Kim Coles on ‘The Surreal Life,’ diving into the reality TV experiment and how some of her roommates became ‘family’

Kim Coles is feeling “all the emotions” when it comes to joining “The Surreal Life.” TheGrio had a chance to sit down with the “Living Single” actress, breaking down everything from what led her to join this “reality TV experiment,” how she was able to bond with fellow celebrities on her cast and whether or not she’d recommend the experience to her peers.

As theGrio previously reported, “The Surreal Life” is back, over 15 years after the original series aired. Like the previous iteration, the show is a self-described “reality TV experiment” that fuses together popular shows like “The Real World” and “The Challenge,” with a twist: all of the contestants are not reality TV personalities, but celebrities. The returning season sees Coles in the house alongside Dennis Rodman, Frankie Muniz, Tamar Braxton, Stormy Daniels, August Alsina, Manny MUA and CJ Perry. 

“It’s iconic, isn’t it,” Coles mused when reflecting on the impact of the series and her involvement. “We all watched it in the early aughts … I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’m delighted, I’m all the emotions because we have been waiting for it to come out.”

Her experience watching the series as a viewer years ago, she told us, really helped drive Coles decision to join the show in the first place. “I remember that we come to see the real person,” she explained. “Yes these are icons, or celebrities, or you know, naughty boys or whatever the title is out there, but we come to see their humanity.” She added, “That’s exactly what unfolded here.”

The show also presents a unique opportunity for these figures to bond over their public facing lives, as each of them have their own unique relationship to and experience with fame. “I didn’t start out as young as Frankie Muniz, but certainly I know what it’s like to be on a long-running series and what that means, and what that means for the public versus what you get to grow up into being.” She continued, “Each one of us has had this fame of celebrity, but also has this private life and has a real personality and a real way of being.”

In the series, the celebrities are kept in the dark in regards to who is joining them in the experience until their first day of filming. “We really did not know who was going to be in the house,” Coles pressed when explaining the rules of the series. “VH1 did an excellent, almost too excellent job of keeping us from each other, even when we were staying at the hotel before moving into the house!”

The challenges they embarked on allowed even more humanity to shine through. “You get to see people doing things you wouldn’t normally see them do in their professional life,” she added. “We get to be human together.”

She also teased her unexpected connections with her roommates in the house, saying, “I absolutely bonded with my roommates. We have an epic text thread that we have that we check in on each other … they became my family.”

As for advice she would give any friends of hers who may find themselves on their own season of the show? She told us, “I’m gonna tell them say yes! I’m gonna tell them be prepared for cameras to be on all the time.” She added, “Be prepared to be vulnerable and like some of the moments and not like some of the moments and go have the adventure. So I would say yes, go have the adventure.”

“The Surreal Life” airs at 9 p.m. ET on Mondays on VH1.

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