Last year, we announced a partnership with London Broadcasting, which owns KTXD, a local channel that, with our help, is about to get a whole lot more local. On February 18, we are launching a morning show called D: The Broadcast. It will be co-hosted by four ladies whose names you’ll likely know. Think The View — only not. This week on FrontBurner, I’m rolling out a new Q&A each day with a different host. Today is Courtney Kerr’s turn. You know her from the fashion blog What Courtney Wore and from the reality show Most Eligible Dallas (here’s the scene where she sucked face in a hot tub with a guy named Matt Nordgren). Let’s dive right in:
Tim Rogers: You ready for some real journalism-style Q&A here?
Courtney Kerr: Oh, are you going to bust my balls?
TR: Bust your balls? What could I possibly bust your balls about?
CK: (laughs) I’ve seen your articles before, Tim! I’m no stranger to your literary —
TR: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
CK: Oh you stop it. Get after it.
TR: Your blog, What Courtney Wore, as I understand it, you put on clothes, and then you take pictures of clothes.
CK: How narcissistic is that?
TR: And people look at your clothes.
CK: And then people tell me how much they love my outfits. Isn’t that like the most like self-serving thing you’ve ever heard?
TR: (laughs)
CK: It’s like, I’m going to take pictures of myself in outfits that I think are adorable and then I’m going to put them on a website, after my own name, titled under my own name, and then I want you to tell me how fabulous I am. Can you tell I’m an only child?
TR: You’ve got to go with what works, you know.
CK: Here’s the deal on the blog. It started from Most Eligible Dallas, people would send me like tweets or Facebook messages or emails and say, “What was the dress you were wearing in, like, Episode 3 at minute 49, right before you got in the hot tub with Matt Nordgren?” And, so I got sick of answering all of those questions, just cause I was doing it non-stop, so one of my friends was like, “You need to just start a blog and put all of your outfits up there and everything you wore on the show.” Well then after the show ended, it kind of just, I had this audience of people that loved my style, and I kind of saw a business there, and style blogging has become such a huge platform in the fashion industry, and so it kind of just happened oddly, like very organic — I hate the word organic — but it happened very organically, and there’s and audience there, and I enjoy the ability to create inspiration for girls that maybe live in like normalamerica.com, and they can go to my site and go, “Oh my gosh, I have a pair of leopard jeans, and I can wear them this way!” or, “Oh I have those shoes, and that’s a different way to style them!”
TR: Right, but the way it works now, if I’m not mistaken, is that you don’t pick all those outfits, because now people pay you to wear that stuff.
CK: No, and there’s actually a policy on my blog. If you go to the about page, it talks about, “You’re more than happy to send me stuff, but I only wear stuff that I really like.” Yes, some of the products are sent by designers, but I don’t exchange money or get paid — I don’t do any paid posts, if that’s what you’re asking.
TR: And you get paid if someone clicks through —
CK: I get paid through all the linking.
TR: Got it, got it. You don’t put a photo up every single day, do you?
CK: No, I don’t. I work with a photographer here in Dallas, Molly Miller. She has a blog called A Piece of Toast, her and her sister, and she’s a credited photographer, and she comes to my house once a week and we’ll bang out about a week’s worth of outfits, and put up some outfits. It’s fun for me, and when I don’t post regularly, the readers get upset. If you would have told me ten years ago when I started my retail job at Neiman’s NorthPark that I’d be getting paid to put pictures of myself on a website, I would have laughed at you.
TR: What did you do at Neiman’s NorthPark?
CK: I worked in the makeup department.
TR: You weren’t one of those people who tries to spray people?
CK: No, I didn’t attack you with perfume, trust me! But I interned with them in their PR division in college, and then — I just, I have retail in my blood. I love selling. I love retail. If I had time, I would go back and just work part-time in a retail store, because I love the customer experience. I think people are either born with that personality, or they’re not.
TR: You might be the only human in America that feels that way about working in retail.
CK: No, see, I always tell all my friends that work retail — I’m like, we should write a book about all the crazy customers, and the experiences and stories that people have that work retail.
TR: Okay, so you brought up Most Eligible Dallas and —
CK: (laughs) I know you have some opinions about Most Eligible Dallas.
TR: I have to confess, I haven’t seen a single episode.
CK: Aw, that’s sweet!
TR: But I asked around the office, and the girls around me said, You have to ask how fake that romance was with Matt.
CK: Um, it wasn’t, actually.
TR: Come on!
CK: No! It really wasn’t!
TR: I don’t know what I’m talking about, but come on!
