Reality TV: Blog of New Orleans, Gambit

Big Freedia getting a reality show

Alex Woodward — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:05:00 -0500

Long live the queen: bounce's intergalactic queen diva Big Freedia will star in her own reality TV series on the Fuse network this fall.

Big Freedia: Queen of Bounce explores the underground world of the New Orleans hip hop scene known as Bounce.…
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Morrissey calls Duck Dynasty stars "animal serial killers," pulls out of Jimmy Kimmel appearance tonight

Kevin Allman — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 10:44:00 -0600

Morrissey is serious when he sings "Meat is Murder." Earlier this week, the former lead singer of the Smiths made headlines when he demanded that Los Angeles' Staples Center go all-vegetarian for the occasion of his March 1 appearance (Staples says there will be meat options; Morrissey says there will not: "Reports that the Staples Center will not be 100% vegetarian on March 1st are playfully untrue.…

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The Governor's Wife pushed back ... again

Lauren LaBorde — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:13:07 -0600

Will we ever get to see the The Governor's Wife? After news that the premiere of the A&E reality series following former La. governor Edwin Edwards and his 34-year-old wife Trina had been pushed from Feb. 27 to March 13, today the network announced the show won't air until sometime this summer.…
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The Governor's Wife premiere pushed to March 13

Lauren LaBorde — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 17:23:00 -0600

The premiere of The Governor's Wife, the A&E reality show featuring former La. governor Edwin Edwards and his 34-year-old wife Trina has been moved to March 13, according to a Facebook post by show creator and producer Shaun Sanghani.

Sanghani's company, SSS Entertainment, was working on a show called Wanks, which would follow "the party-fueled lives of young guys and girls living on the West Bank of New Orleans, where every weekend is Mardi Gras."…
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Independent Monthly in Lafayette: Edwin and Trina Edwards expecting a child

Kevin Allman — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:50:00 -0600

We haven't confirmed this ourselves, but Walter Pierce of Lafayette's Independent Monthly is reporting that former Gov. Edwin Edwards and his wife Trina Scott Edwards (of soon-to-be reality show fame) are expecting a child. Or, as The Ind puts it: "Ermahgerd!…
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Edwin Edwards reality show officially happening

Lauren LaBorde — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 11:10:00 -0600

There had been talk of a reality show featuring former La. governor Edwin Edwards and his 34-year-old wife Trina, but that rumor seemed to go the way of the supposed Real Housewives of New Orleans. But Entertainment Weekly is reporting that the show, called The Governor's Wife, will premiere on A&E Feb. 27.…
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Y@ Speak: Bye, Times-Picayune

Lauren LaBorde — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 10:23:00 -0500

Yes, I was nude; as bare as a loon. The sun was shining and so was the moon.…
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Darwin the Dinosaur troupe appears on tonight's America's Got Talent

Lauren LaBorde — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 11:12:27 -0500

A version of the group CORBiAN Visual Arts & Dance, responsible for the glow-in-the-dark delight Darwin the Dinosaur, in May performed on NBC's America's Got Talent, prompting patriotic plaudits from judge Howard Stern (he did not wax so poetically for local comic Chris Trew's air sex act). The group, which on the show is called Lightwire Theater, has since advanced to the top 48 and appears on the live show tonight at 7 p.m. local time.…
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American Idol and Wife Swap casting in New Orleans

Lauren LaBorde — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 15:20:57 -0500

My theory that everyone in this city will have appeared on television or in a movie by the year 2015 (provided the world hasn't exploded by then) seems to be coming to fruition. Singers, warm up your vocal cords; moms, get crazier: well-known reality shows American Idol and Wife Swap are both casting here.…
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Production company seeks gay dads for reality show

Lauren LaBorde — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 16:28:57 -0500

We know about the reality show that aspires to be the real-life Will & Grace, and now another series wanting to be the unscripted version of a show about hilarious gay people is in the works. World of Wonder Productions, the same production company behind Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys (the aforementioned Will & Grace-esque series), is working on a show called My Modern Family that wants to be — you guessed it — the reality TV version of the ABC hit Modern Family.…
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When people stop being polite: Louisiana reality TV stars who have had trouble with the law

Lauren LaBorde — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 16:52:00 -0500

Yesterday the Associated Press reported William “Billy” Bretherton from the A&E reality series Billy the Exterminator, which is set in Benton, La., was arrested for doing the silliest thing ever — being in possession of fake weed, aka Mojo (the proto-bath salts, which you may have seen in the news lately). It seems personalities from Louisiana-based reality TV shows have a knack for getting into trouble.…
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Three important facts about American Idol's Joshua Ledet

Lauren LaBorde — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:08:09 -0500

After making it to the top three in the singing competition, Westlake, La. native Joshua Ledet was eliminated from last night's American Idol. The 20-year-old throwback crooner must have been a popular contestant, because now teenagers on the Internet are yelling about how the elimination process is clearly rigged (controversy among viewers about the show's viewer controlled voting process has existed since the beginning).…
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Interview: Troy Landry from History's Swamp People

Lauren LaBorde — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:37:00 -0500

