Daytime TV is about to look a whole lot different next year because no one is safe from cancellation, no matter how beloved. Seriously, there are so many daytime shows getting axed this year. New daytime shows anchored by huge names like Nick Cannon and Jerry Springer have been canned. Longtime daytime staples such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Wendy Williams Show are all coming to an end. Now, sadly, another iconic daytime series is headed to the daytime TV graveyard — The Real.
Hosted by Loni Love, Jeannie Mai, Adrienne Bailon, Tamera Mowry-Housley, and Tamar Braxton, The Real first premiered in 2013. It shook up the daytime space, offering a more diverse and down-to-earth spin on the panel format popularized by The View. Unfortunately, as the show progressed, it started to become bogged down by its high-profile casting shakeups.
In 2016, Tamar left the panel, sparking rumors of behind-the-scenes infighting and drama. It wasn’t until 2020 that Tamar’s seat was permanently replaced with actress and comedian Amanda Seales. However, her time at the show was very short-lived. She left just six months after taking the job, claiming that she was being asked to “not talk about certain things that felt like a betrayal to my people.”
A month after Amanda’s departure, Tamera also announced that she’d be departing after six seasons. They were left with just three hosts, so The Real recruited actress and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Garcelle Beauvais to be a permanent addition to the panel ahead of season 7. Garcelle brought new life to the show, and it seemed like it was back on track with a fresh identity for the first time in years. Regardless, daytime TV can be unpredictably ruthless, and Warner Brothers and Telepictures announced that the show’s current 8th season would be its last.
Garcelle took a break from promoting her new memoir last week to react to the news about the canceled talk show. “It was a fun ride!! Got to work with an [sic] group of amazing women and crew,” she wrote on Twitter, adding three praying hands emojis.
Fans of The Real and RHOBH replied, expressing their sadness over the talk show’s demise. One fan wrote, “Heartbroken! Love you Garcelle!!”
“I know it’s sad,” she responded.
On The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, we saw Garcelle adjust to her new gig as a talk show panelist, transforming a room in her house into a TV studio to film the talk show safely during the height of the pandemic. If the show could survive those early days of the pandemic being exclusively on Zoom, you’d think that they would be able to continue for a few more seasons, especially now that shows are back in the studio. Still, longtime host Loni Love believes that COVID-19 is ultimately what killed the show.
“In the end The Real cast & crew did everything we could to scale the show down,” Loni wrote in a post on Instagram. “We shot 7-8 shows in 3 days, no audience, made a conference room into a studio, but in my opinion, Covid costs killed this show.”
TELL US – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE REAL GETTING CANCELED? DID YOU THINK GARCELLE WAS A GOOD FIT FOR THE PANEL?
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
