So last night found me watching Watch What Happens Live, an interview show where Andy Cohen talks with people from Bravo TV shows, particularly the Real Housewives. His guest was Kim Zolciak, from The Real Housewives of Atlanta. I think Atlanta is on the far trashy-and-stupid end of the Real Housewives spectrum, and so I spent the first 20 minutes of WWHL making fun of Kim (who is particularly trashy and stupid). I called out her lack of interview skills (she spent a lot of time looking down or just not at Andy); when she said “Do I look fat or something?” I said yes; and I was eager to watch her “perform” one of her “songs” at the end of the show.
We came back from a commercial and she was sitting on a stool, sort of bobbing her head with a track, and then she started “singing” along with the pre-recorded song. It was awful. I mean, truly awful. She’s not a good singer, but she also lacks any confidence, so her “dance moves” are all half-hearted and self-conscious. Like when you watch a middle-school production of a musical where they all have to dance and sing. It even fell out of the “delightfully bad” range and into “painful and pathetic.”
Afterwards, Andy told her she sounded great, which was sweet of him, I think he’s a nice guy who’s just stuck with a superficial job. Then he started taking phone calls from viewers, one of whom asked Kim, “Will you ever sing without a track?”
Kim said, “Well, that was me singing, the microphone was a lot louder than the background singing. So you heard me.”
The caller said, “But will you just sing now, without any music?”
So Kim kind of intoned, “I’m not a material girl…”
And then you heard the caller and her friends laughing hysterically. And Kim looked down and away some more and didn’t really talk very much for the final couple minutes.
And I found myself suddenly feeling sympathy for the trashy, self-centered Real Housewife, with the giant blonde wigs and the short tight dresses and the married boyfriend (“Big Poppa”) and the “singing” career.
Jeez. It’s like…you don’t want to feel sorry for them. That ruins everything. I think this may have changed, if not the way I view all the Real Housewives, then at least the way I view Kim. Darn.
The Cameraphone Diaries 
2 replies on “There’s been a change in me…”
So, I learned this from Justin, but it turns out that Andy Cohen is more than just “random talk show host” guy. He is a Bravo executive, who created the Real Housewives franchise. So nice guy…yes… but probably also somewhat of a master manipulator
Oh, I know he’s not just a random talk show host. And I’ve absolutely seen him manipulate them, especially when he’s got an entire cast together and can make them fight. You can tell he’s working for ratings. But he was really sweet to her when she had obviously just fallen right into it.