[1] In 2000, Howard was one of seven people selected from a pool of 35,221 applicants to be cast on The Real World: New Orleans, the ninth season of the long-running MTV reality television series.
After filming ended, Howard moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in standup comedy,[1] as well as to engage in acrylic painting, an interest she developed while in New Orleans.
She later started a blog called Princess Melissa in order to host a web store to sell her artwork, and to express herself in writing, telling HuffPost in a 2002 interview, "I've always felt more comfortable in my written presentation than in my face."
[5] She was a member of the all-female cast of the Oxygen network's hidden camera/practical joke reality television series Girls Behaving Badly,[1] which aired from 2002 – 2005.
[7] After the run of Girls Behaving Badly, Howard moved to New York to work part-time in a non-entertainment industry-related job, and to live with her boyfriend, J.