Rick Ness was missing in action in the latest installment of Discovery Channel’s “Gold Rush.” With no word from the network if the gold miner quit or was fired from the hit reality television show, fans began speculating on the possible reasons behind his absence. People looked back on his gold mining journey from working for Parker Schnabel to leading his own mining crew. Even his personal life and relationship with his fiancée were not spared from scrutiny in an attempt to understand what could have happened to him. The truth was uncovered upon a friend’s visit to his place, when Rick disclosed what he was going through.

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Meet Rick Ness and how he got into gold mining

Rick Ness was born in 1981, to parents Richard “Big Rick” Ness and Judy Marie Bedard. He was raised in a small town in Escanaba, Michigan, and growing up worked for the family construction business called Roy Ness Contracting & Sales Inc., run by his dad and uncles.

After sustaining an injury playing football when in college, he turned to music and joined a streetgrass band called .357 String Band, in which he played the upright bass. The band released three albums and went on tours, but disbanded in 2011 after seven years. 31-year-old Rick was lured by the idea of gold mining upon meeting 16-year-old Parker Schnabel when the band performed at a State Fair in Haines, Alaska in one of their last shows. Within a year, Parker called and offered him a job running equipment at $20 an hour, so Rick became part of his crew in the Spring of 2012, and appeared in “Gold Rush” beginning in Season Three, since Parker’s mining activities were featured in the show at that time.

The following year, Parker brought Rick with him to dig for gold at the Scribner Creek Mine in the Klondike in Yukon, and they amassed more than $1 million worth of gold. By 2015, Rick was promoted to foreman, and although it was a big responsibility, he was up for it.

Rick struck out on his own

In 2017, Rick’s relationship with Peter turned sour. Things could get ugly pretty quickly especially if one was causing the other to lose money. Some viewers chalked it up to miscommunication, and it led to Peter being upfront with Rick as he said, ‘If you want to run your own mine site, which is the way you’re running this show; doing it with my money without collaborating with me, doesn’t work.’ Admittedly, Rick was beginning to want to venture out on his own and do things his own way. Despite mining over 6,000 ounces of gold worth around $9 million during his fifth season at the Klondike with Parker, Rick still felt that it was time to go.

It was the biggest gamble of his life with his own money on the line, but he believed he was ready to start his own mining operation. Rick said that mining made his life better, and he wanted to do that for other people as well, particularly those he cared about. He hired his buddies even if they had no experience in mining or running heavy equipment, as he would train them. He was a seasoned miner, but he still needed someone to help him, and so he reached out to his dad Rick Ness Senior, who had 40 years of experience moving dirt.

Who doesn’t love gold??
I heard a rumor that #Goldrush is back on soon.. We’ve been hard at it and I can’t wait for everyone to see what we accomplish.. pic.twitter.com/VkYnP07ZEf

— Rick Ness (@GoldrushRick) September 19, 2018

He went on to dig for gold at the Quartz Creek Mine in April 2018. It wasn’t easy because problems cropped up, and he doubted himself for a moment before remembering he knew how to do this, and that he was capable. He turned to people who could help him whenever problems cropped up at the site. In his first season as the mine boss, he got more than 1,000 ounces of gold worth over $1.3 million, and gave each member of his crew a share of the gold.

Rick Ness missing in action

Season 13 was said to be the toughest season yet even for highly skilled miners with years of experience on the job. The fuel prices had gone up, spare parts had been hard to come by, and the price of gold was not as high as in previous years. Prior to its premiere, there had been rumors that Rick Ness was not coming back, and viewers couldn’t help but be curious about his situation, because he was not one to back down from hard work. Here are theories that fans came up with to explain his absence:

Rick’s not really into gold mining

In an interview, Rick was asked if he enjoyed the TV production aspect when mining. He said that there were parts that he would miss if the cameras were suddenly gone, because some of it was fun. As far as continuing with his mining activities, however, he really couldn’t say because he didn’t plan on doing it for the rest of his life. That said, he knew that it was an opportunity that he couldn’t pass up and that he would try his utmost with it. Some thought that the lure of prospecting for gold had waned for Rick, and that there were other activities that fascinated him more.

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He announced in October 2016 via a Facebook post that he was about to go on the craziest adventure of his life, and it was being filmed for Discovery Channel. More than a year later, he posted a photo in which he was holding what seemed like a giant beetle, and said he was out of his comfort zone but survived six weeks in the Amazon jungle. He shared how scary the experience was as he slept in a hammock every single night in the middle of the jungle and he could hear loud noises not knowing what was making them, or where exactly it was coming from.

