Detroit's Carlos King, the man behind the 'Love & Marriage' franchise, is reality TV royalty
The new season of “Love & Marriage: Detroit” promises to be an emotional one as three couples open up about their career and family struggles — and two new couples bring their own issues into the friendship dynamics of the group.
”Buckle your seatbelt!” says the creator of the OWN network’s “Love & Marriage” franchise, Carlos King, during a phone interview. “This season is for sure a rollercoaster ride. The moment you think you’ve figured these people out, you haven’t. Something always comes, one after the other, in terms of surprises.”
It’s no surprise, however, that King, who was born and raised in Detroit, has built a thriving career in reality television. After a successful run with Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” series during the height of its pop-culture buzz, he now presides over his own production company.
Given his credentials, King is considered reality TV royalty.
He is the founder and CEO of Kingdom Reign Entertainment and creator and executive producer of OWN’s “Love & Marriage: Huntsville,” “Love & Marriage: D.C.” and “Love & Marriage: Detroit." Season two of the Motor City edition returns to the network at 9 p.m. Saturday.
His current and past credits include OWN’s “Belle Collective” and “Family Empire: Houston,” WE’s “Grown & Gospel” (also set in Detroit), TV One’s “Hollywood Divas,” Netflix’s “Styling Hollywood, ” BET’s “Gucci Mane & Keyshia Ka’Oir: The Mane Event” and more.
He also hosts a popular podcast, “Reality With the King,” centering on behind-the-scenes talk and interviews about the genre.
For an emperor of reality TV content, King laughs when the idea of a reality show that stars him is floated. "I love the fact that my reality stars are so courageous and brave to share their personal life. ... I’ll leave that to the stars of 'Love & Marriage,'" he admits.
”These people are stars truly because of their bravery (in showing) what the average person may be going through,” he continues. “I think real people are the most fascinating, because they’re not hiding behind a character. … They’re being real and that’s why I’m so protective of my cast.”
“Love & Marriage: Detroit” revolves around a group of friends consisting of three married couples: Russell and Kolby Harris (he’s a pastor, she’s a social media influencer), Brandon and Kristina Bowman-Smith (he runs an artist development program, she’s a stylist and influencer), and Anthony and Dr. LaToya Thompson (he owns a production studio, she’s a physical therapist and owner of Opulence Wines).
Two more couples are joining the cast this season: Marcel and Kimberly Dobine and Bravo and LaKeita Samuels (who were introduced in a smaller role in the inaugural 2023 season).
The six new episodes that will air through mid-October explore past issues from season one and new tensions in season two. No spoilers, but King says his focus is to reflect the real lives of the participants. He stresses that one of the most important things he learned from his experience with “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” is “you follow the reality and you always, always get the best outcome.”
Detroit, where his family still lives, is a city that is close to King's heart. It’s also the place where his future path was set. During his senior year at the old Finney High School, formerly located on Detroit’s east side, he was determined as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper to increase its popularity. “I made it more appetizing to my classmates, everyone from ninth grade to senior year. So I started a gossip column. We had entertainment reporting. Once that became a hit, I knew that I was on to something in regards to pursuing a career in entertainment,” he recalls.
King studied journalism at Wayne State University for two years before moving to New York City, the place to be for aspiring TV producers, and transferring his credits to Hunter College. In the Big Apple, he landed internships with the syndicated daytime show “The View,” ABC’s “20/20,” BET and MTV.
Of his time with “The View,” he recalls getting to meet its original host, the legendary broadcast journalist Barbara Walters, and absorbing wisdom from three of the show’s best-known co-hosts. “Our(internship) coordinator was so amazing. She got me and the other interns some face time with Meredith Vieira, Star Jones and Joy Behar to talk to us about a career in television. It was a very, very special internship.”
After King’s internship at BET led to a full-time job, he was approached about a new, possibly short-term opportunity — a three-month freelance gig as a producer with a Bravo series featuring Black women in Atlanta. A friend urged him to accept. “She said, ‘You love reality, because you’re watching ‘The Hills.’ You’re watching ‘Laguna Beach.’’ … So after much prayer, I decided to take the leap of faith “
The decision to join “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” was serendipitous. Says King, “The moment I started on that show is the day I knew, OK, reality TV, it definitely has my attention.”
Debuting in 2008, “RHOA” (now at 15 seasons and counting ) was a pop-culture sensation in its early years. It became one of Bravo’s top-rated series and introduced viewers to future reality superstars like NeNe Leakes, Kim Zolciak, Kandi Burruss and Phaedra Parks. Says King, “We literally were following these women around doing the ordinary, that we said, ‘No, this is extraordinary.' We were able to really have conversations with them about what’s going on in your life, what’s happening. It was really the true telling of these women’s stories, in the sense of how organic their relationships were, how organic their storylines were.”
The show also brought some on-air representation to what then was a mostly white world of reality TV. After four seasons in a key role with “RHOA,” King decided to take the quest for more diversity and inclusion a step further by forming his own company, Kingdom Reign Entertainment, which he describes as a full-service production company. As he puts it, “I wanted to be the agent of change that I felt was needed in this industry.”
As he told the entertainment industry news site Deadline in June, representation is important throughout the process of creating a show. “There’s a lot of African American-based shows in the world. 99% of them are produced by white-owned production companies. White-owned production companies are doing a great job of producing the Black unscripted shows but, for me, how special would it be for a show to represent the owner of the company so that we’re able to really have the ability to not only understand storytelling, but understand the culture in which the storytelling is happening,” he tells Deadline.
King says it was thrilling to see “Love & Marriage: Huntsville,” which premiered in 2019, lead to similar versions in Washington, D.C., and Detroit. “It’s been thrilling to see the outcome of something that honestly was scary at the time, because it was the unknown,” he explains. “The beauty of that was I left one franchise and created another.”
He says the launch of his “Reality with the King” podcast in 2022 was a matter of becoming comfortable enough to have a voice on the air. “I have this amazing following who wanted my opinions on various things in the reality world. After being approached to do a podcast for, like, the 15th time, I finally said, you know, I think I’m ready. And boy, oh boy, was I surprised that the world was ready.”
Having based two shows in the Motor City — Kingdom Reign Entertainment also was responsible for 2023’s Detroit-set “Grown and Gospel” — King says his hometown is a good location for reality TV. ”Detroit has some very interesting people who have very interesting stories, because it is the Midwest. … Detroit brings a whole different style and flavor to the world,” he notes.
Asked where he lives now, King says he travels from coast to coast, going “where the job needs me.” But home will always be Detroit, which he visits often.
And as yet another Detroiter who has made a name for himself in the highly competitive entertainment business, King says he is not surprised at the city’s numerous links to show business. “Listen, we’re the home of Motown. we’re the DNA of the Supremes, of Steve Wonder, Aretha Franklin. … I think it’s because we grew up having relatives who were part of that renaissance era. I think for this new generation, we’re picking things up where it was left off."
Adds King, “My lane is reality television. ... With ‘Love & Marriage: Detroit,’ I’m so happy to be part of the conversation.”
Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.
"Love & Marriage: Detroit" season two premiere
9 p.m. Saturday
OWN
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit's own Carlos King works to bring representation to reality TV
