Who Is David's Friend Chris On 90-Day Fiancé?
TLC fans have seen Chris support David through thick and thin. Who is David's BFF?
Who is David's friend Chris on 90-Day Fiancé? Romance takes center stage on TLC's hit series 90 Day Fiancé but sometimes audiences get treated to a little bit of bromance on the side, too. Such is the case with the story of David and Annie. 49-year-old David met 25-year-old Annie in Thailand and the couple soon made plans to marry. The only problem is that David was unemployed and broke. Luckily for the couple, David has a guardian angel in the form of his best friend from the US, Chris Thienenman.
Chris and David explained that they were best friends back in Kentucky and Chris, who portrays himself as a successful business owner, was happy to support David's relationship with Annie — financially support them, that is. David revels that Chris has to help him pay for the dowry to Annie's family, costs associated with the wedding, and Chris even offers David and Annie a place to stay when they finally arrive in America.
By the end of season one, Chris and his wife Nikki have had enough of paying for David and Annie. They cut the couple off financially and cut off their own participation on the show.
But who is Chris and are he and David still friends? Read on to find out.
1. Football player
Chris was a local football star when he was younger, playing at his high school then later on at the University of Louisville. After an injury-plagued career, he signed as an undrafted free agent with the Dallas Cowboys, though he never played a single game with the team. He went on to play in the Canadian Football League and and World League of America Football League.
2. Family business
After leaving professional sports, Chris returned home to Louisville and entered the family real estate business. In addition to having a license to sell property, he became a developer, investing in properties like trailer parks, low income apartment buildings, and office complexes. He is one of the largest owners of vacant property along the Dixie Highway in Kentucky.
3. Politics
Chris has made a number of bids for elected office, running as both a Democrat and a Republican. He has run for the US House of Representatives, Mayor of Kentucky, and a seat in the Kentucky State Senate. Despite winning primary elections, he has never been elected to actually hold office.
4. Scandal
The question of why a local businessman and football player can't win an election might be a head scratcher but the answer turns out to be pretty simple: Chris may be corrupt. When he was running for mayor in 2010, he met with the editorial board of the local paper in the hopes of getting their endorsement. Those hopes — and his hopes for election — were dashed when he admitted to bribing county official in order to get approval from the planning commission to build a trailer park along a narrow piece of land in the middle of a middle-class neighborhood. Neighbors in the area opposed the trailer park but after Chris paid off the official, the request was granted by the planning commission, and a trailer park was built.
5. More scandal
Chris isn't the only aspiring politician. David also ran for the school board in 2010. The only problem is that David didn't live in the right neighborhood to run for the seat he wanted. To fix the problem, he called up Chris and asked for permission to falsify his filing with the Board of Elections, using one of Chris's properties as a fake address. Chris was happy to go along with the plan, telling the local paper, "“He asked me. He said: ‘Listen, you know I want to run for this thing and I need a place to stay. Would you care if I lived with you?’ I said: ‘Absolutely not. You’re my best friend.” Needless to say, David ws no more successful at winning an election than Chris was.
6. Still more scandal
Chris didn't keep his scandalous behavior to the political sphere. He was arrested and accused of assault by an ex-girlfriend in 2013. She obtained an Emergency Protective Order to keep Chris away from her, which he violated, leading to another arrest. The case ultimately went to court and Chris was found not guilty.
7. First family
Chris has several Instagram posts showing teenaged daughters and one with a throwback campaign video, with both the girls and a woman we assume was his first wife. He doesn't say much about that chapter in his life but there's no doubt that his marriage to Nikki isn't his first trip down the aisle.
8. Fantasy Thailand
Among Chris's businesses is a travel company called Fantasy Thailand. The homepage of the website offers very little information about the services the company offers, and clicking the link to get more info sent me to a page that promised my traffic there would be untrackable and suggested I download a security app so that's shady. (Since I didn't want to find myself mired in possible Thai sex tourism sites, I didn't follow those links.) The site has a promo video that features David.
9. Nikki Cooper
Chris's current wife — and mother of his two youngest children — Nikki Cooper is a beauty blogger and YouTuber who is a fan favorite on the show. No fan of David, she told Annie what she thought of her fiancé last season before kicking the two of them out of her home. Don't worry, though. They settled into a property Chris owned in Louisville after leaving Nikki and Chris's LA house.
10. Cut off
At the end of David and Annie's first season, Chris and Nikki told the couple that there would be no more loans. In addition, Chris and Nikki stopped appearing on the show themselves. Nikki said that was her choice; Chris would have stayed on but she decided they would be stepping away from the cameras. Nikki told fans, "“Chris really wanted us to do the second season, but I wouldn’t. The first time I did it for Chris, so this time he had to sit out because of me.”
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Will Chris and Nikki ever make a return to TLC and 90 Day Fiancé? We sure hope they will.