The kids from all your favorite reality series are growing up! From Jon & Kate Plus 8, Sister Wives, The Real Housewives, and more, Teen Vogue’s Fortesa Latifi talked with some of these rising stars about how growing up on TV impacted them and where they are today.
Noelle Robinson has been appearing on The Real Housewives of Atlanta since she was 8 years old. Daughter of model Cynthia Bailey and actor and singer Leon Robinson, Noelle was destined to be a star.
Now 25 and a model in her own right, Noelle told Teen Vogue that growing up in the spotlight wasn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. “There are repercussions of being on television,” she said. “I think it did make me a lot more closed off and not as trusting. People like to be around celebrity. There’s just so many things you have to be vigilant for.”
She spoke about how having cameras following her all the time made social situations like her Sweet-16 and even heading off to college impossible to enjoy, saying, “I wasn’t really able to just have fun and relax with the cameras there.”
On a more positive note, in 2019, Noelle made the courageous decision to come out as sexually fluid to her mother on the show. She’s proud of this moment as it provided important representation to families with LGBTQ kids all over the world.
She shared that, “It was just a really great thing to show on television because there are still parents, even in this day and age, that would kick their child out for their sexual preferences. To show that positive representation on a big network like that, I think is very, very positive.”
Also of Real Housewives fame, Brooks Marks is a designer and entrepreneur who is only just getting started. Son of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Meredith Marks, Brooks is no stranger to having his life picked apart and analyzed by fans on the internet.
“That was something I was really unprepared for,” he told Teen Vogue. “I thought I had the thickest skin ever. Then it got ripped apart by thousands of people online and [I had] to build even thicker skin.”
Despite not being openly gay at the time, Brooks was “lauded as the first openly gay child of a housewife.” He said that, “It felt like I didn’t have control over my own story.”
Luckily, Brooks didn’t have to worry about any of this when it came to his family, “My family doesn’t really believe in the need to come out or label yourself. That’s the end of the story.”
This doesn’t mean it didn’t still affect him. He told Teen Vogue, “I just would dissociate from everything in terms of what was causing my anxiety. I was having breakdowns every so often, and I just felt extremely overwhelmed. Anxiety for me has always manifested as a physical feeling of just there’s a blender in your body. It just feels like cryotherapy or something. You just feel numb.”
However, as the CEO of his own athleisure clothing brand, Brooks made the most of the situation, “Any entrepreneur knows that reality TV can be leveraged to provide a larger platform for any business.”
On top of being a business owner, Brooks is also set to star in Bravo’s newest reality series Next Gen NYC, which premieres June 3rd. The series follows New York City’s most elite friend group as they navigate adulthood.
Read the full article here!
