The Real Housewives of Atlanta
The Real Housewives of Atlanta is an American reality television series that premiered on October 7, 2008 on Bravo. Developed as the third installment of The Real Housewives franchise, it has aired twelve seasons and focuses on the personal and professional lives of several women residing in and around Atlanta, Georgia.
The current cast consists of NeNe Leakes, Kandi Burruss, Cynthia Bailey, Kenya Moore and Porsha Williams, with Marlo Hampton and Tanya Sam serving as friends of the housewives. Previously-featured cast members include original cast members DeShawn Snow, Shereé Whitfield, Lisa Wu, and Kim Zolciak; and later additions Phaedra Parks, Claudia Jordan, Kim Fields, Shamari DeVoe and Eva Marcille.
The Real Housewives of Atlanta has received moderately favorable reviews from critics and has been recognized as a "guilty pleasure" by several media outlets. However, the series has been criticized for appearing to fabricate portions of its storyline. By February 2014, it was the highest-rated installment of The Real Housewives franchise and the most-watched series airing on Bravo. Its success has resulted in the conceptions of the spin-offs The Kandi Factory, Kandi's Wedding, Kandi's Ski Trip, and Don't Be Tardy.
Overview and casting
Season 1–4
The Real Housewives of Atlanta was announced as the third installment in The Real Housewives franchise, intending to capitalize on the successes of its predecessors The Real Housewives of Orange County and New York City. Throughout its run, the show has been led by five to seven housewives, who are credited by their first name. The first season premiered on October 7, 2008, starred Lisa Wu, DeShawn Snow, NeNe Leakes, Kim Zolciak and Shereé Whitfield. Snow departed from the show after the first season, and alleged that producers considered her to be "too human for a circus show". Kandi Burruss joined the show in the second season, which premiered on July 30, 2009.Premiering on October 4, 2010, the third season saw the departure of Wu and the addition of Cynthia Bailey and Phaedra Parks. The fourth season which premiered on November 6, 2011. Whitfield exited the series upon the conclusion of the fourth season.
Season 5–8
and Porsha Williams joined the show in the fifth season which premiered on November 4, 2012. The sixth season premiered on November 3, 2013, and featured the same cast from the last season except for Zolciak who departed from the program in the middle of season five. The seventh season which premiered on November 9, 2014, saw Williams demoted as a friend of the housewives, alongside Demetria McKinney while Claudia Jordan was introduced as a main housewife. Leakes decided to leave the show after seven seasons while Jordan was fired from the show after one season.The eighth season premiered on November 8, 2015, which featured Williams returning as a full-time housewife and Kim Fields joining as the latest housewife. Whitfield returned as a friend of the housewives alongside Shamea Morton. Leakes, Jordan and McKinney appeared as guests. Fields did not return for a second season.
Season 9–present
The ninth season premiered on November 6, 2016, with Whitfield returning in a full-time capacity. Morton made numerous guest appearances while original housewives Wu and Zolciak-Biermann appeared in the season finale. Parks was fired from the show after the season ended.Leakes returned as a full-time cast member for the tenth season, which premiered on November 5, 2017. Zolciak-Biermann returned as a friend of the housewives, alongside Eva Marcille and Marlo Hampton. Morton and Wu appeared throughout the season as well. Whitfield and Moore left the show after the tenth season.
Marcille and Shamari DeVoe became new full-time cast members for the eleventh season, which premiered on November 4, 2018. The season also featured Hampton and Tanya Sam as friends of the housewives, while Moore and Morton appeared as guests. DeVoe did not return after the season ended.
The twelfth season premiered on November 3, 2019, with Moore returning full-time, and Hampton and Sam returning in recurring capacities. Morton appeared as a guest. On June 16, 2020, Marcille announced her departure from the show. Filming for the series' thirteenth season commenced on July 16, 2020, with Burruss, Bailey, Moore, and Williams confirming their returns.
