The Tragedy Of Brandi Passante Explained

A no-nonsense, down-to-earth, and highly motivated small business owner with a knack for winning great merchandise at abandoned storage locker auctions, Brandi Passante helped make compelling television throughout the 2010s as a cast member of A&E's smash hit reality show "Storage Wars." A little editing, packaging, and presentation tricks notwithstanding, that's the real Passante up on the small screen for hundreds of episodes of "Storage Wars" that aired over the course of a decade. Viewers felt that they really got to know her through their ardent following of "Storage Wars," watching as she built up her business, developed relationships with personal and professional associates and rivals, and became the most famous face and name associated with "Storage Wars," where the most messed up finds could often surface.

But when the cameras were off, Passante's life got even more real, with a lot of personal issues, medical problems, legal quagmires, and traumatic situations to sort through. Behind the scenes, the reality personality has had to deal with — and after Passante's "Storage Wars" exit, still has to deal with — more than her share of horrendous situations. Here's a look into all the most tragic and terrible things in the past and present life of "Storage Wars" star Brandi Passante.

In the 2010s, online entrepreneur Hunter Moore ran an adult-oriented online channel called Is Anyone Up, which specialized in posting explicit pictures and video clips of women without their consent. After Moore used Facebook profile images of women alongside pornographic postings, the social media site banned Is Anyone Up, forcing a move to Tumblr and Twitter in 2012, whereupon he posted a clip of a woman purporting to be "Storage Wars" cast member Brandi Passante. Made aware of the sexual material via social media channels, Passante filed a lawsuit against Moore, citing defamation, invasion of privacy, and consumer fraud — as she denied being the individual in the video in which she was credited, but that she could still suffer from the association.

Passante asked for $2.5 million in damages, claiming she became ill and anxious and lost sleep over the matter. Moore didn't fight the allegations, but U.S. District Judge James Selna ruled in 2013 that Passante couldn't collect the full $2.5 million, citing a lack of proof of the personal and professional damage that was claimed. Passante received a judgment of $750.

Illnesses have changed history in the weirdest ways, including COVID-19. Despite best efforts to stem the spread of the virus with lockdown and anti-gathering measures, COVID-19 developed into a pandemic (which is different than an epidemic) and affected life in every corner of the planet. In the United States alone, more than 1.1 million people died after contracting the virus, and few families were left untouched by the death and devastation.

"Storage Wars" star Brandi Passante certainly felt the impact of the disease. In late June 2020, she announced on "The Dad Diary" that she'd contracted COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic, about two weeks prior. Following a positive test, she quarantined for a total of 12 days and suffered from severe headaches. At one point, Passante lost her sense of smell.

A few months later, with the COVID-19 crisis still raging, Passante's father died. In October 2020, the television personality announced the death on Instagram. "I will miss you terribly. Now if everyone I love, could stop dying in such close proximity that would be great," she wrote, adding, "f*** 2020."

Brandi Passante is famous in her own right for her 15 seasons on "Storage Wars," but she came into the A&E reality series as part of a duo that bought the mysterious and potentially lucrative contents of storage lockers at auctions. She starred on the show with her business partner and longtime companion Jarrod Schulz, with whom she had two children. However, disturbing things happen on reality shows, like breaking the news of relationship endings. Passante's split from Schulz came to light on the Season 13 premiere of "Storage Wars," airing in April 2021. "I'm not with Jarrod anymore," Passante explained (via People) in the episode, which depicted her and her estranged partner jockeying to bid on multiple storage lockers and in fierce competition with one another. 

Passante had apparently initiated the breakup following the taping of "Storage Wars" Season 12 in 2018, and she retained full custody of her children with Schulz, reportedly a frightening figure in her life. "I have them all the time, 24/7 they're here with me, so I have to navigate that," Passante told "The Dad Diary." "I did a lot of it on my own anyway, but it's the scary dad voice in the background that we're missing."

Just after Brandi Passante's split from Jarrod Schulz, the two former partners and co-parents of two children happened to find themselves in the same bar in Orange County, California, in April 2021. Both were with a group of friends, with Passante arriving first. When Passante spotted Schulz, she instructed him to leave the premises. A verbal altercation broke out and, after Schulz refused, he raised his voice with his former partner's party and allegedly shoved Passante, twice. Police were called to the scene, by which point Schulz had departed the bar. When questioned by police, Schulz denied that the incident had ever physically escalated, and that he hadn't ever gotten violent with Passante. Nevertheless, the Orange County District Attorney filed one charge of domestic violence battery, a misdemeanor, against Schultz.

