he was an early participant in the sixth season of the MTv reality series,
The Real World (Boston season, 1997), and later on
Road Rules and various later MTv/ reality challenges. I never watched any of the shows he appeared on, but I did watch
The Real World: San Francisco (third season of the show, 1994), which included
Rachel Campos, the token Republican on the show*. She has been married to Duffy since 1999. They met while filming some cast-battle show for MTv.
Duffy ran for and won a seat as a Wisconsin Congressional rep in 2011. They have
nine children. Unlike Nick, he's obviously adept at
something, given a decade of getting elected to Congress and now his appointment. You may draw any conclusions you like from his trajectory.
*Campos-Duffy was involved in two main plot lines that year:
- her interaction with Pedro, a childhood Cuban refugee, stellar student, and gay man who'd become HIV+ at 17 in high school and who died of AIDS at 22, four months after the RW season ended; and
- her romantic involvement with Puck (David Rainey), a bike messenger and attention-seeking wild child, who bonded with Rachel over their shared clashing with/ about Pedro. Puck was the first cast member on the series to be voted out of the house/ show - for his treatment of Pedro, his general aggressive irascibility, his refusal to chill tf out, and his poor hygiene. Rachel and Puck severed their friendship during the season as well, after Puck blabbed about their hookups to the rest of the house.
Gawking at lolcows didn't start in the 21st century, kids!