CK: I know! Matt and I dated, um — well let me rephrase — Matt and I were friends for five years, and it was just kind of one of those things that once the anticipation of “Will they or won’t they?” started happening, and once everyone around you starts asking, like, “Are you going to date him?”, “Are you ever going to date him?”, “Have y’all ever kissed?”, “Have y’all ever made out?”, “Have you ever like, gone there?”, and you keep saying no, like eventually you just say, Well, let’s try this.
TR: So when you say let’s try this, I mean, it’s not just the same thing as if your friends were saying, “Are you ever going to date him?” You’re talking about television producers, I assume, who are pushing you in that direction.
CK: They’re not necessarily pushing. It wasn’t fake by any means. I think we both wondered, like, will we ever? And so it eventually happened, and it happened when the cameras were rolling. If people want to call that fake, that’s fine.
TR: So the spinoff is Courtney Loves Dallas. That’s on Bravo. How are you going to juggle the duties for that, the Bravo show, and The Broacast morning show?
CK: We’re almost done filming Courtney Loves Dallas, so as far as the duties of Courtney Loves Dallas, like they came out throughout the fall and filmed, and it was a fun show to film, and I think the audience is really going to love it. You know, I think if people are thinking it’s Most Eligible Part Two, they’re completely wrong.
TR: So how would you describe it?
CK: I would describe it as a 31-year-old single gal, who loves Dallas, who’s just kind of navigating her way through the city that is filled with $30,000 millionaires. And I think it’s tough being my age and being single, because if you meet a single guy, you’re like, “Okay, you’ve dated a friend who’s dated a friend, and I know everything already about you and I’ve never shook your hand.” So it’s tough. So I think women are going to relate to it. People that like me, that were fans of me on Most Eligible I think will like it. And even people that hated me I think will like it because it will give them some good material. It’s a fun, sexy show. I think it’s maybe a real life version, a little bit, of Sex And The City.
TR: Are there going to be any hot tubs involved?
CK: Um, there was not a hot tub involved.
TR: I heard that Matt does make an appearance on this show.
CK: Matt does make an appearance in the show.
TR: Something shocking happens. Is that true?
CK: Matt does make an appearance, and I think people will be shocked — I think people are expecting one thing when it comes Matt and I’s relationship, but I think, um, I think people in Dallas are going to be high-fiving me the next day after they see Matt Nordgren’s appearance.
TR: Mmmm, so curious.
CK: I know. But you’re really not, though.
TR: No, not at all.
CK: (laughs)
TR: I’ll tell the girls I work with, and they’ll be curious. So let’s talk about D: The Broadcast. Of the other girls, okay, [Woman Revealed Tuesday, Woman Revealed Wednesday, Woman Revealed Thursday]. Which one do you hate the most?
CK: Oh, my gosh! You can’t even do that! That’s so rude, Tim! You know who I’ll say I hate the most? I hate [Woman Revealed Thursday] the most because she’s so flawlessly perfect. She’s just one of those people. I catch myself staring at her because she’s so beautiful, and she’s so poised, and she’s everything that I want to be. She’s just got it all together, and I love that.
TR: Well I talked to [Woman Revealed Thursday] yesterday, and she was remarking about how the four of you have clicked. I think she’s already set up dance lessons with [Woman Revealed Tuesday], or they’re talking about taking dance lessons together.
CK: Oh, my gosh, the four of us together, it’s kind of like Four’s Company. The dynamic between the four of us is really interesting, and I think any woman in Dallas will be able to relate to one of the four of us. I think that the station and D Magazine did a really great job of choosing four women that represent four different — um, you know, not stereotypes, but demographics, or whatever word you want to use.
TR: What if I were a Latina lesbian? There are no Latina lesbians on the show.
CK: We need a lesbian! Well [Woman Revealed Tuesday], she’s Hispanic, so there’s that.
TR: But I think she’s straight, so you’re missing out a whole demo there.
CK: No, she’s straight. You’re a hot mess, Tim. But I mean, every girl’s been curious at some point in her life, so, you know.
TR: Well, I’m looking forward to seeing how the show works out, I really am.
CK: What else do you have for me? No hard-hitting questions?
TR: What’s your stance on gun control? Should people be allowed to have high-capacity magazines?
CK: I mean, do you — (laughs) — gun control, we’re really going to talk about gun control? You can’t ask a hot-head, big-haired, fashionable girl about gun control unless you want a completely loaded answer.
TR: Well I think [Woman Revealed Wednesday], if she doesn’t have a CHL, that woman definitely knows her way around a handgun.
CK: Pun intended, she’s a pistol. She is a firecracker.
TR: Maybe we need to get all four of you out on a gun range.
CK: That sounds terrifying, and like ratings gold, actually.
TR: Alright Courtney, that’s all I have for you.
CK: Okay, that was — you were easy! That was a little afternoon delight, Tim, you were so easy. It was hot for me. I was, like, ready to pour a stiff drink!
