According to this article from New York Magazine, designers who hit it big on Bravo’s popular Project Runway have more than just fame to look forward to. How about a little indentured servitude and homelessness on the side?
Project Runway winner JAY McCARROLL is not at all happy by the way he’s been treated by the show, and now claims that he’s not only homeless, but his hands are creatively tied.

“A week after I won the show, I met with two ladies from Banana Republic at the top of the Soho House, which is like, big time,” McCarroll says. “And they were like, ‘Oh, we can give you numbers for factories to get your clothes produced.’ But that was totally not anything like what I needed. What I needed was someone to sit down with me and say, Here’s how you start a fashion label.”

Before long, the blogs started to howl that Jay’s work was nowhere to be seen, and Tim Gunn, the kindly host and soul of Project Runway, was wondering aloud to the press why Jay hadn’t gained more momentum; he also castigated him for being a diva.

“My hands have been creatively crippled for two years—all those fucking eyes on me, reading that I’m a waste on blogs,” he says. He looks genuinely unhappy now, and younger than his 32 years—a reminder that there’s an enfant in enfant terrible, a person one feels just as apt to protect as to throttle. “I was just an artist before this happened,” he adds. “Now I’m an artist with a fucking clock ticking.”

And Jay’s certainly not going to get any help from host HEIDI KLUM who ripped into his designs after a near-disastrous Emmy red carpet appearance. From PR Insider, Heidi says…

“I tried that once. The very first time I got nominated, I asked the winner of the first season, Jay McCarroll, to design something. He had all these great ideas, and then designed something that was absolutely not appropriate. “It was not an evening red carpet thing for the Emmys - it was like an MTV/Halloween costume! I could not have gone that way. At the end of the day, I said no…He got upset.”

Ouch. By the way, if you’re reading this and living in NYC, can Jay surf your couch for a couple days?