Credit: Charles Sykes/Bravo, Instagram
Pinky Cole reacted to Angela Oakley‘s suggestion that she was a know-it-all in business while appearing on Angela Yee‘s podcast at the end of April.
As she also poked fun at her irrelevant drama with Phaedra Parks, 52, admitted to facing marital hardships with her husband Derrick Hayes, 38, and recalled trauma-bonding with Kelli Ferrell, 41, the 38-year-old Real Housewives of Atlanta newbie addressed rumors of losing her house and clapped back at Angela, 45.
“It’s interesting because I’ve done in my professional career, what not a lot of women who look like me have been able to do, so a lot of the times that I fell on my face, I had to do it myself. I had to learn by myself,” Pinky began on the April 24 episode of Way Up With Angela Yee.
Then, acknowledging what Angela said about her, Pinky clarified, “I don’t think I know everything, but I got a lot of expertise.”
“I know what it feels like to fail. I know what it feels like to win. I know what it feels like to raise $33 million dollars. I know what it feels like to have a company valued at a million dollars. I know what it feels like to file [for] bankruptcy. I know what it feels like to go through a restructure. So I know a thing or two about entrepreneurship,” she continued. “I got range, okay? So, that level of range didn’t come from picking up the phone and talking to a mentor. It came from actually falling on my face cuz I didn’t have a lot of people who actually went through that same experience that I did.”
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As for her drama with Phaedra, who she confirmed she’d known “for a long time,” Pinky said she didn’t understand Phaedra’s issue with her.
“I’m not about to take up the time in this interview to talk about Phaedra cuz that’s not relevant … Ain’t nothing bumping. She bumping with herself,” Pinky stated.
Since making her debut on RHOA earlier this year, Pinky said she’s gotten mixed reactions from the Bravo audience.
“I think that the audience is treating me just like they would treat any new rookie. Like, you still trying to figure out like, ‘Who is this person? Why do we want to like her? What is it about her that’s special?’ You know, people going to have their opinions. But I’m not designed to people’s opinions,” she reasoned. “I’m getting good, healthy feedback. A lot of people like my realness, the real story. And then there’s people that’s like, ‘She don’t fit.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t fit, and that’s why it’s the perfect fit.’”
“I don’t look like them. I don’t act like them. My energy is different,” she went on. “I’m on another frequency, but that is exactly why it works amongst this group.”
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Regarding her marriage, Pinky said she and Derrick “went through some rocky patches.”
“It was hard because when I was getting my rise in business, Derrick was supporting me, and then he got his moment, and then as much as I tried to support him, this is when my business started crumbling, so like, it got tough at home to be honest because like, I caved in. I got quiet. I was stressed. [And] I got depressed,” she confessed. “And he was like, ‘What’s going on? What’s wrong with you?’”
Although the dynamic caused some traffic in her marriage, Pinky confirmed that she and Derrick are now “over that hump.”
“The reason I’m open and vocal about that is because people don’t talk about that side, when you think about business, entrepreneurship, and marriages, and I want people to know that you can really fight through the hardest thunderstorms in your marriage, and no matter what, we’re gonna keep fighting,” she declared. “We’re gonna keep swinging til the wheels fall off. He ain’t going nowhere. I’m not going nowhere. We locked in like skin.”
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As she faced hardships with her Slutty Vegan brand amid production on season 17, Pinky found a friend in Kelli, who was struggling with her own business.
“It’s a lot of trauma bonding happening over failed businesses,” Pinky noted, proceeding to applaud Kelli for her ability to “keep it moving.”
“One thing that all the women do really well is they know how to just keep going,” she revealed. “It could be hard today. You just start over tomorrow. And there’s nothing wrong with starting over, right? She got the best fried green tomatoes on this side of the hemisphere. So yeah, she may have closed Sandy Springs, but she’s doing incredibly well in her next location, and she’s gonna do even better as she opens up more locations, and that’s the name of the game.”
“I’ve closed several locations. That don’t mean that I’m a failed businesswoman. That means that that location didn’t work and that’s okay,” she added.
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Also during the interview, Pinky shared what actually happened with the seizure of her home.
“The house, they actually deemed it abandoned because the tenant wasn’t in there at the time, so they put the locks on the door, but I don’t know that they knew that I filed for personal bankruptcy, which is why I was able to get my house back so fast and why the creditors, they had to pay my legal fees because my mortgage was current.”
Pinky went on to explain that the home had been deemed as abandoned because the grass hadn’t been cut and the mailbox was broken.
“But we went to court in two days, and I got my property back,” she confirmed.
She also said that the photos shown in the press weren’t of the home in question.
“This is just one of my investment properties, and they’re showing my primary home on the internet. I’m like, ‘What is going on?’ But it just tells me that headlines are made up. They are not real,” she concluded.
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The Real Housewives of Atlanta season 17 airs Sundays at 8/7c on Bravo.