Jesse Camp, the first winner of MTV‘s Wanna Be A VJ contest from the 1990s, was reported missing by his sister last week, police confirmed Monday.
Camp’s sister, Marisha Camp, first reported her brother was missing on Facebook, reports The Blast. She then reported him missing to police.
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“If anyone has seen or heard from my brother Jesse since Saturday, please, please, please reach out to me or ask him to call home!!! Thank you!!!!!” Marisha wrote last week.
In another message, Marisha said the 38-year-old Camp was last seen in California.
“Jesse was last seen in California last week but has not reached out to us yet. What he needs now more than anything is kindness and love … Please keep him in your prayers,” she wrote.
One of Camp’s friends said he was last seen in Fontana, California and was “most likely without his phone.”
Fontana police later told The Blast that they encountered Camp hours before Marisha reported him missing on July 19. A bicycle officer saw him outside a Sherwin Williams store at 10 a.m. and did a “pedestrian check” to see if Camp was OK. The officer then checked Camp’s diver’s license to confirm his identity.
The officer believed Camp was doing well, but that same day, Marisha filed the missing person report.
Police also saw Camp across the street from the same story in April when he asked an officer a question.
On Monday afternoon, Riverside police told The Blast a friend called Camp’s phone and a stranger picked up, claiming Camp gave him the phone and clothes.
“She had been in contact with someone who had told her [Camp] was in Riverside a week ago, and that he’s been known to travel to the Inland Empire, and Riverside, from time to time,” Riverside Police Officer Ryan Railsback told PEOPLE.
Railsback said Marisha said her brother “might have been depressed recently.”
Camp won the first season of Wanna Be A VJ, which ran from 1998 to 2000. Winners received $25,000 and a one-year contract to appear on Carson Daly’s Total Request Live. He was homeless before winning the show.
Camp was last seen in the media in 2016 when he randomly appeared in front of the New York Post‘s offices in New York City. During a filmed interview, he claimed to be a gossip columnist, with information on morning TV hosts. At one point, he told the paper, “I’m zipping it ’cause I am on a very bad acid trip at the moment and I think I’m being interviewed for the New York Post — so clearly I’m not in my right head.”
In 2015, he appeared on HuffPost Live to discuss his drug use and claimed he was sober since 2009.
Photo credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Tuner
