Rick Harrison has no complaints these days. His hugely popular reality show, "Pawn Stars," has just been renewed for another 80 episodes, and for the first time in his life he's living with a house full of women: his fiancée, Deanna Burditt, and her three teenage daughters.
"I have three boys, she has three girls -- we're literally the Brady Bunch!" Harrison says, laughing. Being outnumbered by women has been a bit of an adjustment for Harrison, who grew up with two brothers and has three sons who are 9, 27 and 29 now. "If you live in a house full of women, they're a lot more brutal about making you clean up than a house full of guys!"
Harrison has no qualms about pulling his weight with the household chores, which is why Swiffer recently recruited him to be the face of its "Man Up, Clean Up" campaign. Last weekend, he held court in the Swiffer man-cave at Las Vegas Bike Fest, overseeing beefy bikers compete in manly cleaning competitions while opening up the debate about the division of household labor among the sexes.
HuffPost TV caught up with Harrison to chat about everything from cleaning like a man to the weirdest and wackiest items he's seen in the shop lately to why he'll never pull a Hulk Hogan by airing his home life on TV. (Fun fact: he called us from the gym at the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, where he had just endured a workout with his "evil" trainer.)
What's the most interesting thing that's come into the shop recently?
A few months ago, a guy came in with seven human skulls! I think a dental school auctioned them off, and this guy bought them. I bought a petrified mastodon tusk. I think it's a mastodon tusk. I can tell it's a petrified tusk but I can't tell if it's a walrus, a woolly mammoth, a mastodon or if someone actually dug it up in Africa and it's an elephant. I have a friend of mine coming in this week to check it out.
I know the show's been renewed again...
For another 80 episodes! A year and a half ago I signed for 80 episodes, and that was the largest reality show contract in the history of television, and we just renewed it for another one. So I'm going to be on TV for a while.
Can viewers expect any new experts or recurring guests?
I'd like to try to find some more people who are interesting and know about things, but basically I've got most of that covered. The great thing is, I've become so popular that people are flying in from around the country just to show me their weird stuff! I'm actually not at the counter anymore, so I usually run it from a remote control in the office in the back.
After all these years, does anything surprise you anymore?
I still get a little bit shocked every once in awhile. The mastodon tusk was pretty ... like, really? [Laughs]
What happened with the human skulls?
I didn't actually buy them. It was just a little weird and creepy.
How has your life changed since the show has become so popular?
The last few years have been pretty bizarre. I live in Las Vegas. If me and my fiancée want to go out for a night on the town, I have to bring a bodyguard now. That's the weirdest thing. If we go to a nightclub, there's always a drunk guy who, if I didn't take a picture with his girlfriend he wants to fight me. I just take a big 6'9" guy with me, and no matter how drunk you are, you're not bigger than him! [Laughs] But other things are really, really cool. I go into a restaurant on the Strip and say, "Can I get a table for two?" and they say, "No, we're all booked up." And the manager will run out and apologize like I'm somebody special! But everything is pretty cool. It's great working for History Channel because they have a relationship with the Library of Congress, and I got to see part of their incunabula -- that's books printed before 1500 -- things like that.
You must get recognized all the time, what do people say to you?
How much will you give me for my watch!?
Really?
God, will people please quit saying that! I hear that 10 times a day. [Laughs.]
What's the strangest thing anyone's ever said to you?
That they want to have my baby! [Laughs] It is bizarre how popular the show is. In South America, I'm not the number one show on cable, I'm the number one show, period. They set up a thing for me and Corey to sign some autographs, and they thought something like 500 people would show up. 12,000 people showed up. They had to call the national police for crowd control. A van pulls up with guys with big guns pop out. It's like we were The Beatles.
Wow. Where was this?
That was in Buenos Aires. I get people from Japan wanting my autograph. We're on TV in 150 different countries, 32 languages.
The show has inspired an entire subgenre of pawn, storage and liquidation shows. How do you feel about that?
I guess imitation is the better part of flattery or something like that. I don't mind. One of the reasons I think my show is so successful is that everything's real. Let me just put it that way. I definitely believe in free market capitalism, so let the best show win!
Why did you decide to partner with Swiffer?
Because I thought it would be fun. I wake up in the morning and I'm a zombie until I get three cups of coffee in me. The funny thing is I really do whip out a Swiffer every morning because I spill coffee on the kitchen floor! [Laughs]
What about around the shop? Who takes care of cleaning duties there?
It's not really like you see on TV. I think I have 63 employees here. But for years, when I was a small shop it was me, my Dad, my Mom. We had to clean the shop every morning.
Do you think we'll see your fiancée on the show at all?
Nope. My 9-year-old son is never going to be on it. My 17-year-old stepdaughter is never going to be on it. I am not going to turn into the Hulk Hogans [of the world]. My home life is my home life, and I'm going to keep it that way, period.
You can catch Pawn Stars on History.