Melissa Howard

Melissa Howard was born February 12, 1977 in Okinawa, Japan to a Filipino mother and Black-American father.[1][2] She, her older sister Marlene and her younger brother, Michael,[1] grew up in Valrico, Florida.[3] She attended Brandon Senior High School[1] and the University of South Florida,[1][3] from which she graduated with a degree in journalism and mass communications.[1]

In 2000, 22-year-old Howard was one of seven people selected from a pool of 35,221 applicants to be cast on The Real World: New Orleans, the ninth season of the long-running MTV reality television series. MTV producer and casting director, Andrew Hoegl explains that she was selected on the basis of her audition tape, which he calls "hysterical", and credits the season's humor to Howard, who referred to herself in her audition tape as a "half-black, half-Filipino Chris Rock". Filming took place over the course of 124 days between January and late May 2000.[3] Her 2000 MTV biography describes her has possessing a "manic wit".

After filming ended, Howard move to Los Angeles to pursue a career in standup comedy,[1] as well as to engage in acrylic painting, an interest she developed while in New Orleans.[3] For several years, she maintained a personal blog and website, Princess Melissa, which she set up and began writing in shortly after her stint on The Real World. It now directs to her Tumblr page, which is simply called Melissa Beck.[4]

Howard was ranked #92 on Maxim magazine's "Hot 100 Women of 2004" feature.[5]

She was a member of the all-female cast of the Oxygen network's hidden camera/practical joke reality television series Girls Behaving Badly,[1] which aired from 2002 – 2005. In 2005 appeared on Bravo's Battle of the Network Reality Stars.

After being hunkered down for decades, enjoying her life out of the spotlight as a wife and mother, Melissa decided to launch a podcast with a co-host called Imperfect Strangers. The show launched on Friday, May 22, 2020 and features Beck and co-host, Amanda Strong, two women who are strangers who connected through Strong’s first podcast. Each week the listeners get to know the women as they get to know one another over the phone.

After the run of Girls Behaving Badly, Howard moved to New York to work part-time in a non-entertainment industry-related job, and to live with her boyfriend, J.[1]

On September 29, 2007, Howard married Glassjaw guitarist Justin Beck at their home on Long Island. She subsequently took his surname, and is now named Melissa Beck. They met when Melissa needed an online store and she became a client of MerchDirect, Justin Beck's merchandising company. On March 20, 2009, Beck gave birth to their first daughter, Shalom Mazie Beck.[6] On August 22, 2012, Beck announced on her Tumblr that she and her husband were expecting another daughter. Maja Ilani was born on January 1, 2013.[7] Shira Melati Beck, their third daughter, was born on November 13, 2015.

In October 2012, a tree fell on her house during Hurricane Sandy, destroying the house and burying her older daughter in debris. Justin Beck pulled the child out from the rubble, finding that she was apparently unharmed. They took the baby to the hospital, which discharged her three hours later, having confirmed that she suffered no injuries.[8]

• Official page on Tumblr
• Melissa Howard at IMDb