Reality television creator and producer Carlos King steps into The Shade Room to talk about his latest projects, past projects and more. (Photo by Earl Gibson III/Getty Images)
The conversation about who is the queen of reality television often sparks a debate, however, when it comes to who is the king of reality television, Carlos King is the first name mentioned. He has helped to turn some of our favorite reality stars into household names, and he continues to do so through some of his latest projects.
However, when he is not behind the scenes, he is now in front of the camera on his late-night talk show, “The Nightcap With Carlos King,” or on his podcast “Reality With The King.”
Carlos stepped into The Shade Room to speak with us about all of the amazing shows he has over on the OWN Network, as well as some of his past projects and also what we can expect from him next.
When you hear Carlos’ name, some shows that might come to mind include “Real Housewives of Atlanta,” “Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta,” Hollywood Divas,” “BET Presents: The Encore,” and many others. When asked about what made him want to create an empire out of reality television, he said,
“I’ve always been a fan of pop culture since I was a kid. I just love entertainment, I love this genre of television. So when I got the opportunity to produce ‘The Real Housewives of Atlanta,’ in 2008, I caught this bug in reality tv, and honey it’s been stinging me ever since. So I wanted to make sure that I stepped away from working for someone else and decided to start my production company Kingdom Reign Entertainment to really just start creating shows that I felt like reflected the culture. I wanted to do shows that I knew Black Twitter would be proud of…I knew that the Roommates would talk about, which is how how ‘The Encore,’ on BET came about. So for me, it’s all about establishing my brand, we did that with ‘Love and Marriage: Huntsville,’ now we got ‘Love and Marriage: DC.’ So being a Black man creating a franchise is huge, and to be the first openly gay Black man to have a late-night show is groundbreaking. So I’m here on my Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, and trying to make fetch happen.”
Carlos credits those that have been around him for encouraging him to step in front of the camera, however, he wanted to lock down on his producing skills before actually doing so.
“I’m such a hard worker, that I wanted to make sure that I cultivated the skill set of being a producer,” he said. “Did I have dreams of being on TV? Sure, I wanted my own daytime talk show when I was 12 years old. So I always had that in the back of my mind, but in order for it to make sense for me, I had to make sure to hone my skill set in producing before I decided to make that leap.”
Right now Carlos is not only dominating the OWN Network with just his talk show but also with “Love and Marriage: Huntsville,” “Love and Marriage: DC,” and “Belle Collective.”
When explaining how he determines which cities he will use as a focal point for his shows, Carlos said, “I like to tap into cities that people just aren’t familiar with.” He added, “I also want to explore different territories that I don’t know about, because it keeps things interesting, even for me.”
After dominating the reality television field, Carlos did let us know that he has many more projects in the works, including shows that cover true crime, and dating. He also hinted that things aren’t over when it comes to the BET series, “The Encore.”
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TSR STAFF: Jade Ashley @Jade_Ashley94
