Oh, baby: ‘Labor of Love’ seeks best father
All the single ladies of a certain age who desire to one day be pregnant: There is a new dating show (of sorts) that may feel made for you.
Kristy Katzmann, the lead of “Labor of Love,” premiering Thursday (Fox, 9 EDT/PDT), tells USA TODAY she applied to the show “because it felt like my story.”
In early 2019, the key account manager for Ora Organic, now 42, met 15 suitors hoping she would fall in love with one of them and soon after start a family. For a few months, she lived in one grand Atlanta home while her gents lived next door. They endured challenges testing their potential as a match for Katzmann (and also making for competitive reality television).
As the show progresses, instead of handing out roses, the leading lady sits with host and former “Sex and the City” star Kristin Davis and uses a tablet to categorize the men, revealing which ones she’ll keep and which ones she’d like to talk to and possibly eliminate. The men can watch the whole thing from their own house in real time.
The show “aligned perfectly” with where Katzmann was in life when she learned about it. “I had just turned 40 at the time,” she recalls. “I had just gotten out of a relationship, and I was really trying to navigate dating knowing that I wanted to have kids and very aware that I was on a timeline.”
A short marriage in her late 30s ended in divorce. Being in the crowd during the deadly 2016 terrorist attack in Nice, France, when a large commercial truck plowed into revelers celebrating Bastille Day near the iconic Promenade des Anglais, offered clarity on “what’s important.”
“I can tell you that, while I’m proud of
the accomplishments I’ve had in life,” she says, “honestly the first thing I thought of is, ‘I don’t want to be alone.’”
But dating was “really tough” for Katzmann. She says she “felt a really big shift” after reaching 40, finding she “wasn’t getting asked out by men that I felt were in my dating pool, or if they were asking me out, they were making the assumption that I didn’t want a family.”
The realities of a biological clock created “total panic.”
“The truth is, I think we all know that this could happen, but no one thinks it’s going to be their story,” she says. “So the question is, what do you do when it is? And for me, that really meant, to be honest, from the day I got divorced, thinking about it every single day, and asking myself what I was gonna do.”
Katzmann says she began looking into sperm banks and egg freezing, “but
never gave up hope” the parenting experience could be shared with “the right person.”
While she acknowledges being the lead of the debut season of “Labor of Love” is “scary” and “intimidating,” she hoped it would bring her heart’s desires: a family.
“I really took it as up to me to find a new door, to find new ways to realize those dreams, really the dream of becoming a mom,” she says. “I think you really have to be open to something new and different and the opportunities that are coming across your plate, and that’s really what I tried to do here.”
“Labor of Love” is Katzmann’s second try for romance via reality TV. She competed for Brad Womack’s heart on “The Bachelor” season that aired in 2007, an experience that influenced her latest televised journey.
“The only thing maybe that I wish I had done differently on ‘The Bachelor’ was just be more open and be more present to however the story unfolded,” she admits. For “Labor of Love,” she “really put my heart and soul into it.”
As did the casting team, says Davis, also a producer for the show.
“We scoured the country for, like, a year and a half,” she says. “Seriously, it was not easy. It took forever! Forever to the point where I was like, ‘What are you guys doing?’ ”
The show searched for “successful” people who were “age appropriate” and wanted to have kids, says Davis, keeping in mind they wanted “a diverse group” of candidates “in terms race, but also in term of personalities and jobs.”
“So, it was a challenge, and boy did we stress about it,” she remembers. And even when they decided on a man, some needed convincing to leave their jobs and other obligations. “It’s a pretty big leap for them,” says Davis. “So, it took some begging on some people’s parts.”
Davis says “Labor of Love” is not fabricated, and the show isn’t “guaranteeing anything is gonna happen, either, which is how life is.” She didn’t want Katzmann to “feel the pressure to choose somebody.”
“Our show’s about her really following her own heart and choosing what she wants and feeling strong enough and supported enough to do what she wants and what she feels is best for her,” says Davis.
Seemingly, the experience was a positive one for Katzmann. Without giving away any spoilers, she shares that today she is very content.
“I feel really confident with how everything has played out, and the most important thing is I have never been happier.”