Ten years ago, VH1 aired one season of a show featuring exes of famous Atlantans like Ne-Yo and Usher dubbed descriptively as “Atlanta Exes.”
It lasted only one season.
Now WE-TV has launched a reality show “Bold & Bougie” featuring the exes of Ne-Yo and Usher, plus three other notable entrepreneurial women. It debuted Thursday with episodes available on demand for anyone who subscribes to a cable or comparable network that offers WE-TV or pays for the ALLBLK streaming service.
Tameka Foster is the one common thread between the two shows. She was married to Usher from 2007 to 2009.
On “Atlanta Exes,” the ex-wife of Ne-Yo was Monyetta Shaw, who was engaged to the R&B singer from 2010 to 2013. In “Bold & Bougie,” it’s Crystal Renay Smith, who was married to Ne-Yo from 2016 to 2023.
Foster and cast member Malaysia Pargo are both friends with Shaw, so the first episode features the women awkwardly meeting.
Here’s a quick summary of the five women who are in the cast with some quotes from a Zoom interview with three of the women: Pargo, Gocha Hawkins and Princess Banton-Lofters. (The two aforementioned exes were not available.)
Malaysia Pargo: Pargo is a transplant from California who moved to Atlanta just a year ago and a reality show veteran who appeared for 10 years on VH1’s “Basketball Wives LA” as the wife of NBA player Jannero Pargo. They divorced in 2016. An owner of a jewelry line, she is a mother of three. “I always liked Atlanta,” Pargo said. “A lot of my friends are here and I like the schools here. Atlanta is like a second home to me.” She said she decided to get back in the reality game because “God led me back in and I jumped into a phenomenal cast.”
Princess Banton-Lofters: Banton-Lofters helped create “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” which has endured 15 seasons on Bravo and is now a reality show institution. “I thought I’d take a chance and do something in front of the camera,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to showcase female creatives. I’m not only in reality TV but I am in fashion and other businesses. I thought I’d just take the leap. And I already knew some of these ladies.” In the first episode, she jumps right into a serious topic: medical issues with her breasts that have involved multiple surgeries. She said despite knowing the genre so well, it was a challenge being so vulnerable: “I have new respect for the women who do this.”
Gocha (pronounced Go-Shay) Hawkins: She runs multiple restaurants in Atlanta including Gocha’s Breakfast Bar and Gocha’s Tapas Bar. “It was a great experience,” Hawkins said. “We got along as a sisterhood. We’ve had our ups and downs but for the most part, we were able to get along.”
Tameka Foster: She has very little filter, which makes her understandably entertaining to watch. “She just says what she feels at the moment, good, bad or ugly,” Banton-Lofters said. “You take her for what she’s worth.” Hawkins added: “She has diarrhea of the mouth.” Foster spoke to Page Six of the New York Post after she attended the Super Bowl, courtesy of VIP tickets from her ex. “It was phenomenal,” she said. “I had so much fun at the game.”
Crystal Renay Smith: On the show, she said she had been out of the public eye for a bit since her divorce from Ne-Yo. When she first meets Foster, Foster quickly notes her loyalty toward Shaw, and Smith gets annoyed when Shaw keeps getting namedropped. “It’s the elephant in the room and we try to get that out of the way,” Banton-Lofters said. “We touch on it and move on.”