Six months later, Passante suggested in an Instagram post that the pushes from Schultz in that bar were not the first time she'd been the victim of domestic violence perpetrated by her former partner. "I managed to escape a very difficult situation, that so many people fall victim to," Passante wrote. "I will be eternally grateful, for the life and freedom, without fear that I get to live now."

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

With her ex-partner and "Storage Wars" costar Jarrod Schulz, Brandi Passante is a mother of two, daughter Payton and son Cameron. Both children experienced significant and concerning childhood illnesses and health problems. "Payton, when she was born, she was deaf," Passante told "The Dad Diary." "She had her first surgery when she was six weeks old." The corrective surgery was effective, and while Payton Schulz acquired the ability to hear, she still required further treatment. "She's always had a sort of a speech delay as a result of it, so we did a lot of speech therapy." In addition to being born with hearing issues, Passante's daughter was born with a mis-developed cleft palate. "Not the lip, but the soft palate at the back," Passante explained.

Cameron Schulz regularly sees a doctor for a urological disorder due to a mass discovered growing on one of his kidneys. It eventually affected the child's health to the point where an operation and recovery were necessary. "Cam and I spent three months at the Children's Hospital of Orange County, and he missed three months of high school," Passante said.

When they began appearing on "Storage Wars" together in 2010, locker-buying pair Brandi Passante and Jarrod Schulz had already been a couple for years. They were also the parents of two young children together, a son named Cameron and a daughter named Payton. Cameron and Payton Schulz found fame and media exposure in their own right when they were included in their parents' "Storage Wars" spinoff, "Brandi and Jarrod: Married to the Job." Unfortunately, that also invited unwanted attention in the form of hostile, rude, and appalling commentary online on their mother's social media accounts.

"I stopped posting photos of my babies. Because some creepy a** dudes were harassing them," Passante explained in a February 2020 Instagram post alongside a rare share of a series of photos of Payton. "Don't be gross." After receiving mail of a similar nature addressed to herself, Passante moved her family to a more secure community. 

Many famous people have a signature physical trait that gets them noticed or sets them apart from others in their field. For former "Storage Wars" star Brandi Passante, it's her distinctively and prominently raspy, slightly vocal-fry-affected voice. In 2022, a Passante fan asked the reality TV star via an Instagram direct message about why she talked the way she did. Passante called out the DM on an Instagram Story and explained, with a palpable level of annoyance, that her timbre stems from complications of Hashimoto's disease.

That condition is an autoimmune disorder characterized by the immune system assaulting the thyroid, an organ that dispenses the hormones that regulate metabolism. While there is no cure for Hashimoto's disease, Passante receives treatment for her medical issue, which affects seven times as many women as it does men. It can cause a host of symptoms, and it manifests in Passante by affecting her voice.

Fame can be a double-edged sword. While headlining the cast of the popular A&E hit reality series "Storage Wars" quickly brought fame, adulation, and a steady income for Brandi Passante, it also invited a fair amount of unwanted, aggressive, and frightening attention. "I got some scary letters at the very beginning. I did have to move at one point," she told "The Dad Diary." Even though she lived in a safer, guarded area, Passante's mental health was affected, and for a while she was too afraid to leave her home. "I did have to have a little bit of therapy about it," she admitted.

Passante continued to experience anxiety when the cameras were off, and she had a difficult time with life as a famous person when not filming "Storage Wars." "This may come as a surprise to some people, but I'm actually a very shy person. I even get anxiety when I have to go out to the store or to the gas station because I'm afraid of people approaching me," Passante told Lifetime Moms.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

Brandi Passante is inarguably the breakout star of the entire "Storage Wars" franchise. Her fame as a buyer, both with and without one-time personal and professional partner Jarrod Schulz, eclipses that of other real-life locker merchandise flippers like Dan and Laura Dotson and Brandon and Darrell Sheets. Among the life events that happened to the cast of "Storage Wars," Passante wasn't able to parlay reality TV success into a lasting career as a celebrity outside of the main series, nor did her fame prove especially helpful in boosting business for her retail operation.

Four years into the run of "Storage Wars," Passante and then-cohort Schulz, and the two children they shared together, starred on the spinoff "Brandi and Jarrod: Married to the Job." A full-length exploration of the balancing of a romantic relationship with their business partnership, previously delivered in small doses on "Storage Wars," the show proved unpopular with viewers, and A&E canceled "Brandi and Jarrod" after just nine episodes aired in 2014.

Passante bought up storage lockers at auction for the benefit of TV cameras to fuel her second-hand shop, Now and Then Thrift Store in Orange, California. Connected to a very popular reality TV series could have driven traffic and revenues for the shop, but it ultimately didn't help. Passante's small store went out of business around 2016.