Interview: Kandi Burruss on Mama Joyce and 'A Mother's Love'

Kandi Burruss (center) and the cast of A Mother's Love
Kandi Burruss (center) and the cast of A Mother's Love
By A.D. AMOROSI

Kandi Burruss is having a great season. Along with being known as the most successful and sensible member of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Atlanta cast, Burruss – a Grammy-winning songwriter and the CEO of the Bedroom Kandi line of sex-related products – held an invitation-only press conference to discuss the first release from her Kandi Koated Entertainment: the DVD and CD soundtrack to her musical stage show A Mother’s Love. Also, this week it was announced that her new Bravo network series, Kandi’s Wedding, will debut on June 1.

These days, everything with Kandi Burruss begins with the singular yet intertwined relationships to Todd Tucker, the producer and cameraman she married, and Mama Joyce, the woman who has spent the last two seasons of Atlanta’s Real Housewives (and surely the entirety of Kandi’s Wedding), unhappy that Burruss was marrying Tucker. It was that bizarre love triangle, “exaggerated of course,” she says, “but still real life” that inspired A Mother’s Love, as well as most of the dialogue taking place throughout the Kandi’s Wedding series.

“The same things that 'the mom' in A Mother’s Love says about 'the boyfriend' are the same things that my mom said to me,” claims Burruss. “The fact that she comes up with those rumors about him. That’s very much from my life. There are other characters, like girlfriends singing together, that are composites of people in my life. Everything was inspired by my real life with my mom. I was definitely influenced by her words and actions.”

A Mother’s Love ran through November 2013 in Atlanta, and starred a heavy-duty musical cast featuring Eddie Levert of the O'Jays, gospel singer Shirley Murdock, D. Woods from Danity Kane, and Burruss’ Real Housewives of Atlanta costar Porsha Stewart making her acting debut. The CD/DVD package is available now through KandiOnline.com.

Photo courtesy of Kandi Koated Entertainment

Posted on Tuesday, May 13, 2014