In 2020, he competed in Iceman 500, a 500-mile endurance race with a souped-up old Utility Task Vehicle (UTV) across a frozen lake, for a chance to win $10,000. It was aired in a two-hour special called “Gold Rush Rick’s Rally.” The following year, he participated in the Best in the Desert Parker 250, an off-road racing. Rick had the chance to race beside some of the best teams in the world and tested his skills in his first desert race. He drove a newly built U970 with Jacob Zuccone as his co-driver, and they placed fifth in the first race of the season held in Parker, Arizona.

The pressure of being a mine boss was too much for Rick

Running one’s own mining operation was stressful, particularly since gold mining wasn’t a sure deal. One could easily go bankrupt because there was no guarantee that one would dig-up gold or at least enough of it to cover the operating expenses. The pressure of being the boss especially when he was hemorrhaging money with no gold in sight got to him, and he would hide in his trailer at times because he felt lost. He thought the stress would kill him before he was ready to go, saying that he found himself sacrificing his health and sanity for this, and he knew he had to figure out how to do things without driving himself into the ground, and affecting everyone around him.

The truth about Rick’s condition and why he stopped mining

Rick addressed the issue of his absence right on the show in the “Searching for Ness” episode. Perhaps the network or the production company was aware that not talking about it would only lead to unfounded rumors, and it wouldn’t be good for Rick to have to deal with it on top of everything that he was going through around that time.

“Zee” Zaremba said that his friend and boss was a ‘pretty closed off guy’ but more so lately as he noticed that Rick’s been keeping to himself. When he hadn’t heard from Rick for weeks, he drove over to his place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to check up on him. He said, ‘I love the guy. I hope he’s alright. That’s all I really want.’ Upon seeing Rick, one could see from his expression and behavior that something was bothering him. At first, it might seem like Rick was hesitant to open up as to what had been going on with him, as he brought Zee to his garage and talked about the work he had been doing on his car instead.

However, Zee wasn’t dissuaded from getting to the bottom of things, and asked Rick why he was sitting at home and not at the site digging for gold, to which Rick confessed that he had been wondering about that as well.

Rick had seasonal affective disorder

The only reason that Rick could have come up with as to why he wasn’t mining was that he waot just not up for it, and was aware of how weird it sounded. His friend then asked if what he was feeling was mental or physical, and Rick replied that he was probably suffering from seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of depression or mood disorder that was associated with seasonal changes. Symptoms included feeling hopeless, worthless, guilty, listless, or down nearly every day, as well as losing interest in things that were once considered to be enjoyable. SAD usually starts and ends at about the same time every year.

Some regarded it as simply a case of “winter blues”, but it wasn’t something that could easily be brushed off. Rick said that after filming season 12 and returning home, he crashed and didn’t feel like getting back up. It was a tough time for him, as he never struggled with depression before, and didn’t know where it was coming from or what to do about it. He knew he had to get ahold of himself because it wasn’t just him or his livelihood that was affected; many people were counting on him.

His mother passed away

His friend asked if the depression had set in after his mother passed away, because Zee knew how much Rick loved her. Rick’s mom, Judy Marie, was in her 50s when she succumbed to cancer in March 2018. He was with her when it happened, as he said, ‘She left us peacefully in her house and with my face resting against hers she took her last breath. It hurts. It’s not long enough.’ Some believed that he hadn’t grieved for her properly, or hadn’t fully accepted that she was gone. She left her house to him, but he hadn’t been back there for two years. He knew he should go there and get closure, although he wasn’t sure if it would help him or not.

Rick shared that after the death of his mom, he put that whole experience in a little box thinking that he would deal with it when he was better prepared. It was understandable, because at that time he had a lot on his mind, as’ had a commitment to the show, and people depended on him as he was the boss and so he needed to focus on that. Instead of giving himself time to mourn, he worked and worked until his grief caught up with him. He learned that there was never a better time for something like this, as he said, ‘It will come screaming back at you when you least expect it if you try and ignore it.’

Rick’s on the mend

By 2021, as he greeted his mom on Mother’s Day via his Facebook page, he claimed that he had accepted that she was gone and that if he had her back for just one day, the only thing that he would tell her was that he loved her. He said, ‘I am no perfect son, no perfect man, no perfect anything, and I will never claim to be.’ nonetheless, he wanted to thank his mother for playing a huge role in helping him become the man he is today.

His grandmother Lola Ness died at the age of 95 in January 2022. She had always referred to him and his twin brother as ‘The two best boys in town.’ He said that he would surely miss her, but he was happy that she was at peace. Perhaps this helped him come to terms that death was a part of life. As he took time off from the show, he had the chance to reflect and focus on his well-being.

