Pinky Cole on Bankruptcy, Business, and Bearing It All in Debut Season of ‘RHOA’ (Exclusive)

There’s a new face on the forthcoming 17th season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Baltimore native Pinky Cole is ready to step in as the juiciest peach of the cast. Owner of the popular Slutty Vegan restaurant chain and Bar Vegan in Atlanta and in cities across the country, she put plant-based foods on the map in the South.

Outside of her work in the food business, she is also a dedicated philanthropist and head of the Pinky Cole Foundation, which is committed to uplifting marginalized and underrepresented communities and breaking the cycle of poverty by providing access to resources and education to pursue their entrepreneurial goals. Cole has been named to Restaurant Hospitality’s 2021 Power List, Forbes Next 1000, Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top 100 Powerful Women in Business List, LA Wire Influential Women of 2020, PETA’s 2021 Most Beautiful Vegan Celebrities List and Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 40 Under 40 List as well as a 2023 TIME100 Next List honoree. Most recently, Cole was a finalist for the 2024 EYEntrepreneur of the Year Award.  

A devoted wife and mother of five, she’s been vocal about her business highs and lows, with recent news of her filing for bankruptcy. But she’s never down for long. Ahead of the premiere episode, PopCulture.com spoke with Cole about making her splash in the reality space, and what to expect from her this season and beyond. 

PopCulture: First and foremost, congratulations on joining the show. The franchise is 17 seasons in, so why join the show and do reality TV at this point?

Pinky Cole: The timing shouldn’t have been better. This was right after I declared that I filed an assignment for the benefit of creditors, and to be totally transparent with you, my business is all out in the streets anyway, so I said, at this point, I’m an open book, and my testimony could really save somebody else’s life. And if I utilize a platform like this one and it’s an opportunity to connect with some other successful women who are also navigating life and business and family, I know that this could be impactful and successful.

So when I decided to do the show, I think that was one of the best decisions that I’ve made, because I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about what it means to be a part and amongst a friend group, especially when you have somebody like me who’s been so independent for so long. I travel alone, but to be around new energy, new women and new personalities, I’m happy that I did it, and I think it’s going to be a great season 17.

Now let’s talk about your relationship with some of your co-stars or all of your co-stars at this point. So from what I could gather, you were friends with Phaedra Parks. Who else were you friends with on the show prior to joining the cast?

Shamea, and I was actually just [with] Shamea just now, but Shamea’s been my girl for a long time. It’s funny how I met her. She used to be on the radio and she used to interview me all the time, so we built a rapport there, and she is just a ball of energy as you, everybody knows.

Cynthia, we’ve been cool for the last couple of years. Obviously, we run in the same spaces, so we have mutual friends.

Michelle and I, we actually had mutual friends, and she’s my sorority sister. So my investor is actually her line sister, which is like a cool lemon squeeze, but we connected from the onset and that’s my girl.

Kelli and I, we also have run in the same spaces, she has Nana’s Chicken and Waffles and I have Slutty Vegan, so I’ve seen her at several restaurant conferences, speaking engagements, and just knowing the successful restaurateurs in the city, so, we’ve always had a rapport as well.

I did not know Angela and Drew prior to getting in this girl group. So now I’ve gotten the opportunity to get to know them myself, and just navigate what that friendship looks like.

Were you surprised by any beef on the show? I know sometimes joining a reality show can be like fish out of water. A lot of people say that they don’t know what’s real, what’s not, the whole idea of breaking the fourth wall, having to do confessionals and things of that nature. So outside of just any beef on the show, what else surprised you by becoming a part of this world now?

What surprised me is I didn’t realize I was gonna like Porsha that much. I think Porsha is really funny, and not that it was a shocker that I would like her that much, but I think that she is who she is, and either you love her or leave her alone. So to build a relationship with her is pretty cool because she’s a cool girl.

What else I was surprised about is how often the women argue. I would be like, “What are y’all arguing about now?” I hear my kids arguing back and forth all the time, so to see grown women doing it, I was actually very shocked because I haven’t been around it in a very long time. You gotta imagine I’m an entrepreneur, who’s just building in real time, and I guess because I got enough drama in my own life, I was really focused on that. But I’m surprised at that, but I also understand the climate and the ecosystem, and I get it. People are having real issues, so you solve real problems, and that’s what happens on the show.

You did mention that a lot of your business is out there for public consumption, so why not join the show? One of the things that we do know about you is that you have been open about your highs and lows in the business world and what that looks like, even in terms of recently having to file for bankruptcy and just restructuring your business and things of that nature. How much of that will we see on the show?

Oh, you will see all of it. I said that if I decided to do this, I’m going all in. What is the point of, let’s be honest, what is the point of joining a reality TV show if you’re gonna hold back? You’re just wasting space at that point. So I said that I was going to be fully open and honest even if it felt uncomfortable, and there were a lot of uncomfortable, vulnerable moments. I suffered in silence for a good amount of time with everything that happened in my business, so now I’m on to the healing process and I can be able to openly talk about it, and I’m not ashamed.

