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      ‘This American Wife’ Review: Wives Out, Knives Out

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      The play is a wild genre-bending parody of, and homage to, “The Real Housewives” franchise.I hate reality TV. It’s not the annoying personalities or the absurd playground-style fights or the drama that belies a fundamental lack of substance. Nope, it’s the assertion that it isn’t another fabricated product but action that’s “real.” It’s even in the name: “The Real World” or “The Real Housewives” — with the implicit assumption that life can be as curated as, say, a filmed brunch gathering of pampered celebrity wives.But maybe I’m being too hard on these women, who exist in something between an anthropological experiment and the theater. Yes, theater, the realm where we find ourselves in “This American Wife,” by FourthWall Theatrical. It’s a wild parody of, and homage to, “The Real Housewives” franchise.If you saw Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley’s “Circle Jerk,” a bonkers queer fable on privilege and cancel culture for the internet age, you already have a sense of the kind of satirical comedy and ambition that defines “This American Wife.” Jeremy O. Harris, of “Slave Play,” is also a producer.In the 90-minute production, Breslin, Foley and Jakeem Dante Powell, who are real-life “Housewives” superfans, appear as fictionalized versions of themselves. They each end up in a Long Island mansion while recounting their love for the franchise.Once there, the actors suddenly dip into the personas of the housewives as easily as one would slip into a royal blue satin dress with fringed sleeves — or, you know, whatever you have lying around.Breslin, Foley and Powell act out scenes taken directly from the series, which are sometimes intercut into the production. At certain points the actors take charge of the cameras themselves, interviewing one another in a style that mimics the confession-room reveals of reality TV but also the voyeuristic false intimacy of porn.The production, conceived and written by Breslin and Foley, eventually spins out into a playful music video and then an improvised reunion-style segment where the actors argue and respond, as “Housewives”-esque caricatures of themselves, to questions from fans on Twitter. Throughout, an anonymous woman with a claw-like manicure and long wavy bottle-blonde hair appears in white chunky heels through the mansion — she’s like an apparition summoned from the inherited wealth of Beverly Hills, the splashy opulence of runway fashion and Bravo TV’s bulging wallet.The performers’ lips are thoroughly glossed for their close-ups.Nina Goodheart“This American Wife,” directed by Rory Pelsue (“Circle Jerk”) with mad intensity and mindful allusions to gay stereotypes and internet culture, channels “Housewives” first and foremost with its setting. The production and props designer Stephanie Osin Cohen bedazzles an already palatial Long Island mansion in Lake Success, complete with a museum-worthy collection of framed Pomeranian portraits.Like Cohen, who interrupts the upscale creams and off-whites of the décor with eruptions of colors, the costume designer, Cole McCarty, also walks the fine line between subtle and bold hues. He clothes the actors in sheer blouses and textured blazers before pulling out the extravagant party gowns and statement hats. Tommy Kurzman, the hair, wig and makeup designer, has the performers’ eyelashes ecstatically curled and lips thoroughly glossed for their close-ups.The superficial glamour of “This American Wife” is alluring, the kind of eye candy a superfan might enjoy on the show. Above all that’s Breslin, Foley and Powell embodying — with an uncanny level of precision — the various housewives. The gestures and affectations aren’t just acts of glorified mimicry, however; they are a statement on the Venn diagram of gay male tropes and a particular brand of performance by women. And so there are snapped heads and sashays and the glorious theatrics of Powell as Kenya Moore (“The Real Housewives of Atlanta”), saucily declaring himself “‘Gone With the Wind’ fabulous.” (Powell, as a Black man, also brings attention to the racial element of the franchise, which features mostly white women, but the script doesn’t offer a deeper analysis.)That would have already been a comedic feat for the three, but much of the production is also improvised — and so well that it’s hard to differentiate. The last scene, a feisty interview segment, contains such a juicy rapid-fire argument between Foley’s character and Powell’s that it might have been an actual scrap between two catty acquaintances. (Shout out to Powell’s “I could make avocado toast out of you,” the Louis Vuitton of retorts.)Though I probably risk snappy retribution here, seeing how thoroughly Foley, brandishing my colleague Jesse Green’s book “The Velveteen Father,” roasted him (bitingly and perhaps cruelly), I, like Vicki, Brandi, Danielle, Tamra and Porsha, must not back down.Because despite its vicious charms, “This American Wife” quickly becomes exhausting. Since the production is split into separate movements, the two longest of which are primarily Breslin, Foley and Powell recreating scenes from the franchise, the novelty soon wears off. And though the production is so consciously playing with the artifice of the form, each performer has a moment of vulnerability when he — or at least his autofictional persona — reveals a tragic fact or experience. But when Breslin and Foley separately share the same tragic assault story — experienced by one and appropriated by the other — the gross fabrication casts a shadow of doubt over everything.In one scene, Powell asks Breslin (who can shed white woman tears at the blink of an eye), “What’s your reality?” I had a similar question.For most of “This American Wife” I was onboard but occasionally felt left out of the joke, especially in the improvised parts that could feasibly be sincere. The same is true of the music video segment: The show often feels so seduced by its own eccentric performances that it loses track of its point.What is missing here, which was well-established in “Circle Jerk,” is a more coherent commentary on queerness and reality show divas.Conceptually and technically, “This American Wife” has much to offer, especially in the way it uses humor to seriously consider lowbrow reality TV as an art form that could be on the same level as the highbrow artifice of theater. And for “Housewives” apologists, it’s definitely a must-see.For viewers like me, who prefer their fiction with less spray tans and Prada, these housewives can offer some laughs, but not enough. If I have to watch reality TV, I’d rather look elsewhere — anyone know if “Chopped” is on tonight?This American WifeThrough June 6; thisamericanwife.live. More

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      Shows Like ‘Cops’ Fell Out of Favor. Now Texas May Ban Them.

