FHM
June 2005

WHALE BAIT
An interview with Shana Hiatt

By Andrew Vontz


In major league gambling, the highest rollers are called whales. As hostess of the World Poker Tour on NBC, Shana Hiatt has harpooned the hearts of whales and wannabes alike with her stiletto-sharp insights into the beaching and breaching habits of some of the finest minds in the game. “It’s easy for a woman to tell if a man’s lying. I can tell in facial features,” she says. Hell, let’s face it—Hiatt could be talking about a painting of bulldogs smoking cigars and playing poker that’s hanging on the wall in a retirement home where six geriatrics on respirators are wheezing through their last game of bridge—ever—and people would still watch just to steal a glance at the gams that carried this Jersey-born beauty to a modeling career on the runways of Milan and Paris and the Miss Hawaiian tropic title in1997.

When it comes to the game of life, Hiatt has never shied away from throwing her wad down and letting it ride. She’s flown fighter jets, partied with strippers, and even watched a woman pee her pants with her father in law Dick Van Patten, a.k.a. Mr. Bradford from Eight Is Enough. Sucker poker imitators better watch out. Of the competition on ESPN, Hiatt says, “If they try to bite our cheddar then they’re going to get the rat trap.”

What’s sure to make a guy go bust faster than Enron?
This guy I was dating was obsessive compulsive about pornography. I was working at a tanning salon at the time and he was a pretty boy.

Did he own a van?
How did you know? He did look at gross pictures sometimes, you know, excretion stuff. Him and his friend were looking at it and I was like, oh my God, I just can’t take this. I just remember it was vile, disgusting. . .so gross.

What’s been your biggest gamble?
Modeling in Milan. I had never seen drugs in my life, not pot, nothing. I was at a club and this guy walks up and opens his jacket and he’s got all these little pockets. He pulls down a mirror, pulls out a straw and is like, would you like some? I ran in the other direction.

How about your worst loss?
I had a kitten, Columbus, because he liked to explore. I was ten years old and he had gotten up under the hood of the car. . . I was inside sleeping. I heard it.

Guess the natives got him. Have you had wild nights in Vegas?
My friend was getting married and she wanted to go to strip clubs. They ended up lining the whole stage with chairs and all of the girls in the club came and gave us lap dances. We were all doing shots and had to eat Wonder Bread later so we wouldn’t get sick.

What stacks the chips in a guy’s favor?
I like a real man. Not a pretty boy who looks in the mirror longer than me who shaves his whole body. My husband is better than any vibrator. He’s a real man. Not a sissy boy who poses.

How did you get discovered?
I did a pageant at the Trump Taj Mahal. The girl who was going to be a winner, somebody took her white dress and poured a glass of red wine down the front.

Do pageant queens really ice their nipples?
They definitely don’t. They do use glue on their butts because when you’re wearing swimsuits when you turn away from the audience and you’re walking back to your spot you don’t want it to go up your butt.

Growing up you were a champion lacrosse and field hockey player. What did you enjoy about wrapping your hands around a hardwood stick?
I took my aggression out. A girl slidetackled me and popped my right hip out of place. I knew I wouldn’t play the rest of the season so I stood up and checked her in the face. It knocked her.

How do women stack up as poker players?
With their inner intuition they read each other’s minds. Women players kick ass. I can tell when men are bluffing. My husband has never won a hand against me.

I can tell in facial features. People have twitches. They can think that they’re fooling you. But they’re not.

There was a trash-talkin’ Ozzie on the tour for a while. What kind of trash do you talk in bed?
I’m not a real talker. I wouldn’t mind someone talking to me but I’m not a real talker. I’m so prude.

FHM doesn’t buy that for a second. Have you ever animalized on a dude?
 It was St. Patrick’s Day at Penn State in a frat house. There was some green punch. It was somebody I went to high school with that I never did anything with. I took him to the bathroom.

Did you go all the way?
Yeah.

Congrats! You just made the dreams of frat guys across America come true. Does your job bring you unwanted attention?
This guy that’s friends with my husband came up to me and goes, you always smell so good. You smell like fresh clean laundry. And I thought to myself, what the hell kind of sicko is this guy? I think there’s an inner weirdo in someone who says something like that because I’m only imagining what his further thoughts are, like him sitting there with a box of dryer sheets and getting off on it.

Have you ever attacked anyone?
I grew up in New Jersey. Girls go out in a group of five to ten girls and you have this rule, no guys. But they come up and start doing this weird dance up against you, especially in Jersey. It reminds me of a dog humping your leg. It’s disgusting. I was the one who would protect my friends. When I had the really big hair it was LA Looks gel to start out. I did have a perm.

Did you ever feel like you were livin’ on a prayer like Bon Jovi?
Yeah, a prayer that I would some day grow out of this giant hair.

Ever run into the competition from ESPN in the casinos?
No. ESPN—I don’t think it’s a quality show. Hands down we have the best show. If they try to bite our cheddar then they’re going to get the rat trap. I would unleash the power of my Jersey mall hair claw and destroy my adversaries.

Dick Van Patten is your father in law. Do you and Mr. Bradford party?
I saw somebody pee all over themselves at a celebrity charity event. There were like 500 people watching. She was dancing onstage as her ‘talent’ and peed all over herself. My father in law looked at me and said what’s happening? And I said, I think she’s peeing her pants. And it just slowly got bigger and bigger and bigger all the way down to the bottom of her pants and she didn’t stop. She’d just had a baby eighteen months before so she lost control of her bladder.