Darva and Rick Reunite

February 22, 2001 -- Just when you thought they were gone for good, one-time TV newlyweds Darva Conger and Rick Rockwell resurfaced on CNN's Larry King Live Wednesday, which would have been one day after their first anniversary — had the hastily arranged marriage not ended in controversy and a swift annulment.

Conger, 35, and Rockwell, 43 — who tied the knot in front of a national television audience on Fox's ill-fated Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire? show — didn't mince any words in their first public meeting since the split.

"You and I are two people who will never mesh," Conger told her former groom. "[We'll] never see eye to eye. It was a bad TV show. That's all it was."

Early in the show, the blond Conger laid to rest her much-voiced animosity toward Rockwell. "I don't hold him responsible, I don't blame him, I'm not angry with him; it's not his fault," she said. "I apologize to him for things that should have not been said. I should never have been there; I should never have married and I'm so sorry I put myself in that position."

"Is this an apology?" King asked Conger. "Yes," she replied.

Rockwell just shrugged at Conger's peace offering. He claimed that his decision to pick Darva was "beyond physical. There were other women there I thought very attractive. Darva had a job, an education, a career, I thought [with her there would be] more of a chance of making something jell."

King's show was hardly without its tense moments between the non-lovebirds, who oddly fought like a couple who'd been married for life.

"I wanted very much to have a friendship after this," Conger stated. "I don't vilify you; I don't hate you. I did find it impossible because our personalities conflict so much." Rockwell replied, "I offered an olive branch. … I sent numerous messages. You did not respond."

Finishing 'the Job'Conger was an ER nurse in California when she appeared on the doomed Fox show in February 2000. She said she was talked into doing it by a friend who knew the producer.

Conger said she had just ended a steady relationship and wanted to show up her ex by getting on TV. Instead, her plan backfired and made her part of a national joke.

When her name was called, she told King, "I thought, 'Oh no, that's not in the script.' I never thought it was going to be me. I thought, 'No way they would have two strangers marry each other on TV.' I froze. Then I thought I had to go through with it. … I had to finish 'the job.'

"I did a lot of dumb things and I'm here to say, 'Can we move on?'" she asked. She added that she and the ex-boyfriend she had tried to impress are now back together.

The Conger-Rockwell marriage was apparently never consummated, with the couple virtually ignoring one another on their honeymoon. "It was not the best honeymoon," Rockwell claimed. "I'm walking around the beach by myself with a metal detector looking for bottle caps and nickels." Meanwhile, Darva stayed in her cabin.

Several weeks later, Conger had the marriage annulled. She later posed for Playboy, which she claims gave her much-needed income after she lost her job due to her post-TV notoriety. "I'm not ashamed of posing for Playboy. … The good far outweighs the bad," she said.

Fox canceled a rebroadcast of the show and scrapped plans for a sequel after reports surfaced that one of Rockwell's former girlfriends had taken out a restraining order against him for allegedly hitting her. He has denied the allegations.

Reuters contributed to this story.