Bravo Can’t Just Keep It in the Family

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Ava Dash, a 26-year-old reality star benefiting from family connections, jokingly admits their group is perfectly suited for reality TV due to their dramatic personalities. I met with Dash and several other cast members – Brooks Marks, Emira D’Spain, and Riley Burruss – from Bravo’s Next Gen NYC just before the show’s second season premiered. They arrived at dinner dressed to impress, with short dresses and full makeup, looking like typical reality stars – featuring plumped lips and smooth skin. Marks later shared he gets PRP therapy, a treatment using his own blood to create a facial serum. D’Spain revealed she wears a corset daily after rib-sculpting surgery, hoping to achieve a smaller waist. Despite being the same age, I felt noticeably older and less put-together compared to them.

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Bravo’s Next Gen, a show designed to attract a younger audience, debuted last summer. Similar to The Real Housewives, it follows a group of attractive friends whose conflicts are often manufactured for entertainment. The show portrays a very lavish lifestyle of young people in New York City—one where they spend exorbitant amounts on rent and nightlife. Despite its artificiality, the premiere was Bravo’s most-watched episode, leading to a second season launching in June. I recently joined the cast for dinner at BondST, a high-end sushi restaurant where they used to hang out during their NYU days. Shortly after the food arrived, D’Spain dramatically exclaimed, “I’m going to kill myself!” after spilling eel sauce on her embellished boots, prompting Dash to gasp, “Not the Givenchys!”

The cast of the new show, Next Gen, included several children of Housewives stars, like Meredith Marks’s son Brooks (from Salt Lake City), Teresa Giudice’s daughter Gia (from New Jersey), and the daughters of Kim Zolciak-Biermann and Kandi Burruss from Atlanta, all of whom made appearances on the show. Producers paired these “Bravo babies” with other young, wealthy New Yorkers, including Dash, a model whose parents are music executive Damon Dash and fashion designer Rachel Roy; D’Spain, a TikTok influencer with 1.4 million followers; Charlie Zakkour, a 31-year-old cryptocurrency trader who enjoys skateboarding and marijuana; and Georgia McCann, a party planner. Brooke Shields’s daughter, Rowan Henchy, is expected to join the cast for the second season. According to Josh Brown, NBCUniversal’s vice president of unscripted production, the key to casting this kind of show is finding people who are eager to live extravagant lives.

Marks and Burruss explained that deciding to join the family business was pretty straightforward. Marks’s parents were supportive of him being on the show, and he then persuaded others to participate. He feels that The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City only showed a small glimpse of his life, and he’s excited to be a central figure now. Both Marks and Burruss claim their previous appearances on Bravo shows didn’t give them any advantage on Next Gen. Burruss, who was just six years old when she first appeared on The Real Housewives of Atlanta, says she didn’t even watch her mother’s show—she simply knew her mom worked in the entertainment industry.

Throughout the first season, the adult family members of the cast appeared frequently. Meredith Marks’s husband, Seth, was almost like another cast member, often filmed even when his children weren’t around – despite splitting his time between New York and being 54 years old. The show often focused more on the cast’s complicated relationships with their parents than on their relationships with each other. As Dash put it, “My dad really acted like the show was about him.” She emphasized, “This is Next Gen – it’s about us!” Despite all that, many viewers found the parents’ constant presence surprisingly relatable. One evening, after dinner, a fashionable young woman stopped to express her admiration, but not to the cast members themselves. She told Brooks, “Your mother is always a star!”

For years, The Real Housewives franchise has given women a chance to reinvent themselves later in life. Kandi Burruss joined the show after already winning a Grammy and used it to launch several more TV shows. Similarly, Meredith Brooks’s mother went from being a relatively unknown mom to a major reality TV personality with her own businesses and now has representation with a major talent agency. Watching their children on the show, I often wondered what they hoped to gain. Like their mothers, are they using the show as a stepping stone? Or will it ultimately become their defining characteristic?

Everyone’s moving on to new projects. When the show started, most of the cast were already well-known as models, influencers, or were trying to build multiple careers at once – like Brooks, who juggles modeling, design, business, activism, and creative direction. Now, Dash and Burruss are thinking about acting, Brooks launched a casual clothing line, and D’Spain is concentrating on creating online content. With season two finished, they’re all excited about spending the summer in Europe. Dash says he really needs a European vacation, and D’Spain agrees, adding that Ibiza is a must-visit.

