Last month Dolphins receiver Chad Johnson (who hadn’t yet changed his name from Chad Ochocinco) was planning to play football until age 40, and was planning a VH1 reality show. Both of those plans took a hit when Johnson was arrested for domestic violence over the weekend.
VH1 told Brian Stelter of the New York Times that it is pulling the reality show, called Ev & Ocho, after Johnson was arrested for allegedly head butting his wife, Evelyn Lozada.
The arrest led to the Dolphins cutting ties with Johnson, and now VH1 has decided not to stay involved with him. The cable channel has already taped 11 episodes of the reality show, which was supposed to premiere on September 3, but VH1 says it has no current plans to air those episodes.
Both Johnson and Lozada have plenty of experience with reality television: Lozada was on Basketball Wives when she was engaged to former NBA player Antoine Walker, and Johnson was on Hard Knocks when it profiled the Bengals’ training camp in 2009 and was prominently featured again last week when HBO aired the first Hard Knocks episode focusing on the Dolphins. Johnson will surely be prominently featured again on Tuesday night, as Hard Knocks will take us inside the Dolphins’ decision to release Johnson. After that, we may not be hearing much from Johnson in NFL circles anymore.
Despite the regular presence of reality TV cameras on both Johnson and Lozada, no cameras were rolling during the incident that led to Johnson’s arrest.