00:00We are here with Thaddeus Bullard from my new favorite dating show, King's Court on Bravo.
00:05You know, I'm very excited for the world to see this show.
00:08You know, how was it pitched to you? What made you want to sign on for this?
00:11Well, originally I didn't want to sign on for it.
00:14Will Packer, who's a very dear friend of mine, reached out to me and asked me,
00:19he's like, hey, would you be interested in being on a dating reality show?
00:23And I was like, I don't do Ratchet TV, bro.
00:25And he said, well, I'm not a Ratchet producer.
00:27And I said, touche, which he's not.
00:30He's one of Hollywood's only billion-dollar movie producers, but a great human being, too.
00:35And he knows me on a personal level.
00:38So knowing that, you know, everything that I've built from a brand standpoint,
00:43as a father, as a philanthropist and all these things,
00:46he wouldn't put me in a position where any of that would get jeopardized.
00:49So he put me on the phone with casting and said, you know, just talk to them.
00:55No pressure at all.
00:56See if it's something you want to try.
01:01And they sent me a few episodes of Queen's Court.
01:04And so I watched through that.
01:06I was like, oh, this is not Ratchet at all.
01:07It's actually pretty good.
01:09And I actually watched it with my kids.
01:14And then after the last episode, I was like, so this is kind of the premise of what they want me to do.
01:19I don't know who the other celebrities are.
01:22I don't know who the women are.
01:23But would you guys be okay with me being on the show?
01:26And they said, yeah.
01:27And I said, okay, cool.
01:28Are you excited to show them, you know, how everything played out?
01:32Have they seen any of the episodes yet?
01:33They haven't seen anything.
01:35Okay.
01:35So I have three kids.
01:37My oldest son plays football at UCF.
01:39My youngest son plays football at Florida, which is where I played.
01:42And then my daughter plays basketball at UMass.
01:44So my son sent me this text.
01:48He said, hey, Dad, some of my teammates were talking in the locker room, and they were watching Love Island last night, and they saw your commercial.
01:56And they were really excited to see your show.
01:59And I was like, well, if I can get college football players interested in King's Court, then there's no reason why the Bravo Universe and everybody else wouldn't be interested in King's Court.
02:09Yeah, definitely.
02:10Are you in on any other dating shows?
02:13You know, have you been watching any?
02:14I haven't.
02:14You've never seen one before?
02:16No, I don't really watch reality TV that much, and so I've had to actually do a lot of homework in regards to, like, what's what.
02:23But I do know Love Island is, like, killing it right now, and all of my kids watching it.
02:28So I'm going to have to go back and binge watch up to this point to kind of figure it out.
02:33I just know the exciting part about what they're doing right now is that they're on an island.
02:39Yes.
02:40And I would like to go to VG, too, you know, if possible.
02:43Season 8, maybe.
02:44I don't think I want to be a member of the cast, but I definitely think I want to go.
02:48Yeah, you can come as a guest.
02:49Yeah, I'll come as a guest.
02:50You can host a challenge or something like Megan Thee Stallion.
02:52Yeah, rough some people up, you know, figure out who's doing what, something like that.
02:56But, yeah, definitely not as a cast member.
02:58Well, I imagine that dating in the public eye is super hard.
03:02Would you say you have a pretty good gauge on who's genuine and who's maybe just in it for clout?
03:06Yeah, I think I have that gauge with pretty much not just dating, but just people in general.
03:11I think I have a very good spirit of discernment.
03:13The problem is that so many people have been able to put great representatives up front and personal for the first few weeks that you don't know what's what until later on down the line.
03:29And so some people you can see it immediately and some people you cannot.
03:34And for the purposes of the show, you know, I love the fact that there were 21 very educated, you know, smart women that come from various backgrounds all over the country.
03:45And it gave us a kind of a plethora of personalities.
03:53And for me, I'm big on personality.
03:55You know, that's going to draw me first.
03:57Personality and confidence are two things that draw me in because I'm a competitive person.
04:03Honestly, transparently speaking, throughout this journey, I've even learned from myself, you know, sometimes I can be a little coachy, you know, and because that's the environment I came from.
04:15But then I also have to recognize that even as a coach, different players respond to different types of coaching.
04:21You know, you might be able to yell at one person and then the other person, you might just nod their head and be like, I got you, coach, you know.
04:27And so it's the same way for me in relationships is like trying to figure out, number one, is there even an energy that would have us to be compatible?
04:37And then the second thing is like, I'm not looking for a companion.
04:41Like I have five dogs at home.
04:43I can, you know, I can go to the movies with anybody.
04:46I'm looking for a partner.
