Carry-on Baggage: Our Nonstop Flight

by Bailey Thomas, Cynthia,Thomas, Peter,Short, Rochelle,Saunders, Keith

  RHOA producers had a close watch on our plans to marry. They didn’t hesitate to remind Cynthia and me that the show was called The Real Housewives of Atlanta. We made sure they understood our wedding plans were a top priority and the whole reason behind Cynthia’s move to Atlanta. They couldn’t wait to film Cynthia walking down the aisle!

  While we allowed millions to watch our wedding, we’ve never allowed cameras in our bedroom. Producers have asked a thousand times and we give them a big, fat “NO” every single time! Some people think that because you’re on a reality show you don’t have morals or principles. We weren’t willing to turn our asses inside out for the world to examine. There would be no bathtub or soft porn scenes with us. Cynthia and I vowed that our angle would always be to give swag, attitude, charisma and total truth.

  The reality rumor mill is loaded with lies about the cast being fed lines by producers. It’s a bunch of BS! When producers show up to shoot a scene, they leave with whatever is provided. Their job is to follow a storyline and take whatever they want from it. They may capture a mix of good and unscrupulous material but only choose to show the scandalous shit. What’s shown in the final cut may not be someone’s best self or what they would prefer people to see, but it’s always what they said and did.

  Bullshitting for the cameras always catches up with you anyway. A tabloid reporter, blogger or microphone pack will eventually expose you’re living one reality and portraying another for television. Like the time viewers watched Phaedra speaking in tongues after the backlash from her infamous butt-dial. NeNe managed to get a copy of a message Phaedra had unintentionally recorded on someone’s voice mail. Phaedra knew the language she used in her voice mail would not only disqualify her for Santa’s Nice List, but it would also get her kicked out the church Christmas play.

  Phaedra’s backpedaling was one of the many situations that primed my wife on how to deal with the constant Reality Gone Wild mess. It didn’t take long for Cynthia to morph from fashion model to model employee. Someone like NeNe is always going to say whatever the hell she wants, but Cynthia is more guarded. She tells me all the time that I put her in positions that require her to defend herself against my perspectives.

  I make no apologies to her or anyone else, because I’m only interested in showing what I’m really about. If you ask me the deal, I always give real talk. No sugar. No cream. That’s why I agreed to be a part of the show. People like that I speak my mind and confront shit head-on. I can back up anything I say or do – on and off camera. Life is not meant for everybody to get along all the time. Differences are a part of the undercurrent that makes the show successful.

  I don’t have to operate within any boundaries because I have never received a dime of compensation from Bravo. Cynthia’s the one who gets paid to hold the peach in the show’s opener. That’s why it’s called The Real Housewives of Atlanta, not The Real Husbands of Atlanta Housewives. We are simply on the show to make charitable contributions to the storyline of our spouses. I’m not saying I don’t I benefit from the fruits of her labor, but when the check comes, it has Cynthia Bailey’s name on it. Her money is her money. I don’t count her eggs.

  If ever I ask Cynthia for money, it’s treated like a loan. It bothers the shit out of me because I know I’m the first man in her life to give her the confidence to build a career outside of modeling. I instilled the boldness in her to be a boss lady, own a business and achieve success beyond the runway. Unlike her, I have always worked for myself. She doesn’t understand the general principles of running a businesses or being an owner-operator, so she learns from me.

  As a model, you’re chosen for jobs and paid a ton of money to do the work. Cynthia has mastered the practice of amassing money and storing it away like squirrels put back food for the winter. I ain’t mad at her. I understand she comes from a world where you have to condition yourself to be that way because you never know when the next job or paycheck is coming.

  Since starting The Bailey Agency, she’s begun to understand what it means to be a business owner, but she still doesn’t fully get the cold-blooded realities of true entrepreneurship. I’m a realist and a street cat who knows if you do nothing, nothing happens. She hordes money; I invest it. I have to create every dollar that comes through my fingers. I don’t get shit dropped into my lap. It’s a constant state of rise and grind.