2022 had been a tough year for him as he was not equipped to deal with mental health issues. He didn’t know anything about it, and ‘til then had even viewed it as an ‘over-exaggeration.’ He said that dealing with losses and the stresses of everyday life was very real. It was difficult for him to admit that he had a mental health problem, but that he was working on how to understand and cope with it. He also encouraged people who were struggling just like him to do the same, and assured them that they were not alone.

Getting engaged

For the longest time since he was on social media, Rick hadn’t posted anything about his relationships. However, in October 2022, he announced his engagement to Leese Marie when he greeted her on her birthday. He said that she had been there for him through one of the toughest years of his life and wanted to do the same thing for her. ‘I decided to make her my favorite girl for the rest of our lives.’ A month later, Leese reportedly revealed via TikTok that they broke off their engagement, as she accused him of cheating on her.

As Rick welcomed 2023, he was back with Leese and credited her for sticking it out with him even when he was at his worst. He opened up about making a mess of everything and taking her for granted, as he said, ‘From ruining plans, holidays, and even worse stepping out on her, I’ve done the unforgivable, but she has continued to forgive me.’ He felt bad that some people blamed her for his problems, when the truth was that she had done nothing but try to help him get through it.

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What’s next for Rick Ness?

It seemed that things were continuing to get better for Rick, as he tried his hardest to straighten out his life, although he said that he still made mistakes, as he was nowhere near perfect nor would he ever be.

There were talks that Rick was coming back to the show primarily because he posted in February 2023 on his Facebook page that he was looking for a fully licensed diesel mechanic who was willing to work long hours in a remote environment at the mine site int the Yukon territory of Canada. Many believed that since he would go back to mining, then it went without saying that he would be part of “Gold Rush”, be it the original series, a special, or a spin-off.

In his four seasons as a mine boss, he had mined about 4,700 ounces of gold worth more than $8.6 million. His fans couldn’t wait to see him back on the site, and see if he could top the amount of gold that he mined in the previous seasons.

Richard Rawlings is a successful entrepreneur, who built his automotive empire through his auto shop, Gas Monkey Garage, and gained popularity by headlining a reality television series called “Fast N’ Loud.” Most gearheads flocked to watch his show when it was launched in 2012, as he shared how he made money from restoring run-down cars and flipping them. He didn’t always make a huge profit from every project in all the eight years he was in the series – there were times he lost a lot of money due to wrong decisions, accidents, and disappointing sales.

Who is Richard Rawlings and how did he build his multi-million business?

Due to the image and reputation that Richard Rawlings gained from appearing in several successful reality TV shows, some painted him as someone who was born with a silver spoon, and that using a helicopter to visit his businesses was a regular thing for him. It was actually far from the truth, but he took everything in stride; while he found it cool that some people perceived him to be like that, he had always corrected the wrong assumptions about himself whenever he had an opportunity to do so during interviews.

Developed his fascination with cars early on in life

Richard Rawlings, a native of Fort Worth, Texas, was born on 30 March 1969. He was from a working-class family, and while they weren’t dirt poor, his father had to work two to three jobs while he was growing up, just to buy him a toy motorcycle, which he could ride around his neighborhood. When he was eight years old, he would remember the kinds of cars driving along the paper route that his father took in delivering the morning and evening newspapers in their community. His fascination with car customization was highly influenced by watching and assisting his father tinkering in their garage. At the age of 14, he had his own car, a 1974 Mercury Comet, and before he graduated from high school, he was already driving his third car, a 1977 Bandit Trans Am. This expensive hobby forced him to do odd jobs when he was a teen. One time, he had to fend off a carjacker at two in the morning and was shot, just to keep his 1965 Mustang Fastback safe and sound.

His early professions, and how he blew his savings in Los Angeles

Even before Richard was old enough to legally drink alcohol, he’d already been through different professions including a firefighter, a medic, and a police officer. He did that in a suburb just outside of Dallas for about six years, and as a side flipped cars and motorcycles. After some time, he left to explore California, driving his new Jeep He met a hitchhiker from Tucson, Arizona while on the road – initially he tried to get rid of him, but then threw caution to the wind and partied hard with him for several weeks in the City of Angels before they parted ways. Richard was only supposed to stay there for a week but he extended it to four months and blew all his savings there. His recklessness resulted in his beloved Jeep being repossessed the very night he returned to his hometown.

