Melissa Howard

In October 2012, a tree fell on her house during Hurricane Sandy, destroying the house and burying her older daughter in debris. Justin Beck pulled the child out from the rubble, finding that she was apparently unharmed. They took the baby to the hospital, which discharged her three hours later, having confirmed that she suffered no injuries.

On September 29, 2007, Howard married Glassjaw guitarist Justin Beck at their home on Long Island. She subsequently took his surname, and is now named Melissa Beck. They met when Melissa needed an online store and she became a client of MerchDirect, Justin Beck's merchandising company. On March 20, 2009, Beck gave birth to their first daughter, Shalom Mazie Beck. On August 22, 2012, Beck announced on her Tumblr that she and her husband were expecting another daughter. Maja Ilani was born on January 1, 2013. Shira Melati Beck, their third daughter, was born on November 13, 2015.

Howard was ranked #92 on Maxim magazine's "Hot 100 Women of 2004" feature.

She was a member of the all-female cast of the Oxygen network's hidden camera/practical joke reality television series Girls Behaving Badly, which aired from 2002 – 2005. In 2005 appeared on Bravo's Battle of the Network Reality Stars.

Melissa Beck (born Melissa Howard) is a reality show personality and comedian known for her time as a cast member on the 2000 reality television series The Real World: New Orleans and the 2002–2005 prank show Girls Behaving Badly.

In 2000, 22-year-old 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. MTV producer and casting director, Andrew Hoegl explains that she was selected on the basis of her audition tape, which he calls "hysterical", and credits the season's humor to Howard, who referred to herself in her audition tape as a "half-black, half-Filipino Chris Rock". Filming took place over the course of 124 days between January and late May 2000. Her 2000 MTV biography describes her has possessing a "manic wit".

Melissa Howard was born February 12, 1977 in Okinawa, Japan to a Filipino mother and a black father. She, her older sister Marlene and her younger brother, Michael, grew up in Valrico, Florida. She attended Brandon Senior High School and the University of South Florida, from which she graduated with a degree in journalism and mass communications.