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      Lawmakers passed a bill named for Javier Ambler II, who died in 2019 after officers arrested him in front of a “Live PD” television crew. If the governor signs it, this would mean the end of police cooperation with reality TV shows.Two years ago, a television crew gathered in the small city of Hawkins, Texas, to film the life and work of Manfred Gilow, the chief of police there.Cameras followed Chief Gilow as he and his officers responded to calls, snapped handcuffs onto wrists and searched vehicles for drugs. The program was not available on Texas televisions; Chief Gilow is from Germany, and that is where “Der Germinator” (a portmanteau of “German” and “The Terminator”) was broadcast.Last year, after the nationally broadcast policing shows “Cops” and “Live PD” were canceled, “Der Germinator” filmed a second season. But prospects for a third may have dimmed last week, when the Texas Legislature passed a bill that would make it illegal for law enforcement agencies to authorize reality television crews to film officers on duty.“Policing is not entertainment,” said James Talarico, the Democratic state representative who introduced the legislation. The office of Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, did not respond to requests for comment this week about whether he would sign the legislation.Reality law enforcement shows, Mr. Talarico said, “rely on violent encounters between citizens and the police to boost their own ratings.” He cited an investigation by The Austin American-Statesman, which reported last year that law enforcement officers in Williamson County, Texas, were more violent when the “Live PD” cameras were rolling.The bill, which the Legislature passed with bipartisan support on May 13, is named after Javier Ambler II, a 40-year-old father of two who died in 2019 after Williamson County officers forcibly arrested him in front of a “Live PD” camera crew.Mr. Ambler’s sister, Kimberly Ambler-Jones, 39, said she believed that her brother would still be alive if the television crews had not been filming. “Because they had ‘Live PD’ there, it had to be hyped up,” she said. “It had to be drama.”That show was taken off the air in June. So was “Cops,” which had beamed arrests, confrontations and car chases to televisions across the United States for decades.The cancellations came amid nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. They also followed years of campaigning by the racial justice organization Color of Change, which had been pushing networks to drop “Cops” since at least 2013.Arisha Hatch, the organization’s vice president and chief of campaigns, said the shows were one-sided and served as propaganda for law enforcement.“They violate the civil liberties of people who are forced to become the stars of the show,” she said. “They operate to make a joke about how Black communities and poor communities are overpoliced.”Ms. Hatch welcomed the Texas bill, noting that the state-level legislative approach appeared to be without precedent.But with two flagship policing programs already canceled, it is unclear whether the law would have any immediate effect if approved by Governor Abbott.A reality series set in Texas called “Lone Star Law,” on Animal Planet, could most likely continue filming as long as it keeps its focus on wildlife and game wardens, Mr. Talarico said.“Der Germinator,” on the other hand, could be at risk.Chief Gilow argued that the program should be allowed to continue, characterizing it as more of a documentary than a reality show. He said it offered German viewers a glimpse of life in the United States, as well as a cautionary tale about the consequences of crime.“I think it is positive,” Chief Gilow said. “But you will have some people just hating it because they hate the police.” He added that the show did not violate anyone’s rights and blurred the faces of people who did not consent to be filmed.Police body cameras captured the 2019 arrest of Javier Ambler II. Crews from “Live PD” were also filming, but their footage was never broadcast.Austin Police Department, via Associated PressMs. Ambler-Jones said she hoped that Mr. Abbott would sign the bill — and that similar legislation would spread beyond Texas.“I know people feel like this is just entertainment,” she said of reality policing programs. “But you don’t understand what the person on the other side of that camera is dealing with.”For months after Mr. Ambler’s death, his family did not know what had happened to him — only that he had died in law enforcement custody. The details became public last year, after The Austin American-Statesman and the news outlet KVUE obtained body camera footage.Mr. Ambler was driving in the Austin area on March 28, 2019, when Williamson County deputies tried to stop him because he did not dim his headlights to traffic, officials said. After deputies tried to pull Mr. Ambler over, the authorities said, he kept driving for more than 20 minutes before crashing his vehicle.The body camera footage showed that the officers restrained Mr. Ambler