  I’m always willing to take calculated risks with the hopes of growing our money. If I lose, which I have many times, I always find a way to bounce back on the boulevard. My wife doesn’t operate from the boulevard, she operates from the avenue. Action has to be forced out of her. While she holds on to things, I release them and move to the next opportunity. I see the shot glass as half full. She sees a tiny crack down the side of it, draining out all the whiskey.

  A lot of Cynthia’s hesitation with money stems from the $150K investment she lost in my Uptown project. On the other hand, she gained hundreds of thousands of dollars from joining the show and all the endorsement opportunities that came with it. She won’t let go of the Uptown shit. But if it wasn’t for Uptown, I probably would have moved to New York instead of her relocating to Atlanta. Had she not moved to Georgia, she would’ve never had the opportunity to become an Atlanta Housewife. That’s the real-real! By my math, my wife has quadrupled the investment she put into Uptown, and then some. The fact that the money she lost is still a topic of discussion is beyond my comprehension. Again, if you do nothing, nothing happens. I made it happen for Cynthia Bailey.

  Cynthia’s Coach Class

  My first season on RHOA is one I’d pay to have surgically removed from my memory. With absolutely no reality TV experience or insight from my fellow housewives, I dove in headfirst and gave everything. Peter and I were open and transparent to a fault! In no way am I implying that our current participation in the show is premeditated or practiced. But now, like every other reality personality, we have boundaries on what is shared and what is strictly off-limits. What people do see is authentic, uncensored Peter and Cynthia. No rehearsals. No scripts. Despite what you’ve heard or read, it really is reality TV.

  The job doesn’t come with CliffsNotes or a reference manual. Peter and I felt it would be less energy for us to be honest than to embellish. Our mission of truth did a lot of damage to us as individuals and as a couple. It was more draining than either of us anticipated, and the process was like having a starring role in the movie, Groundhog’s Day. We lived everything four to five times – in real life, when the episode aired, reruns and a final blow during the reunion show. Trust me when I tell you that an old wound is always one surface-scratch away from being reopened.

  One of the toughest times in our first season was getting through the episodes chronicling the money I put into Uptown. I made the substantial investment into Peter’s new restaurant because my understanding was always that it was a loan. I was devastated to learn I’d lost my money. Grasping that it wasn’t coming back was a little bit too much reality for me. The money was a stash I’d put in savings and partially used to pay our household expenditures. It was quite a nice chunk of money. I hadn’t realized how much I’d given Peter until most of it was gone. I was very angry and wanted him to replace the money, but I knew he couldn’t. Watching the episodes about our finances quickly dug up what we had already buried. We couldn’t take a break from our own reality.

  Back then, I hadn’t built a fan following and people didn’t know me. There was no viewer sympathy or support for what I was experiencing. The public scrutiny and backlash was unbearable. Viewers took to social media and blogs ranting about how Peter was the wrong guy for me and had swindled me out of my money. Others speculated he was beating me, based merely on his choice of words and tone during our television arguments. Fans didn’t hold back in telling me how stupid I was for accepting Peter’s proposal and that our marriage would never work. Some even felt I should’ve stayed with Leon and married him. It was awful!
/>   The nastiest story I read was concocted by some girl who claimed she’d spent the night with Peter in an Atlanta hotel. I’m a super-secure woman who never plays the role of fidelity warden in my relationships. Besides, Peter is the type of man who can’t get home fast enough at the end of the night. Still, I was deeply bothered by the accuser’s claims. Those closest to us brought no relief by stirring the pot and asking me, “How can you be sure Peter never went to the hotel with her? Where was he that night? How do you know her story isn’t true?”