Timeline of cast members
Episodes
Storylines
In its series premiere, The Real Housewives of Atlanta introduced Wu-Hartwell, Snow, Leakes, Zolciak, and Whitfield. Leakes and Whitfield were in the midst of a personal conflict, which was escalated after Leakes was excluded from Whitfield's birthday party. Meanwhile, Zolciak was revealed to be dating a publicly unknown boyfriend nicknamed "Big Papa", and later decided to pursue her aspirations of becoming a country music singer. Her friendship with Leakes deteriorated after she established a companionship with Whitfield, and was ended after Leakes made sarcastic remarks about Zolciak's music career. Snow and Wu-Hartwell additionally looked to establish prominence as a socialite and a jewelry designer, respectively. Whitfield attempted to launch her own fashion line and organize a lunch for the women to reconcile, although both ventures proved unsuccessful in the finale of the first season.The second season saw the introduction of Burruss, who had recently become engaged to her boyfriend A.J. and expressed interest in reviving her music career. An attempted reconciliation between Leakes, Whitfield, and Zolciak failed to come to fruition, while a feud developed between Leakes and Burruss after the latter became friends with Zolciak and helped her record her single "Tardy for the Party". Meanwhile, Zolciak attempted to launch her own wig line and became engaged to Big Papa, while Wu-Hartwell and Whitfield launched their own clothing collections.
The third season saw the introduction of Bailey and Parks, while Leakes and Zolciak reconciled as the former contemplated divorcing her husband Gregg and the latter began a lesbian relationship. Parks, who was in the middle of her pregnancy, clashed with her husband Apollo Nida over their differing opinions on parenting; she gave birth later in the season. Meanwhile, Zolciak and Burruss continued recording music together, although they clashed over their creative differences. Bailey later became engaged to her boyfriend Peter Thomas, while Zolciak set her affections on football player Kroy Biermann; a conflict between Burruss, Leakes, and Zolciak later ensued while the latter two women embark on a promotional concert tour. Against the advice of her mother and sister, Bailey married Thomas in the third-season finale.
The fourth season began as Zolciak was in the middle of her first pregnancy by her boyfriend Biermann; she later gave birth to their son. Leakes continued divorce proceedings with Gregg, while Whitfield found herself in financial difficulties after her ex-husband failed to pay child support. Meanwhile, Bailey opened her own modeling agency, while Parks looked to launch a family-operated funeral home. Leakes's new friendship with Hampton caused tension between all of the women, which escalated during a group vacation in South Africa; while Zolciak, who had remained home with her children, became upset by negative comments Bailey made about her during the group vacation. As the season closed, Leakes began to reconsider her divorce from Gregg.
As the fifth season introduced former Miss USA Moore and football player Kordell Stewart's wife Williams, Leakes reconciled with Gregg and pondered the possibility of remarrying him. Zolciak was forced to move out of her mansion, which she and Biermann had attempted to purchase less than a year earlier, Leakes began to question Moore's seemingly unfaithful behavior towards her boyfriend Walter during a group trip to Anguilla, which began a feud between Leakes and Williams against Moore. Moore wished to marry Walter although their relationship had begun to deteriorate, while Parks and Moore created competing workout DVDs after plans to make the project a joint venture proved unsuccessful. Toward the end of the season, Williams attempted to revive her failing marriage to Stewart with therapist sessions.
Williams came to the realization that her marriage was not salvageable as the sixth season commenced, while Leakes became upset with Moore after the later went against "girl code" by inappropriately communicating with Nida. Moore moved out of her rental property after being evicted, while Leakes returned to Atlanta full-time after her television series The New Normal was canceled. Burruss struggled to manage the conflict between her estranged mother Joyce and her longtime boyfriend Todd Tucker, although they attempted to reconcile as the couple became engaged and began planning their nuptials. In a later attempt to salvage the relationships between the women, Leakes hosted a couples pajama party for their group, although the women continued to clash with one another; a later spa gathering failed to resolve residual tension between Leakes and Moore. Meanwhile, Williams attempted to launch her career as an actress after being cast in Burruss's musical.