and used a Taser on him multiple times. “I have congestive heart failure,” Mr. Ambler could be heard saying. “I can’t breathe.”Mr. Ambler was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. “Live PD” footage of the arrest was never broadcast on television.Since then, Williamson County officials have faced several lawsuits related to reality television footage. Two deputies were indicted on second-degree manslaughter charges in Mr. Ambler’s death, and the former county sheriff, who lost his seat after a November election, was indicted on charges of evidence tampering. All have pleaded not guilty.A spokeswoman for Williamson County declined to comment because of pending litigation. Big Fish Entertainment, the production company behind “Live PD,” did not immediately respond to emailed questions.Mr. Talarico said he hoped the legislation, if signed into law by the governor, would keep “Cops” and “Live PD” out of Texas for good. “Without the force of law, there’s nothing preventing these shows from coming back,” he said, “except for their own conscience.” More

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      Their Fascination With ‘Real Housewives’ Is Anything but Fake

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      A cadre of Yale drama graduates have followed up a first streaming hit with “This American Wife,” a reality-blurring look at the long-running reality TV franchise.Last fall, the theater company known as Fake Friends had one of the most attention-getting shows of the season, and not just because of its title. The troupe’s livestreamed production “Circle Jerk” was a viral hit, amassing Twitter love from Sarah Paulson, Roxane Gay and Hari Nef, and extending its run before briefly returning on demand in January.Its dynamic use of a real theater space mapped a live experience against a landscape of (literally) inside-the-box Zoom plays, while also tackling those restrictions head-on, thanks to self-aware, meme-ready campiness and sharp commentary on lives lived increasingly online.With a production co-sign from the playwright Jeremy O. Harris and his very digital following, the show propelled two of its members, Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley, into internet fame. They were tapped to adapt “Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical” for the virtual stage, and secured funding to turn their first-ever collaboration into another work of live internet theater.Along with the company’s dramaturges, Catherine María Rodríguez and Ariel Sibert, the two have reworked “This American Wife,” a half-confessional, half-delusional treatise on gay men’s worship of TV’s “Real Housewives” franchise, which they first staged at Yale Cabaret in 2017.Though the company is a four-person operation, they have enlisted a group of “friends of Fake Friends” (as Rodríguez put it) for this production, which begins streaming May 20: the director Rory Pelsue, the performer Jakeem Dante Powell, and Harris as a co-producer — all graduates of the Yale School of Drama.Foley, left, and Breslin say the show will examine the tensions that come with living one’s life significantly on camera.Michael George for The New York Times“We’re all huge theater nerds who can break out deep conversations about ‘Fefu and Her Friends’ in the same breath that we’re talking about Lady Gaga’s last tweet,” Harris, Breslin’s former New Haven roommate, said on a recent FaceTime call. “It’s a real love of high and low, and a rigorous relationship to both.”Breslin and Foley met backstage at a Yale production of Harris’s “water sports; or insignificant white boys” in 2017, where they discovered a mutual love of both experimental theater and the popular Bravo franchise.“Spoiler alert: They’re the same form,” Foley quipped on a recent Zoom call.“We’re really fascinated with what a camera does to a performer,” Breslin added. “What does the presence of a camera change about your behavior, about how you present yourself?”Unlike “Circle Jerk,” a satirical takedown of white gay culture laden with musical theater references, this project takes formal cues from lensed images. It’s styled as an episode of “Real Housewives” run amok, and the team cites French surrealist film, the photography of Man Ray, and the melodramas of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Douglas Sirk as major inspirations.Foley and Powell being filmed for segments that will be part of the livestream.Michael George for The New York Times“This American Wife” follows autofictional versions of Breslin, Foley and Powell as they arrive at a glamorous McMansion and recount their relationships to reality television and the impulse to humiliate oneself for attention.Fused with a litany of the Housewives’ actual phrases, the three performers detail personal, often traumatic, facts about themselves, echoing the franchise’s televised oversharing.And as their competing narratives become increasingly revealing and damaging, the show becomes a semi-improvised, high-concept dialectic on identity and “realness.”