We shot the show on the campus of Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, exactly where the original Battle of the Network Stars was filmed. We revived its logo and outfits including teeny Speedos and big, fat sweatbands. I was in a sea of modern pop culture meets seventies camp with a strong undercurrent of irony, and I was loving every minute of it.
Watching the reality stars, I observed something that I tell everyone to this day: They are exactly as they appear on-screen. If Omarosa is portrayed as a raving bitch on-screen, it’s most likely because she has moments when she’s a raving bitch. If somebody was a slut in a hot tub on The Real World, you might hear a story on-set about them being slutty in, you guessed it, a hot tub. You get the idea. When people ask me what the Housewives are like, I tell them to watch the show. The same can be said for the stars of every other Bravo show as well, whether it’s the fun of Rachel Zoe or the intensity of Patti Stanger. You get what you want from them because they’re just being themselves, as opposed to an actor who might be crazy fun in a bunch of comedies but be a droll bore in person.
Despite her doubts surrounding the show, Frances was good enough to put the full complement of Bravo’s resources behind it, and Battle of the Network Reality Stars premiered amid a nationwide marketing blitz in magazines and billboards and on the sides of buses. And it was a complete flop. A total stink bomb. And it was all mine. I learned a great lesson with that one, which was not only to embrace your mistakes, but to analyze the hell out of them to figure out why you made them. What I found out in that case was what Frances had predicted and had been trying to tell me all along: that the show might’ve worked on another network, but that it was the totally wrong fit for Bravo. Today I have the poster for the show (featuring various reality stars in a tug-of-war) up in my office just to remind me: It is better to fail spectacularly and learn from it than it is to never fail and learn nothing.
Q: How in the hell did Being Bobby Brown ever happen, and why have all traces of its existence vanished?
A: If any show on Bravo embraces the “truth is stranger than fiction” premise, it’s the story of Being Bobby Brown. Brown had allowed an Atlanta-based production company to follow him and his family with the intention of creating a docuseries about Bobby’s comeback. The company showed Bravo some footage, which was at once funny and shocking because it featured the former New Edition singer and his megastar wife, Whitney Houston, in some compromising and uncomfortable situations. I had idolized Whitney for years, and even though it could be painful to see her this way, more raw than ever before, as a fan I could still see the incredible light within her shining through. She was a superstar. We licensed the footage and attempted to make nine airable episodes out of it—no small feat, given the complete lack of narrative in what had been shot. There was no sense to be made out of the couple’s life—they seemed to live out of random hotels in Atlanta and may or may not have been completely high for the duration of shooting. Houston’s agent and family were horrified by the entire spectacle, but Whitney agreed to participate for her love of Bobby—or “bah-BAY!” as she called him.
The show was a big, surreal hit, and when the run ended, Dave Serwatka and I flew down to Atlanta the day after Thanksgiving for a lunch with “bah-BAY!” and—small world alert!—his attorney, future Atlanta Housewife Phaedra Parks, to discuss the possibility of a second season of the show. The unspoken issue was that Houston’s people had made it clear that Whitney was saying “Hell to the no” to a second season, and without her, Bravo didn’t want the show. Although the title suggested that Bobby Brown was the star, Whitney was a huge part of its success. People tuned in to see the “real” Whitney, circa 2005, and visor askew and potty mouthed, she never disappointed. After discussing all the things that Bobby had coming up in his life that he felt would make interesting episodes with or without his wife on-camera, he finally cut to the chase with startling clarity.
“How many episodes would Whitney have to appear in if you picked the show up?” said Bobby.
“Well … um,” I stammered, “let’s say we did ten episodes. If we did ten episodes then I’d say … she’d have to appear in … maybe at least nine of them?” As the lunch wound down, Dave and I realized the series was done. But just before we left the table I had a last-minute Hail Mary brainstorm.
“What about a Being Bobby Brown Christmas special?!” I asked. “Can you picture it? You and Whitney picking out a tree and buying presents for Bobbi Kristina! And your Pops carving the ham?” Brown loved the idea and it was shot two weeks later and rushed to air. It turned out to be the most whacked-out TV Christmas event since Chewbacca tried to return to his home planet in time for “Life Day” in the Star Wars Holiday Special, with guest stars Harvey Korman and Bea Arthur. Whitney and Bobby had a massive fight the day of shooting and locked the crew out, and when they finally did appear, they seemed influenced by something stronger than just the holiday spirit. The reason you won’t ever see a second of that show again is because Houston’s people made sure that much like the Star Wars Holiday Special, Being Bobby Brown would only be seen once. When she died tragically just
