Growing Up Bravo

The first generation of kids to grow up on Bravo are now of age — not just to take a swig from the shotski with network maestro Andy Cohen, but to helm their very own franchise. Though the nepo Bravo-lites spent their early years cringing at themselves on-screen, when Next Gen NYC came calling — a new series tracking the lives, careers, and friendships of Housewives offspring — they couldn’t resist the opportunity to raise their platforms, reclaim their narratives, and have a little fun along the way.

“Growing up, I was like, ‘I don't give a f*ck about any of this,’” says Ariana Biermann, one of the show’s stars. That changed when the cameras started rolling on Next Gen NYC. “A part of my life was missing [not being on TV]. I’ve done this for so long!”

Among the cast of Next Gen are four Housewives alums, now in their early 20s and navigating New York’s social scene: Biermann, the daughter of Atlanta’s Kim Zolciak-Biermann, who started filming when she was 5 and continued on and off for 12 years; Brooks Marks, son of Meredith Marks, who was 21 when he joined his mother on Salt Lake City, which he’s still on to this day; Riley Burruss, daughter of Atlanta’s Kandi Burruss, who clocked 14 years on the show; and Gia Giudice, the daughter of New Jersey’s Teresa Giudice, who was a staple of the series from ages 8 to 23.

Going through puberty while filming a reality show is not for the faint of heart. Especially in the age of social media and streaming, the Bravo franchise continues to attract new fans, as well as re-watchers, making it all but impossible to leave the past in the past. Just ask Guidice, who in 2021 watched as everyone from Cardi B to Lil Nas X lip-synced her viral “waking up in the morning” clip on TikTok.

“At first I was mortified,” Giudice tells Bustle. “But then I just started to embrace it. I did a couple [TikToks] with it, I made a sweatshirt line from it, and it just started to be fun.”

And what better way to embrace the narrative than by returning to the network that started it all, this time as main characters? Below, Giudice, Biermann, Marks, and Burruss reflect on everything from filming in kindergarten to not reading the comments.

Take me back to when you first started filming Housewives. What was that like for you?

Riley Burruss, 22: There’s really no life I remember pre-Bravo. I just remember the cameras always being there.

Ariana Biermann, 23: I was in kindergarten on the first day of filming and I packed my backpack really full of books, so it looked like I was a very studious kid. I was like, “This is so cool. We’re going to be on TV. My mom's going to be famous!” I went to school and was telling everybody.

Gia Giudice, 24: I always loved performing and being on stage. My mom also had me with an agency at a young age, and I was an extra in Doubt with Meryl Streep and in Gossip Girl. So when I saw cameras in my house, I was like, “Oh, my God, we’re in a movie!” It was every little girl’s dream to be a movie star, and I thought that’s what was happening.

Brooks, you were a bit older than your castmates when your Bravo journey began.

Brooks Marks, 25: My parents were separated, and me and all my siblings were at college. So they were fully empty nesters for the first time, but they weren’t living under the same roof. I didn’t anticipate being as involved in the show as I was, but my mom was completely isolated in one of the most isolating towns in America — Park City, a ski resort town. So I was there [taking a semester off from college] to be her emotional support pillar and to work on building my clothing brand.

Did filming always feel as exciting as it did in those early days?

Biermann: It [got] annoying. I didn’t want to come home, get my makeup done, film all day, and then spend late nights doing my homework. I think I was just like, “This is a lot. I just want to go through these stages of growing up in high school and [process] all the things that are going on mentally for myself, by myself.” But I’m glad that I didn’t, because people still message me to this day and tell me how much they appreciate how honest I was about my weight and watching me have a breakdown on TV about being fat and not feeling confident. It helped so many people, so I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Burruss: Once I got to high school, the public perception was a lot. I just wanted to have my own space to be in the world without the cameras around all the time.

Giudice: I was in such a unique situation where my father left for four years, and my mom didn’t have him to back her up on this show like a lot of other women did. During that time, my mom needed someone to film with at home, and that put me in a situation to always be there for my mom and talk with her through situations [on-camera]. I can’t even tell my younger self, “Don’t do that,” because I would’ve done that for my mom any day.

Did you ever consider quitting?

Giudice: I had an ex-boyfriend who maybe didn’t like it and was maybe chirping in my ear saying like “Oh, this isn’t real life. This isn't a good representation of you.” And I’m like, ”It’s actually as real as it can get, whether you want to believe it or not.” But then I got rid of him, and everything was great.

Do the positives outweigh the negatives?