“The show directly confronts this visual internet world of the Housewives and how they’re endlessly used as GIFs, decontextualized from possible tragedies in their lives,” Breslin said.The addition of Powell to the cast allows the creators to surface prickly questions about race that have dogged the “Real Housewives” franchise.Michael George for The New York TimesWhile the “Housewives” shows draw steady social-media chatter, the intensity of attention seemed to reach a fever pitch during lockdown. “Because we’ve had this year off, a lot of people were watching the ‘Real Housewives’ on both a surface and an intellectual level,” Powell said.Queer viewers have a particular interest in debates over how real reality TV really is. “I think queer people have a real stake in this division of reality and fakery — what gets deemed real and what gets deemed fake,” Breslin said.“Within the gay community there’s a big tendency to look at the pre-coming-out period as a dark age — to foster this narrative of being a fake self, or playing a character and telling narratives that weren’t true, while still living a life,” said Foley.“That experience of a lie that is lived-in is integral to me,” he added.Early rehearsals at a West Village townhouse previously owned by Sarah Jessica Parker saw the team spend hours reviewing “Real Housewives” footage, determining which eye-rolls and gestures would best evoke the essence of the conspicuous rich, and which could be included as pre-existing GIFs.There and at the Long Island mansion where the company completed tech rehearsals — and from which it will livestream — flowed a heady combination of after-hours grad school discourse and pure farce. Wigged performers yelled Kandi Burruss quotes at refrigerators and other domestic essentials, which would later be fitted with livestreaming GoPro cameras.The character played by Powell, a Black actor, is new to this iteration — the fourth, following two at Yale and one for Next Door at New York Theater Workshop. It brings race into the former two-man show, responding to a crucial element Breslin and Foley felt missing from their original script.Breslin and Foley said that incorporating Powell — an understudy in Harris’s Tony Award-nominated “Slave Play” on Broadway — was an obvious choice, given his “encyclopedic knowledge” of the franchise, and what his addition would do for the piece’s dramaturgy.Ariel Sibert, left, a dramaturg and Rory Pelsue, to her left, is the director of “This American Wife.” Michael George for The New York Times“I remember talking to them about the Housewives that they gave voice to in the show,” Powell said. “For obvious reasons, there were voices that were not there, but who were alluded to in the text.”“There is something easily identifiable for me with how femininity lives within the body of a Black woman that didn’t resonate with me in the white women,” he added, describing that exploration as “really enticing.”The show, which to him now “feels like a brand-new piece,” aims to critique the role of race, not just within queer fandoms, but within the franchise itself, whose lack of diversity has been called out in major publications, from The New York Times to a Hollywood Reporter essay by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.“We have the first Black woman on ‘The Real Housewives of New York’ in 2021,” Breslin pointed out. “What does that say about what these shows are instructing people on what New York is?”In 2020, the “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star NeNe Leakes called its creator Andy Cohen racist on Twitter, shortly after exiting the show.“The conversation around what’s going on behind the scenes with NeNe and Bravo is fascinating to me,” Powell said. “It’s the same conversation that’s happening around the country — how the tenets of white supremacist culture exist everywhere.”Harris, who has used his recent financial success to fund several, mostly Black-led, theater initiatives, said he finds Fake Friends’ mission “really exciting.”“If you are a person of color, you are generally demanded to write something that puts your entire identity on the line,” he added. “I get very annoyed that it’s very easy for a white person to write something mundane that risks nothing, to get acclaim. Having friends who are so willing to ask hard questions about what their personhood in this country means is exhilarating.”FourthWall Theatrical, a two-woman production company composed of Jana Bezdek and Jen Hoguet, is producing the work with Harris. “This American Wife” will be their inaugural production.According to Breslin, Bezdek introduced herself as a lover of “three things: feminist theater, Brecht, and musicals.”“I used to work in reality TV so I can’t watch it for relaxation,” she said. “But this is such a complex, intelligent piece, that is not just reflecting our obsession with ‘The Real Housewives’ back on us, but reflecting ourselves back on us.”This American WifeThrough June 6; thisamericanwife.live More

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      Netflix Chronicles Byron Bay’s ‘Hot Instagrammers.’ Will Paradise Survive?