  It was annoying to watch people feed into the allegations. I knew it was all bullshit when this same female claimed that Peter had bought her an expensive handbag from Gucci. Truthfully, this part about the purse had me laughing so hard that pee was rolling down my leg. Let’s be clear, I’m not saying my man didn’t have a car and gas money to get to the mall, but that was about it. And I knew damn well he didn’t have money to be buying Gucci anything – especially for some ol’ skank. If any woman was getting something from Gucci – it was going to be my black ass.

  For some women, seeking out attached and unavailable men is a sport. In our case, some were looking for bragging rights that they had been with Peter or could have been with him. It wasn’t uncommon for women to show up at Uptown dressed to the nines, expecting to see Peter. It was all unfamiliar to me. I’d never had the mentality that if a man said hello or made eye contact that he was checking for me. A certain type of woman can be delusional in assuming a man is sweating her if he even looks in her direction.

  Peter and I are both attractive people who are on national television – every week. With good reason, the show made us borderline paranoid about who we hung around or invited into our lives. Little Ms. Gucci Bag made Peter realize he had to be even more careful about the women he allowed in his environment. He also knew he had to walk that fine line between being friendly and being extra with random women. We would lay in bed at night in awe, wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. Deep down, we both knew my signature on the dotted line was a gateway to that kind of crap being our new normal.

  Our starting season also paralleled the economy’s blistering fall, and the show proved to be a lucrative gig during hard times. Though my salary wasn’t the inflated figures plastered all over the Internet, the show was (and still is) a great way to make a living. Many of the salary assumptions listed on social media sites were laughable. One online source had Peter making $75,000 a season. The franchise is centered on the lives of the women. It’s kind of an unspoken notion that when the wives bring money into their households, everyone under their roof financially benefits.

  I’d love to see the husbands paid for the share of drama they infuse into the show. In our first season, Peter and I had family issues, money woes, got engaged and married. He was a major part of all my storylines. It would have been virtually impossible to capture my essence without including him. Since Peter’s dominant addition to the franchise, I’ve noticed other husbands and partners have made anchoring contributions to their mate’s narrative. I’ve always felt Peter had a lot to do with how pronounced spousal input has grown across the board. Peter even made Atlanta Housewives’ history by being the first husband to sit on the couch during a reunion show.

  Bravo has an amazing and generous platform for its cast that you can’t find anywhere else. Drama, intrigue, battle of the wits and bickering are the products of great reality TV. Where else in the world can you earn a paycheck for arguing with someone who pissed you off or you already don’t like? Just like Apple’s profits come from the number of tablets and iPhones sold – RHOA’s product is the housewives, and its returns hinge on our sensational disagreements. In the reality business, a Broke Drama Queen is an oxymoron.

  If you have any type of entrepreneurial spirit, it’s a perfect vehicle to spotlight your hustle. I was initially slow to act, but I know most people would leap at a chance to have such a public podium at their disposal. Commercials are very expensive, but what Bravo offers is better than a twenty-second spot! You and your business venture are actually featured on the show…in your own scene…and you get paid to do it! Former New York Housewife, Bethenny Frankel, is a great example of a housewife rags to riches story. Forbes Magazine reported that Bethenny sold her Skinnygirl adult beverage line to Jim Beam for a reported $100 million. How’s that for turning your dreams into a reality?

  Peter’s Turbulences

  At the end of our first season, I gave an interview to UPTOWN Magazine (no affiliation with my former restaurant). In the article I said I liked Kandi, but she got played by Kim. I couldn’t stand Phaedra. Sheree thought she was cute, but wasn’t. NeNe had a big-ass mouth, and Kim was crazy as fuck. Fans and critics viewed the article as a dig. I saw it as me giving honest answers to the questions I was asked. I went into the interview with no agenda other than to be truthful about the experience of my first season…and I was.

  I didn’t sign a contract relinquishing any rights to Bravo, and I controlled my own voice in the media. The release of my UPTOWN interview (and several others like it) proved that I had my own access to media outlets. In our second season, some of the women mentioned in that article came at me with guns cocked, blazing and ready to take me down. Ironically, the show’s producers had started to see who I really was and wanted to capture a more balanced Peter in Season 4. They liked me, knew I was a good guy and wanted to flip the script a bit.

