Brandi Sherwood-Cochran

Brandi Sherwood-Cochran (born January 13, 1971 in Idaho Falls, Idaho) is an American model, Actress and former Pageant winner. She was best known for being one of Barker's Beauties on The Price is Right from 2001-2009. She was also the model on the Let's Make a Deal episode of Gameshow Marathon.

Early Life & Pageant Background[]

Native of Idaho Falls, Idaho. Brandi began competing in Beauty Pageants as a teen and at the age of 18, she entered both the Miss Idaho Teen pageant and Miss Teen USA in 1989. Eight years later, she made the jump to the grown-up pageants starting with Miss Idaho USA and later Miss USA, a competition in which fellow former model Claudia Jordan, who was Miss Rhode Island USA, also competed in. She started out as 1st runner-up of the pageant, but when winner Brook Lee won the title of Miss Universe 1997, Brandi assumed the crown. During her reign as Miss USA, Sherwood worked with Special Olympics. She has also worked with the DARE program and continues to volunteer her time speaking to students about resisting drugs and violence.

Price is Right Audition & later return[]

Before joining The Price is Right family as a rotating model, Brandi previously appeared on the show during Season 29 during model tryouts, making her tryout debut on April 30, 2001 (airdate) which was her first episode and continued to appear until May 11th, for a total of 10 appearances.

The following year, Sherwood-Cochran made her return to The Price is Right stage early on in Season 31 as her first string of appearances began from September 24th (day after the 31st season premiere episode) to October 21st and appeared more frequently throughout. As Season 31 drew to a close, Brandi ranked as the highest rotating model of the season with 95 appearances, followed by Shane Stirling, who ranked 2nd with 74 appearances and Lisa Gleave, who ranked 3rd with 40 appearances.

Over the next several seasons, Brandi continues to outshine all of the other rotating models in terms of appearances on with the show (Season 32: 65, Season 33: 44, Seasons 34 & 35: 73) and continued on as the series transitioned into a new era: the departure of 35-year veteran host Bob Barker (final appearance: June 15, 2007) and the arrival of then-newcomer Drew Carey (first appearance: October 15, 2007, Brandi was one of the models present on his second episode).

Price is Right Departure & Lawsuit[]

After nearly eight years working as a model on The Price is Right, Brandi's world came crashing down after she announced she was pregnant in 2009 and was eventually screwed out of her job as a result as her final appearance (Season 36: 123, Season 37: 70), after 542 shows, and what would've been her maternity leave, aired on March 10, 2009. After she was dumped from the show, she revealed that the show's producers, which was now led by Mike Richards, made her life a living hell as they would make fun of her, subjecting her to cruel insults, poking fun and laughing at her, one show staffer even went as far as to call her "wide load" in an emotional interview.

Wanting to get revenge for the hurt, pain and humiliation she suffered at the hands of The Price is Right staff, Sherwood-Cochran went to the courts and filed a lawsuit, adding to the incredibly long sting of lawsuits the show has faced in the past. In her court claim, Brandi stated that she was rejected by the show's producers when she tried to return to work in early 2009 and that they ignored her over the next four to five months in trying to get a direct response about working (her job was given to Manuela Arbeláez, who made her offical debut on April 1, 2009 after previously appearing on one show during model tryouts the previous year).

She goes on to state that she also became pregnant sometime back in 2007 but was afraid to tell anyone out of fear of losing her modeling job on The Price is Right but sadly, due to the grueling scheduling of shows and severe stress, the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage and was even told by a heartless producer that losing the pregnancy was "nature's way of getting rid of a bad baby".

Brandi also spoke of fellow former model Shane Stirling and revealed that she experienced similar cruel treatment from the show's producers as they forced her into an "early pregnancy leave" and wouldn't allow her to return to work for nearly a year and a half later only to be terminated a short time later (Shane later filed suit against the show as well as former host Bob Barker but her court claims were dismissed).

In November 2012, Sherwood-Cochran originally emerged victorious as she won her lawsuit and received a hefty sum of more than $8.5 million dollars.^[1]^[2] But the following year, she was stripped of her lawsuit winnings after Mike Richards and the show's producers made an appeal and won. Brandi however WAS able to retrieve some of her court winnings come three years later as she received an undisclosed amount in an out-of-court settlement.