*Keyshia Cole’s first BET show “Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is” debuted in 2006, and it offered viewers a fascinating look inside her world as an R&B diva and her dysfunctional relationship with her melodramatic sister Neffeteria Pugh and their always turnt up mother, Frankie Lyons.
As a result of the success of Cole’s show, Frankie and Neffe nabbed their own spinoff show in 2009, but Neffe grew tired of the spotlight and dropped out of the reality TV world.
“I was over it,” Neffe said about her reality show. “It was overwhelming. I just didn’t want to be out there like that anymore. At the same time, it took a lot to back away from it. Reality TV is my job.”
Neffe says the show was hurting her family dynamic at the time. She got married afterwards, but income dried up.
‘We lost homes,” she said. “We lost cars. We stayed in hotel rooms.”
Broke and jobless, she and husband Soullow had to find ways to make ends meet, so they moved to Gainesville but lost their home there as well. Last year, they began shopping around a new reality project called “Family Therapy.” It was released free online as a means to reignite interest in the family. You can watch an episode here.
“Family Therapy” was pitched as “the show Keyshia Cole doesn’t want the world to see!” The controversial title certainly brought the attention, while upsetting Cole. They had a Twitter spat that only gave the show more attention. Perhaps that was their plan, manufacture PR. Well, it worked because BET came back to Neffe with an offer for another season of her reality show with her momma Frankie. Their show debuted earlier this month.
“We’re back in the game,” she said. “Crazy how God does things.”
Neffe says she and Keyshia are on good terms now: “We had a lot of tough moments but we’re in a great place now. We talk as often as possible… I spend quality time with my nephew. There was a period when we were going in two directions. She wasn’t connected. Now we can move forward as a family and sisters. I plan to visit her in a couple of weeks in Malibu.”
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