The Real World on MTV was probably the first reality TV show because producers figured out if you put a group of 20-somethings from different backgrounds together in a small space for a few months, they’ll eventually cause all sorts of drama on their own, which means you don’t have to hire writers. The Real World became a cultural phenomenon in season three when MTV producers put David Rainey, a bike courier who called himself Puck, onto the show where he became the first reality show villain by being an ignorant, gaping asshole and making everyone else hate him.
Sometimes when reality shows don’t have a villain like Rainey, they’ll invent one. People are always going to fight on these things, it’s human nature. If you cut it so it looks like one person is always in the wrong and is always causing the problems, you’ve got your villain. On Real Housewives of Atlanta, that person is Kim Zolciak-Biermann.
Now, I don’t watch any of the Real Housewives shows because I love myself and if I’m going to watch one of these reality shows in this format, it’s going to be Terrace House on Netflix. But it seems like everyone hates Kim Zolciak-Biermann, and for seemingly good reason. Just reading People’s recap of the tenth season finale (holy crap this show has been on for ten years) made me kind of hate her.
“That bitch knows I’m not racist. NeNe knows I’m not racist,” Zolciak-Biermann told [Andy] Cohen. “You know why you have not found another white woman to [join the cast]? Because nobody is dumb enough to do that! Put yourself in my shoes — five African-American women — just hammered! I couldn’t even speak, my mind’s a f—— whirlwind!”
“This whole racism thing in this day in age is b——. Everyone of those m———— on that couch owe this world a f—— apology for this racism s—,” Zolciak-Biermann said. “They already tried to claim that s— long ago. Nobody bought into it then because the social media wasn’t there and racism wasn’t f—— all that real. You know it.”
Now I don’t know if Zolciak-Biermann is an actual villain or a manufactured villain, but normally when reality TV manufactures a villain, the cast tends to go “Oh, she’s not so bad, it’s just edited like that, we actually get along pretty well.” On the other hand, when The Real World had a reunion of the season three cast, Judd Winnick nearly punched David Rainey in the mouth. This Real Housewives reunion sounded closer to the latter. Also she claimed racism wasn’t real before social media, which seems like the sort of thing you might say if you were a huge asshole.
At the reunion, Leakes, Burruss, Moore, and Bailey all slammed her for starting feuds and spreading hate. “It’s all me, it’s all me,” Zolciak-Biermann shrugged off. “Sure. Sure.”
Zolciak-Biermann seemed to be of the opinion that the reason everyone hated her is because she was the only white cast member. The way I see it, if one person calls you an asshole, that’s their problem, but if everyone calls you an asshole it’s probably you.