Phaedra Parks exclusively teases RHOA return

Here’s some extra peachy news: Phaedra Parks has already filmed her grand return to The Real Housewives of Atlanta. 

The lawyer, mortician, and Traitors star tells Entertainment Weekly that she wrapped filming season 16 of the Bravo franchise less than a week before being unveiled as a competitor on Dancing With the Stars. 

“We just finished filming a couple of days ago — almost a week now — and I think it's gonna be good,” she says at a Dancing With the Stars press line. “You know, obviously, there was a cast shakeup, and I think the new cast is definitely bringing it.”

Parks is referring to the mass exodus of series regulars — including Sherée Whitfield, Marlo Hampton, and Kandi Burruss — ahead of season 16 over the last few months. In June, it was revealed that Kenya Moore had also been let go from the series after her own scandal. 

But, when door closes, another opens. Parks and Porsha Williams have both since announced that they’ll be making their respective returns to the series this season, joining Drew Sidora, friend-turned-main-cast-member Shamea Morton Mwangi, and newcomers Brittany Eady, Kelli Ferrell, and Angela Oakley. 

So what can fans expect? “A lot of spiciness, but a lot of genuine fun as well,” Parks says. “So I think it's gonna go back to, hopefully, the heydays of Atlanta.”

She adds that “friendship, love, [and] sisterhood” will also be on display throughout the series, too. 

Parks joined The Real Housewives of Atlanta in its third season in 2010. However, Parks was fired from the series seven years later after spreading an unsubstantiated rumor about Kandi Burruss in season 9. She has since appeared on adjacent Housewives shows like The Real Housewives of Dubai and season 2 of The Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip. She was also a cast member on another Bravo series, Married to Medicine.

For now, though, excited RHOA fans will next see Parks waltz her way through the competition on Dancing With the Stars. 

“I'm looking forward to the waltz, but now that I'm hearing people who are doing the waltz, seems like it's gonna be very hard, and my neck is gonna be really sore, so maybe I'm not looking forward to it,” she teases. “But I love the gracefulness of it. And the pasodoble, because, being a mortician, [it] seems a little scary and mysterious.”

Dancing With the Stars premieres on Sept. 17 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and Disney+, with episodes streaming the next day on Hulu.

The Real Housewives of Atlanta season 16 is scheduled to air in 2025 on Bravo.