Became a serious entrepreneur

This made Richard think hard about what he wanted to do with his life – at that time he worked for a printing company as a salesman. It was then that he found his niche, and his experience with the company enhanced his marketing ability. He worked his way up to become a Vice President, and then left to start his own firm called Lincoln Printing. It wasn’t easy as he started from scratch, and used his apartment as his initial headquarters until he could afford to rent an office. It became successful, and after five years he sold it for just $200,000, contrary to later reports that it was to the tune of millions.

https://www.facebook.com/RRRawlings/posts/pfbid02i1PyPaNhbLwG2toUDPb6soUWcGd7BB7SqkogUJpHk5MRwDDxinEa1CuEh2rBVE6nl

Established Gas Monkey Garage

It was in the early 2000s that Richard established the Gas Monkey Garage but it didn’t take-off immediately; he was financially broke twice before it became successful. He recalled in an interview that if one wanted to be humbled in life, the best way to do it was just, ‘Go to your wife who was gainfully employed and runs her own company and asked for $1,000 because you can’t write Aaron Kaufamn a payroll check.’

Richard used the little bit of seed money he had from the sale of his printing company in 2004 to help expand the business, because of a light bulb moment when he was watching Jesse James and those guys from the Orange County Choppers with his family on TV. He realized that his stepson and wife at that time would leave the room each time those reality shows were airing because they had too much bravado, cussing, and kicking boxes around that alienated other people. He said that he wanted to produce a TV series that would cater to the whole family and not solely to men and gearheads. The business side of him wanted the 60% of the market that those shows neglected to consider when they created their content. He hired enough talented people, including Aaron Kaufman to help him develop street credibility and get noticed at the premier trade show, Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA), and other car events by building a reputable automotive customization brand.

All about “Fast n’ Loud” and the times Richard Rawlings lost money in it

At first glance at Richard Rawlings’ reality series called “Fast n’ Loud,” most viewers thought he had it all easy but it actually, it took him about eight long years before Discovery Channel took notice of his Gas Monkey Garage and what he had been pitching to them for quite some time. He never gave up though, and in June 2012, the first episode of his TV show aired on the cable channel. It became so successful that it lasted for 16 seasons, and he appeared in close to 200 episodes including the specials. However, not all their fixing and flippings were successful when it came to earning huge profits. Among several unfortunate incidents, here are the five instances when Richard lost money in the show:

Smashed the newly restored Mustang

“Fast N’ Loud” truly knew how to make a grand entrance, and blew the viewers’ minds during the second season premiere in February 2013. The episode was aptly titled “Mashed Up Mustang,” and the heat index in Gas Monkey Garage was over the top as its owner was incredibly furious. In this episode, they restored a 1967 Ford Mustang convertible, changed its color from navy blue to solid black, and lowered it. The shop’s master painter, Casey, asked Richard for a few more days to ensure that no crooked lines would show up anywhere by sanding it carefully and putting the primer properly. The color black was one of the most difficult colors to get straight on a car because it looked like a mirror after it was done. Anyone could easily see the waves or lines on it if not done properly, and they were happy that Casey did a remarkable job.

However, when it was out on the road for a test drive, the shop received a call that it was totaled. Apparently, a pickup truck smashed into when it was making a turn, and the door was crushed up against the fender. It had an extensive frame damage, and the engine of the Mustang stopped running as it was hit hard. A witness said that she saw someone run a red light and hit the black car. The problem was the guy who was responsible for the accident didn’t have any insurance, and while his pickup truck needed only $1000 worth of repair, Richard’s car needed $50,000.

Sold the car for less than half of the amount they paid for it

Near the end of the first season of “Fast N’ Loud,” Richard and his mechanic genius, Aaron Kaufman, went to the Leake Car Auction in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They took with them the 1948 Chevrolet Fleetmaster, which was restored by the Gas Monkey Garage team to perfection and spent about $25,000 on it. It was one of those projects that the team gained much respect from classic car enthusiasts. The sheer disbelief showed on the face of Richard after the bidding was done because the vintage Chevy was only sold for $11,750, which was incredibly lower than the amount they spent restoring it. He said that it was fortunate that he found no sharp objects around him at that time, because he could have hurt someone or something with the kind of unimaginable heartbreak that he felt from the financial loss. If he was given a chance to repeat the day, Richard said that he would have followed his instinct to walk away when he noticed that the auction attracted too small a crowd, which meant that there would be fewer people bidding for it, and so the price wouldn’t go up.

