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The 2026 race to represent Oregon House District 52, a swing district stretching from Gresham to The Dalles, has attracted more candidates than any other in the state.
Among the four Democrats and three Republicans is a reality-television star who once owned 51 pairs of sunglasses and 80 pairs of shoes and, in the words of the New York Post, leapt “dexterously from wealthy husband to wealthy husband,” including Hawaiian Tropic suntan lotion magnate Ron Rice and action-movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Darcy LaPier filed paperwork last month to run in the Republican primary, aiming to succeed Rep. Jeff Helfrich (R-Hood River) who has created an opening by running for state Senate. The former beauty queen and rodeo star has the endorsement of a Salem power player who might give her an edge: former House Minority Leader Vikki Breese-Iverson (R-Prineville).
“Darcy is exactly the kind of candidate Oregon needs in Salem—a tough, resilient fighter who has overcome incredible challenges in her own life and understands firsthand the grit it takes to succeed,” Breese-Iverson said in LaPier’s campaign announcement. Breese-Iverson’s husband, veteran political consultant Bryan Iverson, is working on LaPier’s campaign.
LaPier is campaigning on a promise to protect hardworking Oregonians from “unfair burdens” like higher gas taxes and rising vehicle fees.
“I am really depressed about how far Portland and the state have fallen over the past few years,” LaPier says in a statement to WW. “Getting involved and stepping up to run for state representative to help bring Oregon back to the great state it used to be will be my driving passion in this campaign.”
LaPier grew up in Oregon, shearing Christmas trees and “catching chickens,” then fled the sodden Willamette Valley for Monte Carlo and beyond after marrying a succession of wealthy men, including Van Damme, Rice, and Herbalife founder Mark Hughes.
“It sounds like we’re talking about another person, but I’m just living life and I’m not afraid to take chances because life really begins outside of your comfort zone,” LaPier told the Statesman-Journal in 2014. “Really I’m just a kid from Molalla, and I think God kind of felt sorry for me and made me a little good looking and said, here’s some guts, now go live your life.”
In some ways, LaPier’s glitzy past makes her an odd choice for the GOP in a purple district. But colorful histories haven’t hindered other Republicans, including the current occupant of the White House.
LaPier faces bigger obstacles in a Florida federal court, however. There, a bankruptcy trustee alleges LaPiers committed fraud by hiding assets while claiming $28 million in debts. Court records show the U.S. Marshals Service ultimately found a secret closet with a cache of jewelry in her seven-bedroom Newberg mansion.
Oregon Republicans hope to capitalize on disenchantment with Democrats, who control every statewide office from governor on down and have supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature. Nike co-founder Phil Knight sees a chance to unseat some Democrats. Last fall, he made a record-breaking $3 million contribution to Bring Balance to Salem, a political action committee aimed at electing GOP legislative candidates.
But LaPier has no experience in politics, and she’s running in a district where Republicans must overcome a voter registration deficit of 5 percentage points to hold on to the seat. Asked if she has performed civic service of any kind, LaPier cites recent years spent barrel racing, a rodeo event pioneered by women.
“In the rodeo world, you are part of a big family that volunteers and supports each other all the time,” LaPier says. “That community feels like one big volunteer group.”
As for professional experience, LaPier lists a producer credit for Rodeo Girls, a 2013–14 AMC reality series about her and a group of barrel racers. When they saddle up in bikinis for one episode, LaPier taunts the other riders.
“My twins are on display and ready to roll,” LaPier says, indicating her breasts.
LaPier has packed a lot of career moves into her 60 years. Descended from Chippewa Cree Native Americans, she was raised on a small farm in Clackamas County. In her candidate filing, she claims a diploma from Molalla High School, but in a 2021 deposition related to her bankruptcy filing in the Middle District of Florida, she said she made it just through eighth grade, then pursued a trade (LaPier says her campaign treasurer made an error in claiming she had a high school diploma).
“God felt sorry for me,” LaPier said in the deposition. “My best friend’s mother was the boss of the community college and allowed me to sign up for medical assistant classes and X-ray technician classes being 16, which is highly against the law, but don’t tell anybody.”
