How Porsha Williams transformed herself from demure Real Housewives of Atlanta star to a drama queen with her own spinoff

VICE

After her divorce from former NFL star Kordell Stewart, Williams remade herself, "transforming from a demure wife shy of strippers to an impassioned drama queen accused of sleeping with Bolo, a dancer who was hired for Cynthia Bailey’s bachelorette party last season," says Kristin Corry. It almost felt like a recasting of her character. Early on, Williams thinly veiled herself in morality, often citing Christianity for her decisions. Now with Porsha’s Family Matters, a new Bravo spinoff, and a scandalous engagement to 55-year-old entrepreneur Simon Guobadia—who was married to RHOA guest star Falynn Guobadia last season—Williams’ evolution seems a lot more thorny. In the wake of ABC's Desperate Housewives, Bravo changed the perception of a 'housewife,' touting women much saucier than the wives living on Wisteria Lane. By the time the network expanded to Atlanta in 2008, Bravo’s first Housewives franchise with a majority Black cast was a departure from the stereotypes endorsed by its competitors. VH1’s Flavor of Love and Oxygen’s Bad Girls Club promoted a dramatization of 'angry Black women' whose claim to fame was often contingent upon instigation. RHOA, which also received criticism for its showdowns, was not reality television’s antidote, but it did show affluent Black women in a way that had been relegated to white women. Cast members like NeNe Leakes and Kandi Burruss became household names, and Williams, despite her tumultuous trajectory on the series, made herself into the show’s next big personality, embodying what Housewives is all about: women controlling their narrative."