‘DWTS’ Alum John Schneider Felt Like a ‘Hopeless Failure’ After Losing Louisiana Property

John Schneider lost his Louisiana property in January, when he was unable to make his mortgage payments. The Dancing With the Stars alum is opening up about the devastating turn of events, revealing for the first time the surprising comeback that is already in process.

“As fate and finance would have it, I couldn’t make my monthly last payment, which was a balloon payment,” Schneider told PopCulture.com. “So, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I couldn’t come up with a $700 payment. It was a balloon payment, which would have to pay the whole thing off. Couldn’t do that, so it was foreclosed on and went up to sheriff’s auction, which means I was out of it. I was at the sheriff’s auction, and a couple of people were bidding on it, and the gentleman that wound up with it had never seen it before. I’d never met him.”

Schneider took the man to see the property he no longer owned, never imagining that he would still be able to call the place home.

“He met me out there,” Schneider recalled. “I showed it to him, and God is an amazing; it’s amazing because in my wildest dreams, this would not happen. He and his wife were in the kitchen at John Schneider Studios that now belong to him and said, ‘I can’t take this from you. This is your life. This is everything you’ve been working for. I see the way you talk about this place.’ So we will work something out.”

The turn of events is a far cry from how Schneider thought the day would go, when he realized he was unable to keep his property.

“[I thought] I was a hopeless failure,” Schneider conceded. “Absolutely, because I never saw that coming. A lot of it has to do with this terrible divorce. I’ve been distracted. I paid lots of money and borrowed lots of money to pay lawyers who are gone and the divorce is still not done.”

“When it was sold, they didn’t have any cameras in there, [but] I’m told I was just like the picture of devastation, because I never thought I’d hear that,” he continued. “When I took the gentleman and his wife on a tour, the ground felt different, the air smelled different. Everything smelled different. Everything I looked at looked bleak, because for the first time since I laid eyes on that property, it was not and would not anymore be mine, and it hurt.”

Despite Schneider’s expansive property being sold, the Dukes of Hazzard star is still optimistic about his future. In addition to continuing his role as Jim Cryer on The Haves and the Have Nots, Schneider also is still recording and performing music as much as he can. After a trying few years that included two devastating floods in 2016, and an acrimonious divorce, still in process, he believes things will only go up from here.

“2019, we’re going to be able to see the little green sprigs start coming up, and the flowers start coming up that we’ve been planting these last several years, especially last year,” promised Schneider. “I do believe that all of the seed sowing is going to finally start to show. A lot of things are behind us. The studio issue is behind me. It seems so odd. It’s not mine, but it’s no longer a threat. No one is going to take that away from me. No one is going to order that to be sold and kick me out. That’s off the table.”

Although Schneider no longer owns the property he invested so much of his time and resources in, the 58-year-old feels more at home there than he ever did.

“It affected every decision that was made there,” he said of the potential impending loss. “Now, there are people that we really like who are willing to work this out with us, that I feel great about that we were planting. Plant, I mean I love the garden. We’re planting. I just planted six shrubs yesterday. I wouldn’t have done that a year ago because I’d be afraid someone’s going to take them. I don’t feel that way anymore. Tremendous, tremendous relief.

“This will be a year of, I’m not going to say reaping,” he continued. “We’re going to be able to see it. I think the following year is going to be the reaping year. This is going to be where we start seeing the fruits of our labor come up out of the devastation.”

Schneider released 52 songs in 2018 on his Odyssey project, which is available for purchase on his website.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Monica Morgan