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      Tensions between protecting and capitalizing on the image of the famous Australian beach town have exploded over a new reality show.BYRON BAY, Australia — The moral quandaries of life as an Instagram influencer in the famously idyllic town of Byron Bay are not lost on Ruby Tuesday Matthews.Ms. Matthews, 27, peddles more than vegan moisturizers, probiotic powders and conflict-free diamonds to her 228,000 followers. She is also selling an enviable lifestyle set against the backdrop of her Australian hometown’s crystalline coves and umbrellaed poolsides.It’s part of the image-making that has helped transform Byron Bay — for better or worse — from a sleepy beach town drawing surfers and hippies into a globally renowned destination for the affluent and digitally savvy.“I do kind of have moments where I’m like, ‘Am I exploiting this town that I live in?” Ms. Matthews said recently as she sat at The Farm, a sprawling agritourism enterprise that embodies the town’s wellness ethos. “But at the same time, it’s my job. It puts food on the table for my children.”The tensions between leveraging and protecting Byron Bay’s reputation, always simmering in this age of entrepreneurial social media, exploded last month when Netflix announced plans for a reality show, “Byron Baes,” that will follow “hot Instagrammers living their best lives.”Local residents said the show would be a tawdry misrepresentation of the town and demanded that Netflix cancel the project. One woman started a petition drive that has gathered more than 9,000 signatures and organized a “paddle out” — a surfer’s memorial usually reserved for commemorating deaths — in revolt.Byron Bay is the most expensive place to live in Australia, with a median house price of $1.8 million.Mullumbimby, a town near Byron Bay. The announcement of the new show from Netflix has raised questions about who is entitled to capitalize on the cult of Byron Bay.Several store owners, many of whom have substantial Instagram presences, have refused permits that would allow Netflix to record on their premises. A number of influencers who were approached by the show also said they had decided not to take part. More

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      Bethenny Frankel Is Back on TV Because ‘I Know What People Want to See’

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      In “The Big Shot With Bethenny,” on HBO Max, millennial strivers will compete to help Frankel run her Skinnygirl empire.If reality television is a game, Bethenny Frankel belongs among its M.V.P.sFrankel, 50, began her on-camera career in 2005, during the Martha Stewart season of “The Apprentice.” She came in second, with Stewart telling her, “You’re spunky, you’re a show-off, you feel you have to make a physical impression.”If that made Frankel wrong for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, it made her right for “The Real Housewives of New York City,” which premiered in 2008, even though she wasn’t a housewife then and has never really been one since.Frankel spun a tossed off cocktail order in Season 1 — “the skinny girl’s margarita” — into the premixed cocktail brand Skinnygirl. She sold it to Beam Global for $100 million in 2011, retaining her rights to the brand name. (Beam got the premixed drinks business; Frankel kept everything else.) She has since parlayed her reality fame into food stuffs, supplements, cookware, shapewear and under her Bethenny label, eyewear.She is, in her words, “the H.B.I.C. of a major empire.” She recently signed a multiyear deal with iHeart Radio to bring her “Just B with Bethenny Frankel” podcast to the network and to produce others.Her endemic hustle extends to the disaster-relief initiative, B Strong. While raising money for hurricane and earthquake relief, the initiative, in partnership with Global Empowerment Mission, has distributed more than $19 million in aid and personal protective equipment during the Covid-19 crisis.“The Big Shot With Bethenny” is the “authentic modern version of ‘The Apprentice,’” Frankel said.Krista Schlueter/HBO MaxOn television, Frankel used “The Real Housewives” as a vaulting horse toward a couple of Bravo spinoffs; a single season of a syndicated talk show, “Bethenny”; and a bunch of appearances on “Shark Tank.” She quit “The Real Housewives” in August 2019 after eight on-and-off seasons, citing spiritual corrosion.“I was making great money, but I didn’t feel good about it,” she said. “If I’m really as successful and smart and savvy and legit and the-Emperor-does-have-clothes as I think I am, then that’s not really where I should be anymore.”But she didn’t stay away from reality television long. She teamed with Mark Burnett (“The Apprentice,” “Survivor”) and MGM Studios to create “The Big Shot with Bethenny.” “In business and television she is a clear force of nature, deservedly so,” Burnett wrote in an email.  In “The Big Shot,” premiering April 29 on HBO Max, millennial strivers attempt to become Frankel’s vice president of operations at Skinnygirl. Nominally a business competition show, it dispenses with most hallmarks of the genre — imagine “The Apprentice” with 100 percent more entropy.“I can let two people go. Hire everybody. Fire everybody,” Frankel says in the first episode. “I can do whatever I want.”On a recent afternoon, Frankel arrived at a Soho loft where some of the show was shot — lipped, lashed, bronzed, glamorous even through the Zoom screen. During an hourlong interview, she discussed entrepreneurship, her Martha Stewart beef and how to make reality TV more real. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did you end up on “The Apprentice” in the first place?I’d never watched a ton of television, but I said, “I could get on ‘The Apprentice.’” I said to my partner, “Go buy the least expensive video camera you can find and just videotape me selling cookies.” I got called, which was the craziest thing of my life, and I went to Bloomingdale’s and used my credit card to buy a Moschino red jacket. I went to this hotel, they interviewed me. I didn’t make it. But I’ve always been a connector, like, follow through, send a card, send a gift. Connect. So I kept in touch with the same producers and casting directors without looking too desperate. And they said, “OK, now it’s the Martha Stewart ‘Apprentice,’ here’s your chance.” I wanted it more than anything in the world. I didn’t want the fame per se. I wanted the job.You made it to the finale, then lost. Do you feel like you were robbed?I ran into Martha Stewart shortly after. I was wearing a really sexy dress. Intentionally. She was standing next to Jon Bon Jovi. And she said to him: “This is Bethenny, she was just on my show. And she’s mad at me because she didn’t win.” And I said: “Martha, I’m not mad at you. You’re like an ex-boyfriend that I hate but I’m still in love with.”Frankel and Dawna Stone were finalists in the Martha Stewart season of “The Apprentice.”Virginia Sherwood/NBCFrankel with Alex McCord, left, and Jill Zarin in “The Real Housewives of New York City.” Frankel left the franchise in 2019.Barbara Nitke/BravoThen you went onto other reality shows, “Housewives,” the Bravo spinoffs, “Shark Tank,” “Skating With the Stars.” How do people who know you only from TV see you?People think I’m scathing, abrupt, aggressive, intense, passionate, smart, successful, secretive, stealthy, a baller, manipulative, funny. I think I said intense? Economical, organized, efficient, reliable, honest.What do we get wrong? What don’t we see?What people probably don’t realize or believe is I am the most private person that I know, which is the craziest irony. I’m private about moments and experiences. I’m more of a homebody than anybody that I know, short of someone being agoraphobic. I do not leave my house and I do not put on hair and makeup unless I’m being paid to.Few people have used reality TV as successfully as you have. Was that always your plan?Going on “Housewives” was strategic. It’s not that easy to get on TV. I wanted to be a natural food chef. I wanted to be on the Food Network, and this is a place to show that I’m a natural food chef. Once it started, I thought: This is going to be a game changer. This is going to be very disruptive. But I was always honest about what I was doing.The premise of “The Big Shot With Bethenny” is that you need to hire a vice president of operations for Skinnygirl. What does a vice president of operations do?I wanted a second in command. The people at MGM wanted the title because the audience can digest and understand the title. What I really needed in my business was my person, who can think like me, manage the shop like me, edit a social post, have a vision.“What people probably don’t realize or believe is I am the most private person that I know,” Frankel said.Celeste Sloman for The New York TimesIs a reality show the best way to find that person?I’ve never looked at a résumé, ever. Headhunters give you people that are like, “Next Tuesday, I have a doctor’s appointment, and two years from July, I need to take a three-week trip, and what time is my lunch break?” I didn’t come up that way. We just worked. It’s hard to find people like that. That’s who I go for. I don’t care if you know anything — you’re loyal and you’re smart and you work hard. That is all you need.People competing for a job on a reality show sounds a lot like “The Apprentice.”Initially, I wanted to be disassociated from “The Apprentice.” It’s not real. It’s manufactured. Everything going on with our projects was really going on. So for example, I really have a shapewear brand; we really had to create a campaign for it. That was really happening. I really have salad dressings and preserves. The built-in projects are real; they have real stakes. Also, when you watch “The Apprentice,” do you ever see him in his pajamas? You ever see him at home with his wife? I imagine Donald Trump eats cereal. Do we see that? No. Do you see me in my life? Yes. The authentic modern version of “The Apprentice,” that’s what this really is.“The Apprentice” has a very predictable structure. Watching your show, I had no idea what would happen.Our executive producer produced “America’s Top Model.” Mark Burnett has produced “The Apprentice,” “Shark Tank,” “Survivor.” I get that they feel safety in format. I feel trapped and suffocated by it. Like, I’m back on my talk show directing traffic between a soufflé and fall florals. On my own reality shows and on the “Housewives,” I would say, “Let’s do real.” So all of the things that are shocking are not contrived. There were so many things not planned. It’s a very different show for that reason because it’s based in authenticity.So without too many spoilers, did it work out? Did you get your person?This experience gave me the person and I’m so excited.What have you learned about being good at being on television?People always say get out of your own head — it’s not entirely true. Reality television is the highlights. Something’s a sound bite. Something’s a takeaway. Something’s entertaining. I know what people want to see. I know what people want to drink. I understand what people think is entertaining. More

