Reality Check: Kandi Burruss' liberating exit from 'Real Housewives'

Singer-actor and Grammy Award-winning songwriter Kandi Burruss of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” says her recent exit from that Bravo show after 309 episodes was liberating.

“Right now, I feel free. I feel totally free, actually,” she said on SiriusXM’s “Andy Cohen Live” satellite-radio show. But, she added, fellow cast member Cynthia Bailey “told me that I'm not going to feel it until the [next season of the] show is on air. … She says when the show starts airing, I'm going to feel like, ‘Oh, man, I'm not there with them.’ ”

Burruss, 47, whose most recent work in scripted projects includes the films “The Underdoggs” (Prime Video) and “Whatever It Takes” (BET+) and the WE series “Á La Carte,” disputed that she will feel bad.

“I don't feel like I'm going to miss it in that way,” she said, allowing that, “Even though it's a lot of drama on ‘Housewives,’ we do have our fun. You know, the trips and the different things that we did, it is somewhat fun.”

RuPaul rules

Whatever else may be happening in the culture wars, America does seem to love the drag queens of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”: The recent season 16 finale, won by Brooklynite Nymphia Wind aka Leo Tsao, proved to be the show’s most-watched episode in 13 years, reported the trade website Deadline.com. The Los Angeles-born queen is the competition’s first Taiwanese American winner.

Season 16 itself, overall, had the highest Nielsen ratings in four years. And the show’s surging audience engagement extended to social media, with Paramount Global reporting this past season as the series’ “most social” ever, with 514 million social views — an 11% increase from season 15.

Premieres

Tuesday at 8 and 9 p.m., MTV’s “Catfish” returns with back-to-back episodes for a ninth season of hosts Nev Schulman and Kamie Crawford exposing fake online suitors … Wednesday on Lifetime from 8 to 10:03 p.m., the special “Dance Moms: The Reunion” leads into four half-hour compilation episodes, “Dance Moms: Epic Showdowns,” hosted by Christi Lukasiak, through 12:01 a.m. … Early Friday on the streamer Netflix, the Orange County, California, real estate agents of “Selling the OC” are selling in season 3 … Then at 10:30 p.m., Jack McBrayer (“30 Rock”) gives us the stories behind weird and wacky homes on HGTV’s new “Zillow Gone Wild,” based on the same-name Instagram account … Saturday night at 8, OWN ushers in an eighth season of affluent African American Alabamians on “Love & Marriage: Huntsville” … and all seven ladies of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” are back, along with supporting-cast friends Jackie Goldschneider and Jennifer Fessler, as season 14 takes hold Sunday at 8 p.m.

Recaps

And then there were 10, as Roman Collins and Jayna Elise got eliminated on “American Idol” … Braylon Browner and Roman Nevinchanyi were ousted from “So You Think You Can Dance,” leaving the top six … Firefighter best friends Sunny Pulver and Elizabeth “Bizzy” Smith didn't make the cut on “The Amazing Race” … and Hunter McKnight went off into the night on “Survivor.”