On weekends, LaPier competed in beauty contests and became Miss Hawaiian Tropic Oregon in 1985, when she caught the eye of Rice, who owned a 12,000-square-foot house in Florida with a disco and two swimming pools. The pair got married in a wedding that cost $1 million, according to The New Yorker.
After Rice, she married Van Damme, just as the Belgian martial artist became a sex symbol in the movies Timecop, Street Fighter and Sudden Death. LaPier’s marriage to Rice was annulled because she hadn’t divorced her first husband, Larry Ray Robertson, when they split years before, the Los Angeles Times reported.
LaPier filed for divorce in 1997, accusing Van Damme of beating her up and playing “lurid sex games,” charges that Van Damme denied, according to the Times.
“Jean Claude and I had a huge rocket ride together, and we had so much fun,” LaPier said in a 2013 interview. “We fought like cats and dogs back then, but we’re friends now.”
Next, LaPier married Mark Hughes, founder of multilevel-marketing colossus Herbalife, on Valentine’s Day 1999 in a rose-filled church in Beverly Hills. Hughes died of an overdose of antidepressants and alcohol a year later, leaving LaPier $34 million, the Times reported.
LaPier returned to Oregon and married her fifth husband, Brian Snodgrass, part of the family who founded the 7 Dees landscaping company in 1927. Sensing opportunity in the Northwest, the couple formed Sequoia Custom Homes to develop real estate.
“I funded everything, and I personally guaranteed all the construction loans,” LaPier said in the bankruptcy hearing. Snodgrass, she said, had “latched on” to her. (Snodgrass didn’t return messages seeking comment.)
In 2004, near the height of the Oregon property boom, the couple bought two properties on a graceful bend of the Willamette River in Newberg and spent what LaPier said was $30 million on an estate there. Property records show a seven-bedroom house with a pool and a tennis court. Among LaPier’s other possessions at the time, according to her bankruptcy records: a 2005 Bentley, a 2007 Cadillac Escalade, and a 1995 Ferrari coupe.
The real estate market soured in 2007 and collapsed in 2008. The Snodgrasses defaulted on loans. Still friendly with Rice, LaPier asked her ex-husband to buy the Newberg house for $8.3 million to ease her debt burden, and he did so, according to bankruptcy records. Rice also began giving LaPier $50,000 a month to cover expenses for her and their daughter, Sterling.
LaPier filed for divorce from Snodgrass in 2012 and started filming Rodeo Girls for AMC the following year. Six episodes aired over one season. She remarried Rice for the second time in 2013 and split from him again in 2017, according to court records.
Her finances faltering, LaPier filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on June 18, 2018, in Florida, claiming assets of just $2,500 (counting $1,000 of clothing and a $400 iPhone) and debts of $28.4 million. In other words, she claimed that she’d not only spent the $30 million or so she’d acquired from her husbands, she owed creditors that much again.
The court-appointed bankruptcy trustee, tasked with locating assets to pay creditors, filed a complaint against LaPier in 2019, claiming she had hidden assets, including five horses (one named Letta a Brother Do It), a Cadillac Escalade, and $115,000 in cash, by setting up two limited liability companies that had no legitimate business beyond sheltering the assets.
“After realizing her perilous financial situation, [LaPier] began to take steps to conceal her assets from her creditors,” the trustee alleged.
Of particular interest was a collection of jewelry that the trustee believed to be in the Newberg mansion. The judge in the case authorized a search for it.
“The U.S. Marshals are authorized to use any necessary force to enter and search the Oregon estate, seize the jewelry, and keep the peace,” the judge’s order said.
In June 2021, U.S. marshals escorted an appraiser into the house and located the jewelry in a secondary closet behind the main closet in the master bedroom. Among the hoard: a Piaget watch set in an 18-karat gold bracelet, with diamonds; an 18-karat gold scarab charm with a blue stone; and a 14-karat yellow gold tennis bracelet with six natural rubies.
LaPier sold the house that same month. In her statement to WW, LaPier denied charges of bankruptcy fraud “because it was not a fact.”
These days, LaPier lives in a four-bedroom ranch-style house in Sandy, well within the confines of House District 52, which she aims to represent.
“I am proud of my path in life,” LaPier says in her statement to WW. “I have wonderful kids as a result of my marriages and still enjoy good relationships with those I was married to in the past. You learn a lot about yourself over the years. I sure did.”
