The longtime 'Real Housewives of Atlanta' star tells ET she has no plans to step away from reality TV anytime soon.
Kandi Burruss is booked and busy, with no plans to give up her spot on The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Speculation surfaced after season 13's end earlier this year that the longtime star of the Bravo hit might be ready to hand in her peach after more than a decade as a 'Wife, but Kandi says her time is not up yet.
“You know what, it's so funny, people ask me that question -- they ask me the question, 'Do I ever think about... is it my time to make a move?' or, 'Is it my time to go?'" Kandi tells ET over video chat, explaining the source of these recent rumors. "And I said, 'Yes,' and then all of a sudden, it was all these headlines: 'Kandi's leaving' or, 'Kandi's thinking about leaving,' and no, it's not that I was leaving, or I was thinking about leaving, it's just a simple fact that when you are doing something for so long, you definitely have to be like, OK, am I supposed to go? You hear so many people say, 'I'm bigger than reality TV,' and things like that. But the point of reality TV is to capture someone's reality. Someone who's open to show their reality. I am that."
"I am open to show my reality, and I hope that people want to see people do great things and it doesn't have to always be craziness, or drama, you know what I mean?" she continues. "So, I plan to continue to do great things, that's my goal in life. I have so many dreams -- and so many things that I want to do -- and if Bravo wants to continue to capture that, then I'm all for it."
Kandi’s latest dream realized is becoming a Broadway producer, working behind the scenes on the history-making play Thoughts of a Colored Man, the first production in Broadway history to feature an all-Black, male cast and an all-Black creative team. The show opens this October, which would potentially line up with filming RHOA's 14th season. Kandi teases that cameras will "more than likely" document her work on the Great White Way.
"I can't really give you any dates on what's happening with Housewives, obviously, they never allow you to announce anything, but they're still putting it together," she says. "What they've already announced, and what I can talk about is our show for Old Lady Gang, my restaurant, is actually starting filming soon, and it will be coming in the fall, this year."
While some have compared the OLG show to another Bravo series set in the restaurant world, Lisa Vanderpump's Vanderpump Rules, Kandi says fans shouldn’t expect a copycat.
"I think the similarity is that she has restaurants, I have restaurants, and we're both Housewives. OK, great. I think that's where the similarities stop," Kandi quips. "You definitely will get to know some of the people that actually work at the restaurant. Some people may or may not know, I do have some family members that you may not have gotten a chance to know from Real Housewives that do work at the restaurant, so you'll probably see some of them. You're going to see some of the people that... Listen, we have some spicy people at work at OLG. Some of them are way more interesting than me, so I cannot wait for you to get to meet them."
Kandi says she, her husband, Todd Tucker, and the women who make up the restaurant’s namesake -- Kandi's mother, Joyce, and Joyce's sisters -- will also be heavily featured on the soon-to-shoot series.
"They're going to come through, for real," Kandi says of all the cast members that viewers will meet on the OLG show. As for the cast on her other show, Kandi says she has no idea who will make up the season 14 lineup. Along with (now debunked) rumors of Kandi's exit, there's lots of online chatter than a veteran of the series, like Sheree Whitfield, Kim Zolciak Biermann or Phaedra Parks, may return to RHOA.
"You know, they don't really tell us stuff," Kandi admits. "I mean, they do ask us, do we have any friends that may be interesting? And they do interview different people that we are personally connected to or have relationships with. So, when you say maybe new people, I would know more about that than necessarily, like, an OG. They won't necessarily tell us if they're bringing an OG. A lot of times in the past when they brought OGs on, we were surprised. That person just popped up and was like, ‘Oh!’ Unless that person tells you."
Kandi says she'd "hope" to get a heads up if Phaedra ever returns. The former friends fell out hard during Phaedra's last season on the show, season 9, after it was revealed that the attorney/mortician spread damaging lies about Kandi wanting to drug co-star Porsha Williams and bring her to a non-existent "sex dungeon."
It's safe to assume Porsha will be back for season 14, and with plenty of personal story of her own to share. After season 13 wrapped, Porsha revealed she was engaged to businessman Simon Guobadia, who appeared on recent episodes as the husband of Falynn Guobadia, a woman introduced to the audience as "Porsha's friend." Porsha has since claimed Falynn was never her friend, and while some viewers were hoping to see Falynn return to the show to face Porsha on camera and hash out the details of how Simon moved from one woman to the other, Falynn said on Instagram over the weekend that she has no plans to go back to the show. That likely means she won't pop up on Porsha's soon-to-film spinoff, either.
"I would think you guys would probably watch that first and see what plays out on that one to see what goes on in her personal life," Kandi teases. For now, the GRAMMY winner is focusing on herself and her own pursuits.
"I love being a part of a 'first,' meaning -- and I'm not trying to toot my own horn or anything -- say for instance, the first woman to win the songwriter of the year for ASCAP, or the first Black woman, or first woman, to win The Masked Singer, or the first this or the first that," she says. "So many times people say, 'Oh, this is the first Black person that was able to do that,' or, 'the first Black people that were able to do this…' I will be happy when it's a normal thing, and it's not necessarily always have to be the first. But with that being said, I am so proud to be one of the producers of the first, all-Black, African American-starring cast to ever show on Broadway. And it's amazing to be a part of that. And I cannot wait to see it flourish. I can't wait to see people enjoy it. And just to know that, OK, do your thing. Broadway, hey! You got to make it a little bit more spicy, and fun."
Thoughts of a Colored Man begins previews on Oct. 1, with opening night set for Oct. 31 at Broadway’s Golden Theatre. Tickets are available now.
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