Key Takeaways
- Kelli Potter tells Carlos King that her second season on Real Housewives of Atlanta overlapped with intense real-life turmoil, including a divorce, financial strain, opening a restaurant, and sending her daughter to college, far beyond what viewers saw on TV.
- She says reliving those hardships through filming, real life, and audience reactions made her question staying on the show, and rejects claims her storyline was manufactured, insisting, “My life was already a f*cking show… that really was my life.”
- Addressing a more than $217,000 default judgment tied to Nana’s Chicken-N-Waffles and her ex-husband Mark Ferrell, Potter describes the painful breakdown of their marriage and the impact on her kids, but says she believes she’s still “in a position to win” and that “God doesn’t make mistakes.”
Kelli Potter is opening up about what viewers didn't see on Real Housewives of Atlanta, saying the drama that unfolded on Bravo barely scratched the surface of what she was navigating behind the scenes.
Appearing on Carlos King's Reality with the King podcast, the RHOA star said her sophomore season coincided with one of the most difficult stretches of her life, from financial setbacks and the aftermath of her divorce to opening a new restaurant while raising her children.
"It took a turn financially," Potter said. "I invested all this money into this restaurant. I finally got divorced. I'm still not receiving the money I was supposed to receive. I sent my daughter off to college... It was so many different things that piled up on me that I had no control over."
Potter said what made the experience even harder was reliving those moments after filming wrapped.
"You have to relive it three times," she told King. "You live it as you're filming in real time... then you have to deal with it in your real life, and then you have to deal with it from the audience perspective."
The interview comes as Potter continues facing scrutiny off-screen. Earlier this month, court records first reported by Unwine With Tasha K showed ARF Financial obtained a default judgment against Potter and Nana's Chicken-N-Waffles LLC totaling more than $217,000, plus attorney's fees, costs, and interest.
TMZ later reported the lender had begun issuing subpoenas to banks in an effort to identify accounts that could be used to satisfy the judgment. Potter's representatives have maintained the loan originated during her marriage to ex-husband Mark Ferrell and said they are confident the matter will ultimately be resolved.
On King's podcast, however, Potter made clear she believes audiences have misunderstood what they were watching unfold on RHOA.
"I don't know if I want to be here. I don't know if this is for me," she recalled thinking during filming. "It's one thing to deal with the drama from your castmates, but then when it airs and you have to deal with it from the audience—that's what people don't realize."
She also pushed back against criticism that her personal struggles were manufactured for television.
"My life was already a f*cking show," Potter said. "I didn't need to make a storyline... That really was my life. If you ask my friends, if you ask my family... they'll tell you that girl really went through hell."
According to Potter, much of that turmoil centered on the breakdown of her marriage.
"You couldn't have told me in a million years," she said when King asked whether she ever imagined divorcing Mark Ferrell would end this way. "The person you marry is not the person you divorce...I really did love that man. I had children with him. We started businesses, and we lived a very good life."
Potter went on to describe staying in hotels with her children during the separation and said they witnessed police responding to the family home, moments she had hoped to shield them from. She added that sharing those experiences publicly wasn't about creating reality TV moments but reclaiming her own story after years of remaining silent.
Despite the legal challenges and online criticism, Potter told King she still believes she's moving in the right direction.
"I know that God doesn't make mistakes," she said. "I know that at this point of my life... I can't do anything but go up higher. And I know that I'm in a position to win."
