‘Gold Rush’ Star Parker Schnabel Gets Candid About His Love Life & Future Dreams
Gold Rush star Parker Schnabel has mined more than 63,000 ounces and $98 million of gold in his career, as Discovery Channel touts in a press release for the docuseries’ new season. And yet Schnabel says trying to describe his life’s work makes dating difficult.
“I try to explain it in a way that doesn’t sound like Mad Max,” Schnabel told People with a laugh. “It’s hard to explain that without it sounding like some dystopian, insane world. I’m in the woods, and you’re living in a f***ing bunker washing rocks, looking for little, shiny rocks. … Then it makes dating incredibly difficult. They’re like, ‘What do you do?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’”
The 30-year-old added that he hopes to have a family and “a life outside of TV” eventually, adding that he’ll likely have kids after Gold Rush goes off air.
Discovery Channel
And when he does start a family, he won’t pressure his kids to follow in his footsteps.“I think that that’s a hundred years outdated,” he said. “One of the best things about my upbringing is my parents didn’t push me in any direction. My dad ran a construction company, and there was zero pressure to be involved in what you would consider the family business.”
As Gold Rush fans know, Schnabel was just a child when he started mining gold with his grandfather in Alaska. Schnabel told People his grandfather’s mine was “a money-losing venture” and that it “really bugged” his father that it “was not an economically viable business that I was involved in as a teenager.”
“But he never said anything,” Schnabel added. “He just wanted me to be happy. That’s the best thing you can do for a kid, in my opinion.”
With any luck, Schnabel won’t have a money-losing venture of his own in gold Rush Season 15, which premiered on Discovery on Friday, November 8. At his new claim at Dominion Creek, Schnabel has to mine the $200 million worth of gold before the expiration of his license in six years’ time, and he’s chasing a record-breaking 10,000-ounce, $25-million dollar season. “In deep debt and under immense pressure, Parker is one bad decision away from sinking his whole operation and derailing his masterplan for a gold bonanza,” Discovery Channel says.
Gold Rush, Fridays, 8/7c, Discovery Channel
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