He never planned to be a TV star. He was just a guy who bought storage units to keep himself busy. Jarrod Schulz talks to Pass the Popcorn about the show that changed everything — and why none of it was supposed to happen.
Jarrod Schulz is not what you expect. The man who spent years as one of A&E's most recognisable faces — bidding against Dave Hester, goading Barry Weiss, and bickering affectionately with Brandi Passante across thirteen seasons of Storage Wars — is sitting across from us and talking about how none of it was supposed to happen.
"I never strived to be in the position that I'm in today," he says plainly. "Even when they approached me during my regular job for Storage Wars, I think no one really imagined that the show would go on to be as big as it was."
The story of how Jarrod Schulz ended up on American television is one of those beautifully accidental origin stories. He spent nine years in the mortgage and real estate industry — a world that collapsed around him. Looking for something to do, a relative who worked at a storage facility suggested he try his hand at storage auctions. He bought his first unit almost on a whim. Brought everything home. Started selling. And then the city knocked on the door about the hoarding situation, and he and Brandi opened a store.
"I never strived to be in the position that I'm in today. Even when they approached me during my regular job for Storage Wars, I think no one really imagined that the show would go on to be as big as it was."
— Jarrod Schulz, Pass the PopcornStorage Wars producers found Brandi and Jarrod at an auction in California. They were originally only interested in Jarrod — but one meeting with Brandi at their Now & Then store changed that. The producers, as the story goes, had no choice but to bring both of them in. And from the very first episode, it was clear they were right.
Q: When the show first started, did you have any idea it would become this big?
No idea at all. My only focus when we started was to provide for my family. That was it. I wasn't thinking about being on television or becoming a household name. I was thinking about keeping the lights on and making sure we had something to sell at the store that weekend. When it started getting big, I had to adjust. It was a strange adjustment to make.
Q: Working with Brandi on the show — is it different doing this as a couple? Does it put extra pressure on the relationship?
Everything has extra pressure when cameras are following you around. But I think what you see on the show is pretty real. We argue about bids. We disagree about what something is worth. That's not a TV thing — that's just us. We've been doing this together for years and we have genuinely different instincts about what's valuable and what isn't. Brandi is usually right, which doesn't make it easier to admit in the moment.
What Storage Wars captured — and what made it such a breakout hit — was the gambling nature of it all. Five minutes to look from the doorway. Then you bid, blind. Everything you think you see through that open door is your best guess. It suited someone like Jarrod Schulz: impulsive, competitive, willing to lose big on a hunch that this time, there'd be something magnificent behind the locked shutters.
Q: Your nickname on the show was "The Young Guns." Do you think that still fits?
Ha. I started on the show as the youngest one. The guy with the least money and the least experience. Darrell and Dave used to look at me like I was the bottom feeder. In a way I was — I had nothing to lose. That kind of makes you dangerous. You'll bid on things the experienced guys pass on, because you're still excited about the possibility. You haven't had enough disappointments to make you cautious yet.
Q: The spin-off, Brandi and Jarrod: Married to the Job — that only ran one season. Was that disappointing?
Of course. When they tell you you're getting your own show, it feels like you've made it on some different level. And then audiences don't quite respond the way you'd hoped and it doesn't continue. But I think the work we've done on Storage Wars has spoken for itself. Thirteen seasons is not nothing. That doesn't just happen by accident. People kept tuning in because they connected with something real.
People kept tuning in because they connected with something real. Thirteen seasons is not nothing. That doesn't just happen by accident.
— Jarrod SchulzQ: What was the best find you ever pulled out of a storage unit?
We've had some good ones over the years. The thing about the truly great finds is that you never know until you start digging through the boxes. The best finds usually look like nothing from the doorway. The units that everyone wants — the ones that look great from that five-minute window — those are often where you lose money. It's the ugly ones you buy because everyone else walked away that sometimes have something incredible at the back.
By 2017, when this interview was conducted, Storage Wars had become one of A&E's most consistently watched reality properties. Jarrod and Brandi had become the kind of faces that strangers recognised at supermarkets. It was a life that had started in a mortgage office and ended up in a television studio — and according to Jarrod Schulz, it still sometimes catches him off guard.
"Even now," he says, "I'm aware that this was never supposed to happen. And I think that's probably why I never stopped being grateful for it."