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      Colton Underwood, ‘Bachelor’ Star, Comes Out as Gay

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      The 29-year-old former football player had written about questioning his sexuality in a memoir, published in 2020.Colton Underwood, a star of “The Bachelor” and a former football player, came out as gay in an interview with Robin Roberts that aired Wednesday on “Good Morning America.”He described 2020 as a year of self-reflection, one that “probably made a lot of people look in the mirror and confront what they were running from or what they’ve been putting off in their lives.”“I’ve ran from myself for a long time,” Mr. Underwood, 29, said in the interview. “I’ve hated myself for a long time. And I’m gay. And I came to terms with that earlier this year and have been processing it, and the next step in all of this was sort of letting people know.”He said that coming to understand his sexuality has been a “journey,” and now he is “the happiest and healthiest” he’s felt in his life. He had reached a low in 2020, he said, that led to thoughts of self-harm and suicide.“I got to a place where I didn’t think I was ever going to share this,” he said. “I would have rather died than say, ‘I’m gay.’ And I think that was sort of my wake-up call.”In his 2020 memoir, “The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV,” Mr. Underwood described being confronted by his parents about his sexuality as a teenager.“‘You know, Colt, we’d still love you and support you if you were gay,’” he recalled his mother telling him.His father was more confrontational. “He’d pulled up the history of recent Google searches, which included gay porn sites and a variety of questions: ‘Am I gay? How do you know if you’re gay? Why don’t I like having sex with my girlfriend?’” Mr. Underwood wrote in the book. “At first, I denied responsibility. Then I owned up to having been curious. He asked if I wanted to talk about it. I said no, explaining that I’d figured things out on my own.”Mr. Underwood appeared on “The Bachelorette” in 2018 and quickly became a fan favorite on the reality dating show. But Becca Kufrin, the season’s star, worried that he was unprepared for a lifelong commitment and eliminated him after their “hometown” date, where she met his family. (The show’s producers had made Mr. Underwood’s sexual inexperience a major plot point.)He starred on “The Bachelor” in 2019, where again his virginity was a central theme. Near the end of the season, as the stress of the show increased, he said he was “done” with filming and “jumped the fence” of a resort in the Algarve region of Portugal in an effort to escape the set.After the show ended, Mr. Underwood and Cassie Randolph, 25, the front-runner of his season, began dating. Ms. Randolph’s family helped him recover from Covid-19 in March, around the time his memoir was published.The couple announced their split in May 2020. In November, Ms. Randolph filed a restraining order against Mr. Underwood, who she said had placed a tracking device on her car. Viewers of his “Good Morning America” segment inferred that this was the personal low to which he was alluding.The “Bachelor” franchise had its first onscreen same-sex relationship in 2019 on “Bachelor in Paradise.” Demi Burnett, who appeared on Mr. Underwood’s season of “The Bachelor,” and Kristian Haggerty, who was flown out to the set midseason, ended up getting engaged. (They later broke it off.)In its 20 years, the franchise has never featured an all-gay cast. More

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      Pat Loud, Reality Show Matriarch of ‘An American Family,’ Dies at 94

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPat Loud, Reality Show Matriarch of ‘An American Family,’ Dies at 94A mother of five, she unapologetically laid bare the drama of her family life as a star of the first reality show.The Loud family (clockwise from top): Kevin, Lance, Michele, Pat, Delilah, Grant and Bill.Credit…John Dominis/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty ImagesJan. 11, 2021Updated 5:11 p.m. ET Before “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” before the Kardashians, before the idea of living large and unscripted on camera became a TV staple, there was a startling program on public television called “An American Family” with a startling female character named Pat Loud.Ms. Loud was a California mother of five. She drank, she plotted her divorce, she adored, and accepted, her openly gay son. She did it all in Santa Barbara and all on camera — in 1973. Loving, boisterous, witty, resilient and sometimes angry and hurt, she did not act like most women on television at the time. But she was ostensibly not acting at all. She was the first reality television star on the first reality show — and she paid a price for breaking new ground.Critics called her materialistic and self-absorbed. An “affluent zombie,” one said. What wife and mother would do such a thing? Newsweek put Ms. Loud, her husband, Bill, and their children on its cover with the headline “The Broken Family.”Many others, however, saw her as honest and brave, uninhibited and unconditional in her love for her children.Ms. Loud died on Sunday at her home in Los Angeles, her family said in a Facebook post. She was 94. She was 47 when the show that made her famous first aired, and she spent much of the rest of her life explaining why she had done it and how it had changed her family. She made few apologies.She told the talk show host Dick Cavett in no uncertain terms that she had no problem with