Reception
Critical response
The Real Housewives of Atlanta has been moderately well received by critics. Writing for Common Sense Media, Melissa Camacho spoke favorably of the series' emphasis on "a successful and powerful segment of the African-American community" that appears to be frequently neglected by the popular television. Tim Hall from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer commented of his general distaste for reality television, particularly describing The Real Housewives of Orange County as "utterly ridiculous". However, he admitted that the dynamic and conflict between the women, in addition to the wealthy lifestyles they led, to be "somewhat entertaining". In a more mixed review, Alessandra Stanley from The New York Times joked that its portrayal of wealth served as "the best choice for a time capsule of the Bling Decade" when noting the economic downturn the United States experienced around the time that the series premiered, although more seriously stated that the housewives' luxuries "was never all that enviable, and now it looks as if it might not be viable." Hanh Nguyen from Zap2It shared a similar sentiment, criticizing that the "showy elite and rampant consumerism" that the women regularly display "seems rather out of touch" given the United States' economic hardship, although she elaborated that the program " not by any means boring, but you do have to be in the mood to watch."The Real Housewives of Atlanta has been recognized as a "guilty pleasure" by several media outlets. Writing for About.com, Latoya West commented that the "self-absorbed" nature of the housewives may become irritating to viewers, but noted that the series' "divalicious drama might be addictive." The staff from Entertainment Weekly joked that they "are never tardy for this party"; they felt that " alone could keep on the map", and additionally credited Zolciak's "slow train to cuckootown, making all local stops" for helping to establish "the franchise for the ages." In 2009, a writer from Essence mentioned that they "couldn't get enough of the ladies" from the program, and recognized it as the best reality show of the year. Writing for Today, Leslie Bruce commented that The Real Housewives franchise in general rose to prominence for its depiction of "foul-mouthed, often catfighting and always self-promoting" women, and stated that they "dominate water-cooler discussions by showcasing at times the worst of female behavior."
The Real Housewives of Atlanta has been criticized for appearing to fabricate portions of its storyline. One source of speculation arose during the fifth season when Kenya Moore allegedly requested that Walter Jackson pretend to be her boyfriend; series producers were reportedly unaware of said arrangement. Moore commented that such claims were "completely false", and further " viewers to stay tuned because the truth will come to light." Moore was also criticized for alleging that she was financially stable, although she reportedly joined the series as a source of income to offset the difficulties with her lawsuits from several creditors. In December 2013, Williams received additional criticism for comments made in an episode aired during the sixth season, where she indicated that she believed the Underground Railroad was an actual railroad line.
American television ratings
The Real Housewives of Atlanta is the most popular of the Real Housewives franchise. In 2016, a New York Times study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook Likes found that it was "most popular in the Black Belt, but maintains fairly consistent popularity everywhere" in the US.The first season maintained an average of 1.495 million weekly viewers; Bravo announced that the series had become the first program from the network to "crack the two million viewer mark among adults 18–49." The premiere episode of the second season was watched by 2.66 million people, setting the record for the highest-rated The Real Housewives premiere episode in the franchise's history at the time. The third season averaged a weekly viewership of 3.6 million people, while the fourth and fifth seasons premiered with 2.8 million and 3.2 million viewers, respectively. The sixth-season premiere was watched by 3.1 million people; with 1.9 million viewers being classified in the adults 25–54 demographic, it became the highest-rated episode in this target demographic. As of February 2014, The Real Housewives of Atlanta is the highest-rated installment of The Real Housewives franchise, and is additionally the most-watched series airing on Bravo. The premiere episode of the seventh season attracted over 3.8 million viewers during its initial broadcast on November 9, 2014, including 2.2 million viewers in the 18–49 demographic via Nielsen ratings. It marked as the most watched season premiere ever to air on Bravo.