Fans of the History reality series Swamp People were sad to hear about the death of one of its stars, Mitchell Guist, who died while aboard his boat Monday (the cause of his death is still unclear). The show that follows the alligator hunters of Louisiana's Atchafalaya River Basin swamp has been wildly popular for the network, mostly because of the charm of its stars like Guist.…
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Interview: Willie Robertson of A&E's Duck Dynasty

Lauren LaBorde — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:53:00 -0500

For this week's Gambit, I wrote a cover story about how Louisiana became the setting for a bunch of reality TV shows the last few years. One popular genre of Louisiana reality TV is shows about the backwood folks of the state's swamps and bayous — a trend set by History's Swamp People.…
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Tough Love New Orleans: All the single ladies

Lauren LaBorde — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:35:00 -0500

Tough Love New Orleans - TV Shows - Full Episode Video - Reality TV Shows
Sunday night's television schedule had plenty to offer in terms of challenging entertainment, notably with Mad Men and the premiere of Lena Dunham's excellent, probably revolutionary, HBO series Girls (you can watch the pilot on YouTube). But over on VH1, there was the opposite end of the spectrum: the latest season of Tough Love — a mix of Millionaire Matchmaker, Bad Girls Club and the sales rack of a Rainbow store — which is set in New Orleans.…
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Comiskey Park reopens in Mid-City

Kevin Allman — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:44:29 -0500

Comiskey Park and Playground — once a neighborhood landmark, but a blight on a tough corner of Mid-City since Hurricane Katrina and the federal floods — was reopened today by Mayor Mitch Landrieu. The park had received national attention in 2007 when a production company planned to remake the park and document the effort in a reality TV/documentary show titled ReNewOrleans.…
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Here's your Tough Love: New Orleans cast

Lauren LaBorde — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:27:29 -0500

In December they came to New Orleans in search of romantically challenged women in tight cocktail dresses, now the VH1 dating series Tough Love has announced the cast and premiere date for its upcoming season set in the city.

Tough Love: New Orleans will follow the show's usual format, in which "love gurus" Steve Ward and his mother JoAnn dispense brutally honest advice to women with a variety of dating dysfunctions, but this time in New Orleans*, a city the show's website says is "famous for its handsome Southern gentlemen and wild nights out on the town."

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Attention cheapskates: TLC wants you for reality TV

Missy Wilkinson — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:58:00 -0600

Do you sift through ashtrays to salvage partially smoked cigarettes? Do you have track marks from selling your plasma?…
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A&E show to feature Louisiana 'duck-call empire,' and other reality TV news

Lauren LaBorde — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:55:19 -0600

The pop culture scientists over at New York Magazine's Vulture blog recently created a Venn diagram mapping the overlapping relationships among current reality TV shows, and it turns out shows about Louisiana — in particular, our state's backwood bayou folks — account for much of what's on the air. They can soon add another show to the "Louisiana" circle: A&E, the network behind such trainwreck-y television as Intervention and Hoarders, is introducing Duck Dynasty, a series that follows the family behind the Louisiana-based Duck Commander sporting goods retailer.…
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Mary West plays Cupid in New Orleans

Lauren LaBorde — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:27:40 -0600

I was intrigued when a large brown envelope bearing a giant red heart arrived at Gambit HQ. Inside the envelop was, besides a box of Conversation Hearts (which I instantly devoured), a press release promoting a gala at Hotel Monteleone promising a slew of high-profile single attendees.…
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Say Yes to the Dress star coming to New Orleans

Lauren LaBorde — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:33:00 -0600

If you identify as female and have access to cable television, it's likely you have spent at least Friday night in your life watching TLC's back-to-back schedule of wedding programing. If you haven't, then I applaud your ability to resist the pervasive bridal industry, with its pretty cakes and dresses.…
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VH1's Tough Love casting in New Orleans

Lauren LaBorde — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:48:20 -0600

A recent trend in reality TV involves shows in which brutally honest relationship experts shame women (and men, but mostly women) into confronting their flaws so they may find love. Among the most popular of these shows — besides Bravo's Millionaire Matchmaker, starring matchmaker-monster Patti Stanger — is VH1's Tough Love hosted by the relatively benign, but nonetheless blunt, "master matchmaker" Steven Ward (and sometimes his mom, JoAnn, lends her expertise).…
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Sundance Channel is looking for the 'real-life Will and Grace' in New Orleans

Lauren LaBorde — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:34:00 -0600

Are you a woman with a totes fab gay bestie? Someone you refer to when chatting with your girlfriends as your "gay boyfriend/husband"?…
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America’s Lost Treasures comes to New Orleans Nov. 29

Kandace Graves — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:52:00 -0600

Take the Thanksgiving holiday to search your attic for those odd mementos handed down through generations, Civil War-era finds or other possibly historic items because National Geographic’s new America’s Lost Treasures will be in New Orleans Nov. 29 to look at our treasures and hear our stories.

It’s not Antiques Roadshow, where appraisers tell you the ugly painting you’ve had in a closet since you received it as a wedding gift is really an early Picasso worth $10 million.…
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America's Got Talent holds auditions this weekend

Lauren LaBorde — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:39:00 -0600

Do you have any kind of talent? And I mean any kind of talent: from opera singing, to jumping into inflatable kiddie pools from high platforms, to pedaling a unicycle while dressed as a pancreas.…
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