Barry Weiss, one of the biggest stars in Storage Wars (if not the biggest), once departed the show to film his own version of the reality TV series called “Barry’d Treasure”. Weiss would ultimately come back to Storage Wars after his show flopped. Barry was never really into the world of bidding on storage units until a friend discussed to him the prospect of participating in Storage Wars.
Although Barry Weiss wasn’t that experienced in the storage hunting game, he managed to hit a big score early during his appearance in the show’s first season when he bid $275 on a storage unit packed with various salon supplies. The locker looked like a bust at the start but eventually, it turned out to be a huge win after Weiss dug up a model grand piano out of the mess. Barry secured a decent $11,625 profit from the find and that instant taste of victory most likely influenced him to stay longer on the show.
Barry Has A Famous Family
Prior to his appearance in Storage Wars, Barry Weiss already had some idea about reality TV since he is the godfather of Jesse James. If you are not familiar with who Jesse James is, he is a celebrity motorcycle customizer and host of several reality TV shows including Monster Garage on the Discovery Channel and Jesse James Is A Dead Man from Spike TV. James also made an appearance on the Tony Hawk's Underground 2 video game and was the focal point of the a program narrating several of the custom builds at Austin Speed Shop in his own TV show, Jesse James: Outlaw Garage.
Jesse James is also the ex-husband of famous actress Sandra Bullock which practically makes Barry Weiss a Hollywood celebrity as well. James's Discovery Channel website also claims that his great-great-grandfather was the cousin of the notorious Old West outlaw. If this is indeed true, this also makes Barry part of a legendary lineage as well!
Hester’s Lawsuit
In December of 2012, Dave Hester filed a lawsuit against A&E and the producers of Storage Wars. Hester declared that he was booted out from the reality TV show following his complaint regarding the producers of the show and their purposeful rigging of storage units. Hester’s legal complaint exclaimed: “The truth is that (producers) regularly salt or plant the storage lockers that are the subject of the auctions portrayed on the series with valuable or unusual items to create drama and suspense for the show.” Hester further revealed that the producers began planting items in units during the very first season of the show.
He also said that, following his complaint, only lockers that other participants purchased where planted and the ones that he purchased were intentionally excluded. Because of this, Hester asserted that he looked mediocre compared to his competitors of the show and was forced to close several of his own shops as a result.
Barry Barely Checks The Units
Every time Barry Weiss gets involved in a certain unit, it’s always because there’s a piece that has captured his interest. On one episode, Weiss got up on a mountain of scrap until he spotted an item that he believed could be of a certain value. Barry, already a millionaire during the show, wasn’t focused on making a living just like most of the other cast members but was simply looking to make a single major score.
On an interview on Radio Show, Barry Weiss disclosed that he was already successful on the wholesale produce business for three long decades before he became a prominent figure on Storage Wars. He further shared that his business offered produce to ships, restaurants, and hotels. "I've always been collecting antiques on the side," he added, "so that helped fund my passion for collecting weird stuff."
Sheets Threatened To Leave
Darrell Sheets was never considered by the producers of Storage Wars as a significant draw for the show. The moment he recognized how A&E was giving him little appreciation, he threatened to resign from the show. Based from one source who was close to the incident, the producers considered cutting Darrell’s pay from $30K per episode down to half at $15K per episode.
Although this didn’t look like the end of the world for Darrell, things got even worse when A&E also decided to cut his number of appearances on Storage Wars from 26 episodes to just a mere 4. So if we do the math, this would leave Darrell with a grand total of $60k. While it’s certainly not a bad salary, it’s also, obviously, a whole lot lower than the original agreement