04:47And in order to have good partnership, I need to be able to know that I can be vulnerable with you and that it's not going to get weaponized back against me when you get into your feelings.
04:58You come from the professional sports world.
04:59How would you compare the competitiveness among the queens to, you know, what you experienced in the ring?
05:05I've never experienced any kind of competitiveness like this.
05:09The other part is about this is it's sometimes I think people got lost in the fact that it is a competition.
05:18And we don't have a whole lot of time to kind of figure out who's got a connection with who and who might be a good fit for who as well.
05:27It's either envy or jealousy or whatever resonates instead of competition.
05:32And, you know, for those that stayed on this journey the longest, it was really about them looking at it for what it was.
05:41Like we got three eligible, good looking guys that are successful, that are looking for love.
05:47And, you know, it's their decision at the end of the day, but it's my decision to put myself in position to let them know, hey, I am interested.
05:57This is why I'm interested.
05:59It's not has anything, nothing.
06:00I mean, yeah, I'm a fan of what you do or a fan of what you where you come from, but I'm really more so interested in getting to know you.
06:07And I think that that's that's the the secret sauce to the entire show is that we people at home will recognize right away who's there for a good time and who's there, you know, to get their Instagram followers up or whatever.
06:23And then who's there genuinely looking for a partner?
06:26There were some tense conversations and and particularly with Carlos, who was forced to address his infidelity because Lexi had run a Google search.
06:34Yeah, by the time I was 20 and it was great, but I didn't really know what I was stepping into when I got to the NBA and I started getting a lot of like attention from people that were just different.
06:50Then I slipped and I fell and I had infidelity and I cheated.
06:54It really broke up my marriage and I had to go get help.
06:58What do you think about that?
07:00You know, at what point do you talk about that kind of stuff?
07:03Yeah, I think it's number one, very distasteful that Lexi did that.
07:07I think to nobody that was in that house that out of the 24 people that were in that house, the three kings or the 21 came in there with no past history.
07:18Carlos has been very open and honest about his infidelity, as have I in my regards to my divorce.
07:25If anything, they opened up an opportunity for us to actually show the world, hey, this is what recovery from trauma and tragedy looks like and making bad decisions in our younger life.
07:36Let's talk about something that happened 20 years ago.
07:38So if you Google something from anybody from 20 years ago to now, nine times out of 10, they're going to be a different person.
07:50Him and his ex-wife are best friends, both of his ex-wives.
07:54He's an amazing father.
07:56His kids are flourishing.
07:58He has a great relationship with them.
07:59Why would you try to discredit somebody with their past when we're sitting right here in the future?
08:06I really love to see you connect with Ariel, especially after she opened up about being a single mom to an autistic son.
08:12My son has autism.
08:13And I've been trying to get so many resources for him in the school, and it is so hard.
08:18I've had to move him twice because of the lack of competence and the lack of resources for him.
08:26I do a lot with kids with special needs and operate with a school called Lyft.
08:30What can you tease about how this connection will play out this season?
08:34I really have a great connection with Ariel, and her having a child didn't bother me at all.
08:42To me, that was never going to be a deciding factor as to whether or not I was going to pursue a relationship with her or anybody, whether or not they had children.
08:51The thing that would have derailed me would have been if she wanted to have more children.
08:56And the fact that she was okay with not having any more children made that connection even stronger.
09:01And you'll see throughout the course of this journey that we genuinely connected.
09:10And we had our tips, but it was just definitely a twinkle in my eye when I talked about her and talked to her and saying vice versa.
09:20Yeah, you could definitely see, like, the spark there watching it on the screen.
09:24You can always tell when people, like, immediately connect as opposed to, you know, when something's maybe not in it for the long haul or something else.
09:31Yeah, it's a little awkward, yeah.
09:31Yeah, exactly.
09:32She snuck a kiss, though.
09:33She did.
09:34You see the teaser.
09:35Like, people have been, because one of the things my kids, actually Carlos' kids told him, too, don't be out here kissing everybody.
09:42You know, don't be out here, and my whole thing when I talk to my kids is don't be out here, don't be out there embarrassing us.
09:48And so that's the first thing they say, hey, don't be out here embarrassing us.
09:51Yeah.
09:51And so, yeah, if you look at when we, there's a kiss on the teaser, and everybody's, like, texting me and saying, oh, you kiss, how many people you kiss?
10:02And so I was like, first off, I didn't kiss her.
10:05She kissed me.
10:06Yes.
10:06Yeah.
10:07I did not like it, but it caught me by surprise.
10:11Even that fun moment, because I think I even said at that time, so you're just going to steal a kiss, huh?
10:16You're just going to take one from me.
10:18But, yeah, we had, you know, I had a lot of fun with REO.
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