‘Price is Right’ Model Says Was Fired for Shady Reasons

A longtime Price Is Right model is finally saying what she believes really happened behind the glittery prizes and studio smiles — and she’s pointing the finger straight at Bob Barker.

Holly Hallstrom, now 73, appeared on E!’s docuseries Dirty Rotten Scandals this week and alleged the late game show icon wanted her gone for reasons far more complicated than the explanation the public heard at the time.

Hallstrom spent 19 years as one of the show’s famous “Barker’s Beauties,” joining the lineup in 1977 alongside Janice Pennington and Dian Parkinson. She was abruptly let go in 1995, a move that was widely framed as being connected to weight gain. But Hallstrom claims that storyline was a convenient cover.

According to Hallstrom, her relationship with Barker soured after she refused to participate in what she described as a push to protect him during Parkinson’s 1994 sexual harassment lawsuit.

In the documentary, Hallstrom says she didn’t want to give a deposition because she felt she was being steered toward trashing Parkinson and defending Barker. She claims she wanted no part of it — and believed testifying the way she was being pressured to would’ve crossed a legal line.

She says that refusal put her “on his list,” and she believes it became the turning point that ended her career on the show.

Hallstrom alleges that because it would’ve been illegal to fire her for refusing to testify, the official explanation shifted to something else: her weight. She claims she was pressured toward an “early retirement,” resisted it, and then was effectively forced out anyway.

And she doesn’t stop there.

Hallstrom claims that after her exit, she was edited out of large portions of the show — and when she did appear on camera, she says she was strategically hidden behind big prizes like cars and appliances. She also alleges Barker publicly attacked her credibility once backlash poured in from fans.

The fallout didn’t stay on TV.

In 1995, Barker sued Hallstrom for defamation. He later dropped the case in 2000. Hallstrom then sued him for malicious prosecution, and that case ended with a settlement in 2005.

Hallstrom says the legal war is a big reason she kept quiet for years — and that she didn’t feel safe speaking freely until Barker was gone.

Barker died in 2023 at age 99, with Alzheimer’s disease listed as the cause of death. He previously addressed Hallstrom’s firing in a 2002 interview, saying she was overweight — but claiming that if weight were the real issue, she would’ve been fired much earlier.

Now, decades later, Hallstrom is telling her story with one message: she says she didn’t leave — she was pushed.