her son Lance’s homosexuality. She wrote in her autobiography, “Pat Loud: A Woman’s Story” (1974), that given how she felt that her family had been mistreated after the show aired, “now we are all unabashedly trying to get anything we can from the instant fame.”But life went on. Once a homemaker and Junior League volunteer, Ms. Loud found new work with Ron Bernstein, a literary agent, and later with the fashion designer Rudi Gernreich. She moved to New York, then England, before returning to California in the late 1990s to be with Lance after he became sick with H.I.V. in 1987. (He died of complications of hepatitis C in 2001.) She divorced her husband, though they reunited many years later.Ms. Loud with her son, Lance, in 1990. She was forthright in asserting her acceptance of his open homosexuality when “An American Family” was generating wide publicity in the 1970s.Credit…Ann Summa/Getty ImagesBy the time she was in her 80s, public perception of her had shifted. Where once she had been seen as an unmitigated self-promoter, now she was a wise, refined matriarch of a genre gone astray.Speaking of the “Real Housewives” franchise, Ms. Loud told The New York Times in 2013, “It just seems like all these beautiful blond girls, all made up, with stem glasses of white Chablis, and they’re all just fighting at dinner somewhere.”Critics of “An American Family” accused it of being contrived, but the Louds long maintained that they had behaved as normally as they could with cameras constantly trailing them. Craig Gilbert, a producer for WNET, chose the Louds for his subject because the family had lots of children — and because they said yes.“We asked the kids, and they all agreed,” Ms. Loud told The Times in 2013. “It seemed like a fun thing to do.”The family expected the filming to last for just a few weeks and doubted that the final product would find many viewers. In the end, more than 300 hours of film captured over seven months was reduced to 12 one-hour episodes.“They just went for the sensational stuff,” Ms. Loud said.The most sensational involved scenes from Lance Loud’s flamboyant life in New York — where he performed in a rock band and where his mother visited him, accompanied by cameras — and the breakup of the Louds’ marriage.Bill Loud had been unfaithful for years, and his wife knew it. In one wine-saturated conversation captured on film, she complained about his affairs to her brother and sister-in-law. She told The Times in 2013 that she had been “coerced” into letting the scene be filmed. Mr. Gilbert rejected that assertion.“I said, ‘Pat, we must shoot that,’” he told The Times in 2013. “She said, ‘I do not want you to.’ I said, ‘We must, Pat, because otherwise it’s going to come out of the blue. No one will understand it.’ She finally agreed, and her brother and sister-in-law were in the room when she agreed to it. And now she says she was coerced.”In a later episode, Ms. Loud told her husband that she wanted a divorce. “By the time she asked Dad for a divorce, she didn’t care if the entire city of Santa Barbara was watching or the whole world,” her daughter, Delilah, said in an interview for this obituary in 2014. “She just wanted Dad out.”Ms. Loud in 2013. By the time she was in her 80s, public perception had recast her from a self-promoter into a wise matriarch of a genre, reality TV, that had gone astray.Credit…Robert Caplin for The New York TimesPatricia Claire Russell was born Oct. 4, 1926, in Eugene, Ore., the daughter of an engineer. Her family was close with another family that had a little boy named Bill Loud. They met when she was about 6. Years later, when she was studying history as an undergraduate at Stanford, Mr. Loud would visit her from the University of Oregon.“He would drive down and pick her up and then go to Tijuana to see bull fights,” Delilah Loud said. “They had quite a courtship.”Ms. Loud graduated from Stanford in 1948. The Louds eloped to Mexico in March 1950. By the time the cameras showed up, in 1971, Mr. Loud had built a successful business making parts for mining equipment, and the family was living an affluent life. They had a house with a pool and a Jaguar in the driveway. They took long vacations to Europe.Ms. Loud was widely read, and she talked with her children about art, music and books. Life was bigger than Santa Barbara, she told them.“They were adventurous types,” Delilah Loud said, recalling the family conversation about whether to participate in “An American Family.” “They wanted us to experience the world and they thought, ‘Well, what the heck, it’ll be a new experience.’’’Bill Loud, with whom Ms. Loud reunited in 2001 at the request of Lance, died in 2018 at 97.Ms. Loud’s is survived by Delilah and another daughter, Michele, as well as two sons, Kevin and Grant, according to the family’s Facebook post.Ms. Loud moved to New York with her daughters in 1974 and lived in an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for more than a decade while working as a literary agent and doing other work.She lived in Bath, England, in the early 1990s before moving back to California to live with Lance. In 2001, Lance, who had led the rock band the Mumps and was a freelance writer, asked the original camera and sound equipment operators of “An American Family” to document his final days. He did not tell his mother that the cameras would show up.“I don’t know why Lance did that, but he wanted to do it,” she told The Times.In 2003, public television aired “Lance Loud! A Death in an American Family.”Alex Marshall and Alex Traub contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More