Marks: I mean, I think that the platform it gave my clothing brand is incredible.

What made you want to do Next Gen NYC?

Marks: I felt the way my life was shown on Salt Lake City was such a small portion of it. I was like, “I want people to get to know me beyond the 15-minute ‘Best of Brooks Marks’ YouTube compilation that Bravo posted.” At the time [I started on SLC], I didn’t want to talk much about my personal life. I was still going through a lot of things with building my clothing brand, my relationship life, and all of that. So I was super excited to share that now.

Giudice: Going into college, it became that I had fans. There were a lot of younger girls coming up to me, saying how they loved me, and wanting a photo. Then, during COVID, I started embracing [my following] even more so on social media. I started posting more on TikTok and Instagram and became more familiar with how to make money there. That was the rise of my influencing and content-creation career. I thought it would be just such a great platform to really show what I am doing and who I'm becoming.

For all the opportunities the show provides, it hasn’t been without its pain points. Ariana, in early episodes, you opened up about financial strife between you and your parents. How have you been navigating that since?

Biermann: I don’t ever want to paint my parents in a bad light because I love them both so much. Money can be replaceable, I can always make more, and they’ll be my parents forever. I told them both straight up, “I’m doing this show, and I’m going to be very brutally honest. Even if you don’t appreciate it sometimes, that is very much who I am, and I’m going to tell my story.” They understood, and there haven’t been any bad conversations with them or anything negative between us at all.

I’ve also gotten so many amazing DMs and people reaching out to me explaining [financial] situations that they’ve gone through with their family and how they’ve fixed or just sharing their story and thanking me for sharing mine. It was definitely nerve-wracking and very vulnerable, though.

Riley, there’s a scene in the third episode where you turned a microaggression that was hurled your way into a master class on the realities of navigating the world as a Black woman. What was your mom’s reaction?

Burruss: My mom really tried to let me handle this on my own. She, of course, doesn’t like it when anyone messes with her daughter, so she wasn’t very happy about what happened. But she always just tells me to stand up for myself and stand for what I believe in. Her main [advice] is, “As long as you’re passionate about something, be the person to say your true feelings. But not everything has to be an argument.”

It seems like the true gift of Next Gen NYC is the camaraderie you’ve all found among your fellow “Bravo nepo babies.”

Biermann: I was really nervous doing this show. I was like, “Well, Riley’s on it. We don’t know each other [anymore].” But I’m so grateful, because she’s my best friend now. Last year we went to the Bahamas for her birthday, and we were dying laughing the whole time, like “We were here together [for filming] when we were 7! We need to recreate the pictures!”

Also, one of the producers on Don’t Be Tardy did [confessional] interviews on Next Gen NYC, and it was so funny. She’s like, “I’m laughing at you because I remember you giving me sh*t back in the day, and now I’m doing your interviews.”

Marks: Something that I've talked to Riley and Gia about is the experience of going from no one caring about my life to this overnight. They don't even know what life is like outside of [Bravo], which they said they appreciate more than having to go through my experience. But I look up to Riley in so many ways. She is so unapologetically herself and always stands up for what’s right. She’s worked on getting me to be a little more outspoken, too. Something that Riley, Gia, and Ariana, Ava [Dash], and a lot of our other friends have taught me is just, like, “Do not give a singular F about any of this stuff. Everyone is going to always have something to say. And quite frankly, if someone has nothing to say, you’re probably not doing it right.”

What advice would you give to your younger reality TV self?

Giudice: Optimize my social media more! Start earlier!

Brooks: Don’t read a single comment. I would take every comment very seriously when my mom first became a Housewife, and that wasn’t great for my mental health. With online criticism, I felt like a turtle going into my shell, and I didn’t think I would ever come out of it. But my family was a huge support system for me, as was therapy. I’m really proud of myself for taking the risk of putting myself out there in a more vulnerable way than ever before.

What would that younger reality TV self think of you doing Next Gen?

Burruss: Even two years ago, I never would have thought I’d do this…

Biermann: [Younger me] would be like, ”Are you serious? Why are we doing this?” But my mom is honestly so proud of me for doing it. When she watched an episode the other day, she was like, “I started crying again. I can't believe you’re living in New York and that you’re doing your own TV show.” The other day, I got a Facebook message from one of my nannies, and she was like, “Just saw your TV show, and you literally used to say, ‘I hate this so much; I don’t want to do this at all.’ Now you’re following in your mom’s footsteps, and I’m so proud of you.”

These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.