Over the 13 years that Kandi Burruss has held a peach on Bravo’s Real Housewives of Atlanta, the Xscape member, along with her husband and business partner Todd Tucker, has built a reputation for turning personal drama into money-making opportunities.
Take, for instance, the bondage-themed burlesque show Burruss launched in 2019, which came after a particularly explosive season in which her former castmate Phaedra Parks spread a rumor that Burruss and Tucker owned a sex dungeon. Then, after Burruss’ mother, known as Mama Joyce, disparagingly called her husband a “lemon” in season 11, the reality star announced that Tucker was making his own brand of lemonade, which they planned to develop through their Atlanta-based soul food restaurant, Old Lady Gang. In fact, the whole idea of Old Lady Gang was inspired by the moniker given to Mama Joyce and her two sisters, Aunt Bertha and Aunt Nora, amid a dramatic, drawn-out family dispute.
When the restaurant opened in March 2017, it was met with the amount of hype one would expect for a business owned by an Atlanta-bred celebrity and frequented by a Bravo camera crew. Since then, however, OLG has appeared in the news and across reality TV blogs for receiving several C-rated health inspections. A glance at the eatery’s reviews on Google show a plethora of customer complaints about everything from the quality of the food to the attitude of the staff. Despite the fact that Burruss and Tucker have been able to open a second location and a fast-food version of OLG in Atlanta’s State Farm Arena—in addition to their other restaurant, Blaze Steak and Seafood, which has seen its own share of problems— Burruss’ rather illustrious name has not exactly been associated with fine dining.
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Likewise, when her new show Kandi & The Gang premieres on Bravo this Sunday, viewers can expect more of a dire, Bar Rescue-esque situation than, say, the tightly run work environment that former Beverly Hills housewife Lisa Vanderpump at least tries to present on Vanderpump Rules.
From general managers abruptly quitting to hostesses who don’t respect authority to power outages, Kandi & The Gang might give viewers more to criticize than be impressed with. But throughout her tenure on Bravo and her many outside ventures, Burruss has always prioritized being honest and real. And with the universal challenges the restaurant industry has faced during the pandemic, her new show feels more relevant than ever.
First off, how did Kandi & The Gang come about? Because I feel like when Old Lady Gang first opened and became a part of your storyline on Real Housewives of Atlanta, I saw so many people on Twitter petitioning for you to get your own Vanderpump Rules.
It’s funny you’d say that. Back when we were first planning to open a restaurant, Todd already had it in his mind that there needed to be a show about the restaurant. He was like, “My whole idea about doing this restaurant was to have a TV [crew] document this whole situation.” So he pitched it to the production company, and they talked about it at Bravo. Nothing happened at first, and then it came back around a couple years later and they wanted to go ahead and move forward with it. So we started taping. They had the crew and everything. And literally the next week was when the world was going into quarantine. So we started filming the same month. But literally a week before, we got shut down and everyone was stuck in the house. It was crazy.
The premise of the show is that you and Todd are coming in and trying to fix a lot of issues and rebuild OLG’s reputation. Were you nervous about exposing some of your business’ flaws on national television?
I was kind of nervous about it. Of course, Todd and I care about our restaurant. We have so many people that come in and out of there every day. And you always worry, would something affect the brand negatively, you know? So yeah, there was definitely a fear. But at the same time, I think being honest about the troubles of the last year can probably help some people understand what’s going on because it’s been hard keeping employees. So I think it just made it real for people. So many people see me and say, “Oh, she has everything working in her favor” or, “She has all these businesses, and everything’s so wonderful.” And it’s not. It’s a lot of hard work, a lot of stress, that goes into keeping these businesses open.
I think a lot of people can relate to it now. I mean, all around the world, no matter what restaurant you love, I’m sure you’ve seen them probably put [out] notices. “Oh, we’re looking for help” or “we’re looking for this” because everybody’s been going through the same thing in the restaurant industry. I think it’s kind of cool. Say, for instance, if somebody did come on a day that we had real drama happening, then it can help them understand what happened or why their experience turned out the way it did. They can see this is not the normal. This is more of a situation we’re trying to fix.
