‘WORLD’ TURNS
MTV & Powell get ‘Real’ again after 30 years
The homecoming of all homecomings is happening on reality TV.
Original cast members of the groundbreaking MTV reality series “The Real World” have reunited after almost 30 years for a new multiepisode docuseries to find out — as it originally set out to do — what happens when people stop being polite, and start getting real.
Acclaimed writer, poet and political activist Kevin Powell — who gained fame from the 1992 show — is along for the return to the pop culture touchstone, which paved the way for today’s reality TV cottage industry.
The 54-year-old Jersey City native is among the original “seven strangers,” along with ex-New York City housemates Becky Blasband, Andre Comeau, Heather B. Gardner, Julie Gentry, Norman Korpi and Eric Nies, coming together again for the six-part series, “The Real World Homecoming: New York,” which will be available to stream weekly on Paramount+ starting Thursday.
“I agreed to do the reunion shows because I have not been with my six castmates, all of us together, since the 1990s and because if COVID has taught us nothing else, life can be gone just like that,” Powell said in an email of his return to the flagship, which aired for 15 years and featured different cities.
“I also returned because it is very rare in life to be able to go back, to go forward, to be able to review who we were, and to show people who’ve we become,” he added. “And I returned because I had some serious healing to do around this show, too, and all the reactions to it, to me, through the years, including many, many ugly and harsh things that have been said to me, or about me, because of folks’ own challenges and or shortcomings on race, on racism.”
Coming back to reality wasn’t a cakewalk for the recent divorcé, who authored the literary and political manifesto “When We Free the World” last summer.
“It was not easy to return, emotionally, spiritually, trust me on that, given my traumas and triggers with this, but I have no regrets about the original 13 episodes nor about these new reunion episodes,” Powell shared. “It is my prayer and hope people will see themselves in me, in us, and use both the old and new shows as spaces to talk, listen, agree, disagree, and do, for the good of us all.”
Powell was a reporter for Vibe magazine during its early 1990s heyday – interviewing the likes of Tupac Shakur and Colin Powell for the award-winning hip-hop-edged lifestyle periodical.
He said his next book, his 15th, will be a biography of Shakur, with whom he formed a long-lasting bond until his 1996 murder.
“[He] was a fan of mine, of ‘The Real World’ ... Tupac is also going back for me, to go forward, as I am committed, as a writer, to producing an honest and empowering book about his life in a way never done before.”
Powell, who twice ran as a Democratic candidate for Congress in Brooklyn — his adopted hometown — said while he “humbly” appreciates the buzz around “The Real World Homecoming: New York,” he implores viewers to make it purposeful.
“I ask, respectfully, that this not just be about pop culture, or celebrity, or television, or trips down memory lane, or sensationalism; but more importantly that it be about love, yes, and a real inward look at who we are, and who we can be, for the good of us all.”