Watching Next Gen feels like Bravo’s children of reality stars are prioritizing maintaining their image and comfortable lifestyles over creating truly captivating television – the kind of drama that made their parents famous. Unlike their parents, this younger cast hasn’t experienced major life crises like divorce or legal troubles, and they’ve witnessed their parents’ struggles firsthand. As a result, they appear more refined and avoid high-conflict situations, preferring to keep the “drama” minimal and steering clear of villainous roles. Kandi Burruss admits she was hesitant, saying, “Seeing what my mom went through on her show and all the drama that comes with that – I was really nervous. I’m younger than she was when she started. I was scared.” Throughout the show, cast members, particularly Marks, repeatedly emphasize their close relationships. He explains, “Because we’ve watched what our parents have gone through, whether it’s in public, on TV, or in headlines, I feel like we don’t want to put each other through that.” The cast generally agrees, viewing their reality show participation as simply “forced friendship time,” according to D’Spain. Dash adds with enthusiasm, “It’s the easiest job in the world!”

The group didn’t discuss any current disagreements, but mentioned some issues arose during a cast trip to the Bahamas after filming season two. According to Kandi Burruss, some friendships changed, though no one would provide details. Kim Zolciak-Neumark speculated viewers and producers might have expected a divide between those who grew up in the city and the children of the Housewives, but she said that never happened. The dynamic wasn’t the same competitive energy that had propelled their mothers to success.

One cast member wasn’t afraid to stir up trouble, and it wasn’t who you’d expect at a fancy dinner. Early in the season, much of the drama seemed to revolve around Georgia McCann, who felt like a classic reality TV personality – a bit out of touch, but ultimately good-hearted, similar to a less established Sonja Morgan. The conflict started quickly when Kandi Burruss was upset with Georgia for not washing her hands. Later, Georgia playfully accused another cast member of using Ozempic, which led to others calling her out for being “cheap” and having a questionable boyfriend. When I mentioned Georgia’s name at dinner, the other women exchanged knowing glances and refused to comment.

Shortly after meeting the other cast members, I met with McCann, who had the most to gain and the least to lose by being on Next Gen. She was relatively unknown – she didn’t have much of a public presence at all. At the time, she was unemployed, didn’t use Instagram, and didn’t have any firm plans for the future, as she explained to me. She was mostly spending her time socializing with Charlie Zakkour, which ultimately led to her joining the show. Despite feeling like an outsider, she became one of the show’s most popular stars. We met at Hillstone, a popular restaurant in the Nomad neighborhood, but couldn’t get a table. We ended up walking to a nearby, empty restaurant and ordered martinis.

For many young New Yorkers, McCann was the most relatable cast member on Next Gen. A lot of people recognized her as the driving force behind some of the biggest parties after the pandemic, like a Diplo performance at Katz’s Deli and a wild house party (called Club House Arrest) at Anna Delvey’s place—where McCann famously climbed on a speaker and showed off for the crowd. While her co-stars often came from influential families or had established social media followings, McCann didn’t fit that mold. Her parents, both lawyers in New York, are private people who didn’t appear on the show and didn’t push her to join the cast. She decided to do it simply because she had nothing else planned. “I didn’t have summer plans, I don’t go to the Hamptons, and I couldn’t afford a trip to Europe,” she explained. “So, yeah, I figured I’d try reality TV.” Unlike the others, she views being on the show as work, not just a fun experience. “When I take on a job, I give it everything I’ve got,” she says.

Georgia played a carefree, outgoing character on the show, similar to actress Parker Posey – she was the most open about sharing her life and didn’t hesitate to drink on camera. Looking back, she admits she often was drunk, and it’s noticeable. Right from the start, she stood out. When she mentioned the movie When Harry Met Sally…, the others were surprised – one cast member even admitted they hadn’t seen it. Her relaxed, unfiltered personality often created friction with the rest of the group, which caused her stress and led her to seek medication for performance anxiety. She felt like filming the show was a step backward, triggering middle-school-like dynamics. While the conflicts were genuine, she believes they wouldn’t have happened without the cameras. It felt like an experiment in human behavior. Another cast member echoed this, saying the drama was real, but the heightened emotions and tension were the most unsettling part of the experience.

McCann stood out as the most down-to-earth person on the show and had a unique sense of cool. She admits that her parties back then weren’t for just anyone. You couldn’t simply buy your way in—you had to be known and interesting. As she points out in one episode, when the group talks about getting into the Box nightclub, she’d never dream of paying to get into a club in New York City—she thought it was ridiculous.

For the second season of the show, McCann made an effort to fit in with her castmates, getting a keratin treatment, changing her hair color, and whitening her teeth. She also became more active on Instagram. But she’s starting to question what benefits come with being on a show like Next Gen for someone like her. She wonders if it’s possible to gain real success on TV without already being famous or having family connections. She’s also considering if the potential drama isn’t worth it, seeing how her more low-key peers are landing press opportunities, launching their own brands, and gaining a large following. After the first season, she only gained 15,000 Instagram followers and a little extra money, and she rarely gets recognized in public. “To be honest,” she admits, “I think I was more popular when I was hosting parties.”

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2026-05-08 16:09