Was it easy to convince your mother and aunts to get on board?
Yeah. I feel like my family is like walking TV—not that they’re even trying. It’s just who they are. So it was just kind of easy for them to move into this. And for so long, they’ve supported me being on Real Housewives. So it’s not like they’re strangers to it. But it’s kind of cool that it’s more about the family and not as much about me.
You seem really emotionally invested in the staff in a way that might surprise people as a celebrity of your status. Did you set out to be a business where you have that sort of relationship with your employees? Does it have something to do with being a Black-owned business?
I think it’s just a part of who I am. The people that work with me, I want to see them be great. And then the whole point of putting our businesses where we put them was so that we could bring more jobs and opportunity to communities that have more African Americans. I know a lot of us have had our eyes opened in the last year or two since everybody really started talking about diversity and ways to make things right. This is something that I’ve been working on. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to just bring more opportunities to our community.
So with that being said, yes, I’m invested in them. I want to see them be great. And yes, I can be a little bit lenient at times on certain things. Todd is a little bit more hardcore than I am. I get attached.
How did filming this show compare to filming Real Housewives of Atlanta? Did you feel a little bit more relaxed knowing the staff would be providing most of the drama?
I think I was a little bit more relaxed. And that’s just because with Real Housewives of Atlanta, right off the riff, I already know it’s going to be a lot of drama. And they’re constantly, you know, pushing buttons. I’m not the main focal point when it comes to Kandi & the Gang. Yes, I’m on it a lot and I’m on it throughout the show. But it’s really focusing a lot on the people that work there and dealing with them every day or the stuff that they’re dealing with every day. So you see them more than you see me, which obviously makes it easier.
I know you just finished shooting the upcoming season of Real Housewives of Atlanta. Could you summarize your experience this season?
Well, first of all, the season turned out amazing from what I can tell. Obviously I can’t see what they’ve edited together, but I’m just saying what I know from what we were filming. It turned out way better than I thought it would. I’m going to keep it 100 and say that, coming into the new season, knowing that we were losing two of our peach-holders, I was a little nervous. I even made that known to the production company. I was like, “Yo, like, what are we doing?” But as time went on, I have to say, I got to give props to our executive producer that they brought on this year. He was definitely on our ass as far as making sure everybody was 100 percent real about their storylines, dealing with each other and not allowing us to just tiptoe through the season.
Shereé [Whitfield] came back. Like she was back back, meaning she had a lot going on in her personal life that she was transparent about and then obviously—whew—SHE by Shereé. That part alone–I was [like], girl, you got to get it together this season. So I feel like we’re invested in that part of the story that we all know. And then the part that we didn’t know about her, I think is going to be very interesting.
And with Marlo [Hampton]—whew, chile—she needed her peach, let’s just say that. She was doing the most. We actually had a very, very bad moment this season where we bumped heads worse than we did back in season four or five. We’re in a better place right now, but when it happened, I didn’t know if we were going to come back. So it was a lot of great TV this season, let’s just say. I can’t wait for everybody to get a chance to see.
You’re currently the longest running cast member on the show. I’m curious if you’re at that point in your career where you can picture your life without the show, or is it still a main priority?
It’s kind of crazy. I don’t want to say it’s my main priority because the thing that I’m really loving right now is acting. Obviously I’m doing music. I love touring with my group, Xscape, and doing shows with them. But I feel like I’ve been blessed to a point now where Bravo has opened up and allowed me to do these other things all while still being part of Real Housewives. And as long as it all balances out to where they get what they need from me and I’m still able to do some of these other things that I love and that fulfill me, I will continue to be a part.
Either way, I’m always going to be a part of the Bravo family, especially now with Kandi & the Gang. But yeah, it’s tough to say. It’s like, Real Housewives is a major part of my life. And I’m good with that. It’s not the only thing that I love. Right now, I’m starting to film The Chi, which is another thing that I truly love. And I’ve been auditioning for more things as well. So it’s not that, you know, I don’t want to do anything else outside of Real Housewives. It’s just that I’ve been able to do both. So as long as I can, I will.
