Patti Stanger challenges the notion that money can’t buy love. Stanger, a third-generation matchmaker with more than 20 years of practice, tries to help the world’s richest singles find mates on her reality series, The Millionaire Matchmaker, which returns for its fifth season on Bravo this Monday. TIME spoke to Stanger about her strangest clients, the celebrity she’d most like to set up and what advice she’d give to Arnold Schwarzenegger in the wake of his divorce.
What kind of training goes into becoming a matchmaker?
I [worked at] Great Expectations (a dating service) for eight years, so I know the business side. I don’t think there is much training other than knowing when people go together — it’s (just) like a knowing. You’ve just got to keep practicing.
Who’s been the weirdest person to come into your office?
We get fetish people, and they do combine it with sexuality. But I’m not Heidi Fleiss (a former prostitution ring madam). I don’t usually go in that direction, so I refer them out. It gets too sexual. I’m not going to jail for anybody. I’m not going to investigate swingers clubs or bisexuality—that’s totally not my area. My area is finding your wife. What you do in your bedroom is your own business. And I don’t want to be a part of it.
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What advice would you give to someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Arnold needs help. You don’t use your own bedroom in your own house—well, first of all, you don’t cheat at all—and second of all, this has been going on for years. He’s been grabbing everyone’s butt under the sun on every set, and then to procreate a child and have [his wife] find out 13 years later, that’s just totally sadomasochistic. He is just sick. He needs major mental help. And maybe take Jesse [James] and Tiger [Woods] with him. The three of them could go into a boot camp with Dr. Drew [Pinsky] or something.
Are there clients you haven’t worked with but want to?
I’ve always wanted to work with Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Aniston, and now Jennifer’s taken, so I’m happy for her. I really like [Sandra] as a person… and I feel bad for her. I don’t feel like you have to call it in, and say, “There are no good men out there, woe is me.” I think she deserves a really good guy.
You work with wealthy, high-profile clients. But is dating really different for the rich?
The rich are different. Their wants are very high maintenance. They’ll pick eye color and hair color, all the way down to what she does for a living, what school she went to. Their list can be extremely long. But at the end of the day, dating is dating, because they’re human beings. One person has a penis. The other person has a vagina. Nothing is going to change in that department.
Feifei Sun is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @Feifei_Sun or on Facebook. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.