My buddy Big Chris and I have been working on closing a deal on a couple of barn finds for the past 8 months. We finally made it out there to see 'em, and we found a really rad green on green Lincoln!
Watch the video here ➡️ https://t.co/aydOzFXlVj pic.twitter.com/tpTzt0uwXy

— Richard Ray Rawlings (@RRRawlings) December 4, 2020

Went greedy by removing the reserve option

One of the things Richard was so good at was that he had a knack for knowing what cars would sell fast, and would double if not triple his investments. People were surprised that he lost money with a beautiful, loaded fast car – it was such a bad day for him and his Gas Monkey Garage team as they were all expecting the shop would end up with big bucks that episode. His team fully restored a 2005 Ford GT Custom Coupe, putting in a new engine with 800 horsepower. When Richard calculated the cost of the restoration, it was initially just around $175,000. It would have been perfect had he stopped there but he added more features to give it an extra boost. He shelled out another $75,000 to make the car even more attractive to buyers.

During auction day at Barrett-Jackson Auction House, instead of placing a reserve option to ensure that no bidder would offer a price lower than the minimum amount that Richard wanted and avoid losing money, he removed it. A reserve option meant that during the bidding process, the car would go to the bidder who either met or exceeded the reserve price. If the price wasn’t met, the seller wasn’t obligated to sell. Removing it could be risky because the seller couldn’t reject any bid, but it gave him the potential to earn more as the price could increase without any limit as long as people continue bidding for it. His gamble didn’t pay off because he wanted the car to be sold at around $500,000 but in the end, when the bidding war stopped, it was only sold for $230,000, which wasn’t enough to cover the bill for the hours of labor that went into it and the parts that they purchased for it. It didn’t end there, as Richard still needed to pay for the auction fees, commission, and taxes.

Down 35 grand before the restoration even started

In 2020, in a “Fast N’ Loud” episode entitled “Hot for Firebirds,” Richard’s team all thought it would be a quick and easy restore and flip project with a 1967 Firebird convertible that he bought for $10,000. One of his crew members felt that their boss paid a little too much for a vintage car that the latter only gave a cursory glance at and didn’t examine thoroughly, and he was proven right later on. They already ordered all the parts, and the only thing left to do at that time was to remove all the ugly ones and replaced them with new ones to make the car shiny and ready to be driven on the road.

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The problem was that, as they were dismantling each part one by one, they discovered that there was something wrong with the door and they couldn’t figure out why until they removed the carpet and looked underneath. Richard was quite wrong when he thought that the car was untouched because the bottom of the car was chopped and improperly put back together. It wasn’t a car for a rebuild but a mere source for scrapped parts with the crusher as its next stop. Fortunately, one of his crew members got hold of another Firebird for sale that was produced in the same year but was worth $25,000 so they could continue with the project. While that lifted Richard’s spirits, he knew that he was $35,000 down even before any restoration was done to the car.

Losing Aaron Kaufman in the show

Hiring a great talent such as Aaron Kaufman as part of his team was probably one of the best decisions Richard Rawlings made in his life. His lead mechanic was a straight-A guy in school who only dropped out of college because he was more interested in building cars. Aaron was one of the reasons Gas Monkey Garage became successful, and Richard never denied it.

Sometime in 2017, he bid everyone goodbye in “Fast N’ Loud” to the surprise of fans. Everyone immediately concluded that Richard and Aaron had irreconcilable differences and that they needed to part ways. They never fought in public and never said bad things about each other during interviews. Aaron admitted that he had a personal and professional difference of opinions with the TV show producers. He wanted to build bigger and better cars., but he wasn’t allowed and so he felt that he had to leave. While the show continued for a few more seasons before it was canceled, it wasn’t the same anymore, because Aaron also took away with him his fans from the show. However, the biggest impact was felt in Richard’s auto shop business, because a lot of clients respected Aaron’s ingenuity and followed him when he opened his own shop.

When Gas Monkey Garage lost money in one of their projects for the first time, the production crew of “Fast N’ Loud” were at a loss. Richard recalled, ‘They were like, what do we do with that?’ and he told them to go and show it to the viewers. He didn’t have any problem sharing with the world his misfortunes or failures. Losing money on wrong decisions during auctions, buying a useless car, being involved in accidents, or losing a valued employee might have given him some stress but it never brought him down. Richard Rawlings had always been a keen businessman, and he knew how to bounce back from any unfortunate situation. He used them as inspiration to do better with the next opportunity he was given – build a better car, use a different business approach, hire another talented mechanic, and never give up on pushing for more.

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One of his greatest fulfillments in life was to help other people get through their lives comfortably. He said, ‘I know that I’ve got to do my job better and harder than anyone in that building so that everyone there can take care of their families.’ After ending his contract with Discovery Channel, he continued what he had been doing in his reality show, but with a different platform, YouTube. His official channel now had a little over a million subscribers, and would have had more if he was allowed by his contract to be active about his work on social media at the time, when his TV shows were at their peak.