“The Real Housewives of Atlanta” was once one of the most popular reality shows on TV, a buzzy injection of petty arguments, shady but funny commentary and glitzy outfits.
But the Bravo gravy train gradually lost steam as the novelty faded, the arguments lost their oomph and viewers found more interesting drama elsewhere.
The 15th season ended in 2023 with tepid social media buzz and flaccid ratings. Bravo executives decided the show needed a revamp, resulting in the biggest season cast change in the show’s history going back to 2008.
Kandi Burruss voluntarily left. Three more were fired including OG Shereé Whitfield. Porsha Williams returned. And four newbies were given peaches.
Only two cast members from Season 15 remained at the start of production last June: Drew Sidora and Kenya Moore. But as was previously reported, Moore was cut partway through the season and Phaedra Parks, last seen in 2017, returned.
With Season 16 finally debuting Sunday, March 9, the Bravo universe wants to know: Can the new cast bring the juice?
One episode can’t possibly answer that question, but there is plenty to ponder with 10 observations gleaned from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution viewing the first episode in advance.
1. The postproduction editors up the ante
Over the years, “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” has added more stylized editing techniques, seeking ways to keep the public hooked with judicious use of flashbacks, commentary and other storytelling legerdemain.
The opening minutes of the show provide a fast and furious mish-mosh of returnees and newcomers, teasing divorces, broken relationships and heated arguments.
Hoping to hook viewers in with a familiar face, the editors feature Porsha, who was only gone one season. Last time she was on the show in 2022, she was engaged to Nigerian entrepreneur Simon Guobadia and about to get married. The marriage, unfortunately, didn’t last and as filming began in 2024, she was in the midst of a heated divorce.
The producers show Porsha outdoors in a revealing track outfit warming up before a run with the Atlanta skyline behind her. She is in color. The skyline is in black and white. She talks about how stressful the divorce is while scenes of her playing with her daughter, Pilar, unfold with the blurry feel of a 1970s-era film reel. Then they embed video into the background of her “Housewives” cast commenting about how her marriage seemed so perfect until it wasn’t.
Porsha expresses fortitude: “A lot of people say this could be bad karma but for me, with bad karma comes good karma because I always come out OK.”
Later, producers show footage of Porsha meeting with divorce attorney Randy Kessler next to almost identical video of her meeting with Kessler 11 years earlier when she divorced her first husband Kordell Stewart.
She tells Kessler she shares her home 50/50 with Guobadia, who is not allowing her to film the show in her house. “The person I was mourning,” she proclaims, “is not real.”
2. No more opener
The new showrunners ditch the traditional opening and theme music. The ladies are no longer offering up cheesy catchphrases while holding a peach.
3. Shamea Morton: ‘I am the glue’
Shamea Morton spent many years as the longtime “ride or die” best friend of Porsha. But her publicity-shy husband, a very wealthy Kenyan entrepreneur Gerald Mwangi, resisted her desires to be a full-time housewife ― until now.
She shows off her 21,000-square-foot Buckhead mansion that has its own name: Sterling Hall. It has a theater room styled after the Fox Theatre, a commercial elevator, a fully functioning hair and nail salon, seven bedrooms and 14 bathrooms. Zillow estimates its value at $9 million.
“There’s way more to me and I can outshine the best of them,” she declares. As a singer, dancer, actress and host, she calls herself “a female Jamie Foxx. I’m a quadruple threat.”
The editors have fun when she offers up a lengthy story about meeting her husband. After noting her connections to other cast members, she says: “In this friend group, I am the glue.”
4. Messy divorce #2
Drew, the only true holdover from season 15, notes her pending divorce to Ralph Pittman has been “dramatic, a roller coaster.” During the episode, they are still awkwardly living in the same house but Ralph has been banished to the basement with a separate entrance. They only communicate via app overseen by a judge.
Restaurateur Kelli Ferrell is one of several new cast members on the 16th season of Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Atlanta." (Derek White/Bravo)
5. Kenya Moore shows up, but in a reduced role
Bravo decided not to bury a major controversy that leaked to the press last summer. Instead, they face it head-on, based on the trailer.
Moore began production thinking she would be a cast member. In this episode, she even has a rather anodyne scene with Drew. But as social media and entertainment sites picked up last July, Kenya showed nude photos of one of the new cast members, Brit Eady, at a party last July, was suspended, then left the show entirely.
It’s unclear based on the first episode how long it will be before that party happens or how the entire sequence plays out on camera, but Bravo is leaning into the messiness instead of ignoring it.
6. Messy divorce #3
The first of the newbies that shows up is Kelli Ferrell, a restaurateur and single mom of four girls ages 8 to 17. “I have a sorority house and it’s never a dull moment with them,” she says on the show. Like Drew and Porsha, she is in the midst of a divorce. Her estranged husband of 11 years, chef Chuvalo Mark Ferrell, did not clear his image to even be on the show so photos of his face are blurred out.
A Baltimore native who came to Atlanta in 2003, Kelli describes the break up as a “complete hell” that involved the police. “It became an unsafe environment for me,” she says, without detailing exactly what happened.
She also shouted out her successful Nana’s Chicken & Waffles, which opened in 2016 in McDonough. She also has a cookbook and her own grits, mimosa mix, maple syrup and waffle mix.
Brit Eady, a new cast member on the 16th season of Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," is in insurance. (Derek White/Bravo)
7. First conflict is between Porsha and Kelli
Kelli wastes no time making a shady comment to Shamea about how Porsha met her husband fresh off a previous divorce. Better yet, Kelli greets Williams at Shamea’s 42nd birthday party with a comparable query that in polite society would be considered rude.
Angela Oakley is a new member of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," returning to Bravo on Sunday, March 9, 2025. (Derek White/Bravo)
8. Who are Angela Oakley and Brit Eady?
We only get a brief taste of two other new cast members: Brit Eady is the youngest, a former model now in insurance who seems eager to spread gossip about Drew and Porsha’s ex Dennis McKinley, with whom she shares a daughter. Drew and Dennis are working on music together, but Brit heard on the blogs that it’s maybe more than that?
Then there’s Angela Oakley, wife of former NBA star Charles Oakley, who has a regal air about her but gets the least airtime of the newcomers in the first episode.
9. Where is Phaedra?
She is nowhere in sight because this early in the season, the producers didn’t know they would need to drop Kenya and replace her with another person.
10. Whither Cynthia Bailey?
Cynthia Bailey, who was on the show as a full-time cast member for a solid decade before leaving Season 13, has returned in part-time status mode as a “friend.” This means she gets no primary storyline but shows up this episode to make chipper commentary about the proceedings during Shamea’s party.