What makes a great leader is that you can rise above your circumstance. So yes, I’ve filed for bankruptcy, yes, I’ve had difficult times in business and had to navigate and had to start over, but you also see me rise above the ashes every single time. You also see me show people that even when you fall, you can get back up 10 times. You also see me, being confident, and still believing in my business even despite the roller coasters. So people will get to see that about me. 

You won’t see as much of me arguing with the whole group. I’m not bringing the drama energy. That’s not who I am to the group, but I do have drama in my personal life, and I think that people will be tuned in and they surely will be entertained.

You also weren’t afraid to speak your mind or be involved in the drama if need be, because you definitely were chiming in a lot in the premiere episode. And it made for a lot of good commentary. So as you mentioned, you were shocked just by how much arguing takes place. What types of negative encounters did you get into with your co-stars?

Well, you will see a little razzle-dazzle. Me and Angela had our spat. I’m sure that you saw the clips. I told her that I would buy her foreclosed houses. She called me Mr. Clean. And that was the first wave of Pinky not playing with y’all that. The world will see. I’m super sweet. I’m sweet like sugar, but I can turn into salt real fast if you put me in position to do that. So I don’t like to start or leave with that energy, but I can end it there. 

But for the most part, I did enough stuff going on. So I wanted to be the peacemaker. I wanted to be the glue for the group and just really show them that there’s a better way to communicate, that there’s a better way to resolve problems, there’s a better way to identify a breakdown, and I pray that it’s translated that way when you see it starting on Sunday.

I want to talk about Slutty Vegan. What are your expansion plans? Have you thought about bringing one to the East Coast, maybe Philly?

It’s funny because somebody just inquired about Pittsburgh, so obviously that’s not Philly.  Despite all the negative press that I’ve gotten and all of the things that you see on the internet, I have gotten so many franchise requests. People see what’s happening online. People see the story and the drama and the breakdown, but people still believe in my brand. And what I’ve learned even just most recently is that I have a bulletproof business. Slutty Vegan is weatherproof. And we’ve got a lot of things in the pipeline. 

We’re signing franchisees that are experienced operators, which is one of the pieces that I missed, in 1.0, but 2.0 is giving more intentional scaling, efficiently, and I’m excited about this new journey and this new pathway. So what you see on the show is you will see the breakdown, you will see me evolving in entrepreneurship, you will see me navigating through marriage and through life and through the hard times, but what you also see is growth. You see growth in business, you see the bounce back, and everybody loves a good bounce back story. I’m just so happy because there’s gonna be a pocket of people that are gonna be rooting for me, and believing that they too can run through that brick wall because they see me do it.

Did you come into reality TV with any strategy to avoid any potential pitfalls? You can start out as a fan favorite and be villainized within the same season. There’s also the idea of the reality TV curse on marriages, there’s been prison scandals etc. How did you go about avoiding some of this? Did you think about all of these things?

I did, but when I said I do, he said I do too. And the minute that you say I do, when you really say I do, it ain’t no switching up. We are locked in like skin. And the beautiful part about my marriage is, yes we’ve had challenges, especially through my restructure, and yes, we’ve had some breakdowns, because so has everybody else. Nobody is giving us a rule book about marriage. We’re navigating this as 30-something year olds who both have multi-million dollar businesses, we have five kids, we live in a country club, we’re learning this thing called life in real time. And we really just don’t have a rulebook. So we’re learning it on the fly.

But what I will say is that we are clear on what the mission is. And the mission is doing right by God and making sure that our children are happy and healthy, and they see love in the household. So whatever we gotta do to get there, that comes first, and we are not going to be polluted by outside energy, outside noise, opinions, judgment. That part don’t even matter because we are so locked in.

And what are you excited for people to see out of your personal storyline this season?

I think that people will be really surprised when they realize I’m not boring. When the announcement came out that I was on the show, you look at some comments, and some of the comments were like, “Well, and she’s gonna be boring because all she does is talk about business.” Which I do, right? I talk about business a lot because that is the core of who I am. I am a builder, at heart, but I’m fun to be around. I think people are going to love my personality, they’re gonna love my family dynamic, they’re gonna love that I have a daughter, who is a superstar in the making and I’m her momager, so you get to see all aspects of Pinky Cole Hayes, and I think that you’ll fall in love with that.

I give a little bit of amen, but I give a little bit of cussing out at the same time, while giving you a business idea, about the consult that I just gave you. So you’re gonna get a little bit of that. And nonetheless, I think that people will be pleasantly surprised at how much I fit in with this friend group.

The Real Housewives of Atlanta premieres on Bravo on Sunday, April 5 at 8:00 p.m.