Once you get your start on a Real Housewives franchise, you can pretty much come back whenever you want, especially if you’re recognizable and successful (see: Bethenny Frankel). But once you get your own spinoff of a Real Housewives franchise, I can definitely see why you wouldn’t want to. That’s where current Don't Be Tardy star and former Real Housewives of Atlanta cast member Kim Zolciak Biermann is right about now, as she tells Bustle how she feels about potentially returning to the Bravo series.
Don’t Be Tardy, which airs every Wednesday at 10 p.m. on Bravo, started as a spinoff focusing on Kim’s wedding to former Atlanta Falcons player Kroy Biermann, and once they started having babies and building their Atlanta estate, the cameras kept on filming. And though she still lives in the city and has her life documented by cameras, Kim says that she couldn’t see herself going back to being on Real Housewives Of Atlanta. “No… I can't say never. I will not be a full-time housewife, she says. “I don't have it in me, but you know I adore Sheree [Whitfield] and I've had fun with Sheree. So there's a part of me that, I maybe attend an event or make an appearance per se, but as far as full-time, I definitely love doing my own show.”
That’s totally understandable to me — why be part of an ensemble when you can be the star (and Kim most certainly was the breakout star of her seasons of Real Housewives Of Atlanta)? But if she had to be on Real Housewives again, she wouldn’t necessarily have to pick Atlanta. And when asked if she could jump on the Real Housewives bandwagon again in another city, she reveals she’d want to head west to another land of glitz and glamour. “Well, I love Kyle Richards, [so] probably Beverly Hills, I guess,” she says. “I love California and the weather, so I'd probably do that. I don't feel like there's as much chaos and drama as other franchises.” That’s true, I think — there is always drama, but Lisa Vanderpump doesn’t suffer fools, so she keeps the screeching and screaming to a minimum over there.
Kim has spent the last 10 years of her life on television, and all of her kids have grown up with it in one way or another, so having cameras around is pretty normal for them. But that doesn't mean she'd want her children to have reality series of thier own — at least not all of them. “I think that if Brielle came to me and said, ‘You know, I'm gonna do my own reality show,’ I definitely think that she can handle it because she's been in the spotlight and she's been on television since she was 9 years old," Kim says of her oldest daughter. However, she has different feelings about some of her other kids being in the spotlight that way because of their unique personalities.
"Ariana is 14. She's at a different stage. But if she even came to me at 19, I don't think that I would be as apt," Kim explains. "She's very sweet. She's very sensitive, so I don't know how I would feel about her doing something like that just because of how sensitive she is… I think it depends on the personality and kind of their character. KJ wants to be this movie star in California and he's hilarious… And there's not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that KJ could go and even do his own reality show right now… And he'd handle it just fine. I just feel like, you know, some people are made for it and some people aren't. “
Reality television is certainly not for everyone, but Kim has made Don't Be Tardy work for her family. Whether she ever will return to Real Housewives of Atlanta, as a guest or otherwise, is questionable, but it's clear that no matter what, she'll take her family's role in reality TV seriously.
Images: Rick Diamond/Bravo (2)