  I was glad the laxer side of me was being unveiled. The previous season had people thinking they had the right to publicly say anything to me that popped in their heads. Like a run-in I had with a guy at Home Depot during our first season hiatus. I had just finished my purchase and was headed to the parking lot when the guy yelled from the back of the line, “Hey Peter, when you gon pay Cynthia back her damn money?” I blacked out. I went back in the store and told him, “Motherfucker, you can kiss my ass!” From the tone of my voice, he knew what it was gon be if he took his bullshit a step further. He checked himself quickly. I didn’t want to hear that kind of noise anymore. I was done with folks thinking they knew me like a play cousin.

  Cynthia, on the other hand, was obsessed with the blogs and stayed on them 24/7. NeNe would beg her not to read them, but she was sick over the fact that people saw her as NeNe’s spineless sidekick. She didn’t want to be known as the simple-minded, dense housewife. Even our family and friends were badgering her about how our characters were coming across, especially mine. Asinine social media comments had Cynthia giving second thoughts to me and us.

  Cynthia dealt with the public ridicule by withdrawing. She became depressed and started to believe the hype. We would have massive arguments almost daily. She was never in the mood for loving and became completely turned off to any type of intimacy. The drama was killing our sex life. I went almost three months with absolutely no ass! It was hard for me to roll like that.

  Every relationship has turmoil, but it was ruthless having ours play out two to four times a week in reruns and social media gossip. By the time a season airs, six to nine months have already passed. Regardless, there is something about seeing a situation for the first time on television that makes it feel brand new. Watching and reliving the struggles of our lives through a flat screen would interrupt our healing and sometimes bring back emotions that were stronger than the day of filming.

  Whatever is wrong in a reality couple’s relationship becomes intensified by the process. Where normal couples can squash a disagreement in one night, reality duos can take a year (or two) to get through it. Most end up in divorce court because the marriage isn’t strong enough to endure constantly seeing, hearing and reading about every fuck up in the relationship. In our world, a manageable, stovetop grease fire can become an uncontrollable forest fire overnight. Even the strongest marriages struggle to survive.

  There’s no outlet to care for the cast off camera. It’s an ice-cold setup, and if you’re not dressed for the weather – YOU’RE FUCK
ED. I don’t recommend it for fragile or psychologically weak couples. There should be therapists working behind the scenes to support the cast through all the problems and social media hostility. On another level, though, I get it! It’s a business Bravo is running, not an elementary school. When you’re hurt or emotionally injured you don’t go to the infirmary – you shoot the next scene.

  I know it’s not about me, and I would be an ass to think anything but. I don’t walk around thinking I’m some fucking actor or Hollywood dude. It’s reality TV! The show is not intended to promote the spouses, their opinions or business ventures. The show is about housewives in Atlanta and all their squabbling, drama, baggage and everyday bullshit.

  When it’s all said and done, my true satisfaction as a man and husband comes from seeing Cynthia succeed. I take a great deal of pride in helping to create a new lane and income stream for her. I’m content knowing her position in life is elevated, and her financial gain is also mine. I would not hesitate to admit that the show provides an incredible platform to establish greatness. So, even in the moments where I’m weighed down, I know I have to keep it moving. I have a lot of people depending on me. If I slip, their asses will go completely off the cliff.

  Sometimes I get tired from the load of my responsibilities, but I never think about stopping or quitting. The beautiful thing about being alive today is that it has absolutely nothing to do with yesterday. I love the fact that I have a chance to fix all the shit that happened twenty-four hours ago. I pray to God for a long life that will afford me the opportunity to give my kids all the things they’ve missed. My participation in the show is part of my strategy for making things happen and allowing my personal goals to manifest.