawn Stars at all. Richard Harrison opened the Gold & Silver Pawn shop in Las Vegas with his son, Rick, in the early 1980s. Even as the shop's resident Old Man, he was front and center as one of the most important reasons for the shop's — and the show's — overall success.

While the pawn business can be perceived as a dirty game, the entertainment industry is right there alongside it, especially in the cutthroat world of celebrity representation. In 2012, all three Harrisons as well as Chumlee were sued by their ex-manager; the network, meanwhile, was sued by the talent agency that represented them, Venture IAB. According to TMZ, their ex-manager, Wayne Jefferies, claimed that the Pawn Stars crew dropped him after a dust-up concerning his handling of their response to A&E's spinoff show, Cajun Pawn Stars. Venture IAB's lawsuit alleged that History Channel execs worked with another agent to lure the guys away from them. Jefferies sought "unspecified damages," but Venture IAB sued for "for more than $5 million."

The Venture suit seems to have been eventually dismissed, and Harrison, for his part, didn't seem to be fazed by the legal drama. When asked about the Jefferies suit, Harrison told Fox News, "The more money you make, the more times people sue you. People are always going to...eventually go to sue you for something."