LOS ANGELES -- The woman who married a total stranger on national television said today she participated in Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire on a lark and will seek an annulment.

"I don't think I was thinking clearly," nurse Darva Conger told ABC-TV's Good Morning America. "I committed an error in judgment."

She said she didn't want to disparage her husband, Rick Rockwell, but after spending some time with him, she concluded: "I was very uncomfortable around him. He's just not a person that I would ordinarily have a friendly relationship with."

She said they spent their "honeymoon" in separate rooms and she told him "I don't have those feelings for you, I can't let you believe that I do."

"This is me. I am an Air Force veteran, I am a college graduate... I want my life back," said Conger, 34, who served in the Persian Gulf War.

She said the agreement to participate in the show included an annulment clause, and she would seek the annulment. Rockwell has acknowledged that an annulment was likely.

The Feb. 15 Fox-TV special (simulcast in Canada on Toronto's Citytv) received smash hit ratings and touched off widespread debate about the limits of "reality" television. Rockwell, described as a millionaire through real estate investments, picked Conger from among 50 contestants.

She said today she "was just in complete shock" when she was chosen, adding: "I wish I had the moral fortitude at that point to walk away." She said she feared hurting the producers by ruining the show.

"I was just going to be on TV and wave to my family and friends," she said. "We thought it was just a lark."

Fox cancelled a planned rerun of the show after an online news service, The Smoking Gun, revealed Saturday that a California judge issued a restraining order against Rockwell in 1991 sought by his ex-fiancee, Debbie Goyne. She said Rockwell had hit her and threatened to kill her.

Rockwell told Dateline NBC, however, that he never hit Goyne or any other woman, but he admitted letting the air out of the tires on her car. He said he has a temper but "it doesn't manifest itself too often."

To everyone who thought the show debased the institution of marriage, Rockwell said he "really had a romantic ideal" in his mind.

Despite the flap, no less than three new U.S. series plan to take the gamble of putting real people in real-life dramas for fun and profit.

Making the Band, ABC's behind-the-scenes look at a pop band, debuts March 24. This summer, CBS will air Survivor, which will strand contestants on an island to compete for $1 million, and Big Brother, which will stick players in a house filled with cameras.

Still, other networks are taking heed of Fox's misadventure.

"This certainly heightens awareness of the need to be careful," said CBS spokesman Chris Ender. "We're confident that our casting and screening process will ensure that everyone involved is appropriate and ready for the experience."

Fox said the show's producers, Next Entertainment, had agreed to conduct a full background investigation on Rockwell and his potential brides. Fox said it is looking into how extensive those checks were.

Next Entertainment said in a statement that "a good-faith background check performed prior to the show by a reputable, independent investigator did not reveal any information that Mr. Rockwell was anything other than a decent, successful man."

The marriage's fate aside, a Fox spokesman said Conger received prizes worth a total of $100,000 US, the honeymoon, the $35,000 engagement ring and an Isuzu Trooper.

The decision to pull a rerun of the show may reflect Fox's concerns about legal exposure if anything went awry between Rockwell and Conger, said Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.

He noted last year's $25 million judgment against the producers and owners of The Jenny Jones Show in the killing of a gay guest who admitted a crush on another man. The verdict has been appealed.

"The Jones case says that liability might be there. I'm calling it the 'morning after story'. You've got the show itself, it ends with a kiss," Thompson said. "Then there's the day after, or week after, when we begin to see the results of putting real people together into these contrived situations."