The MONEY talk with
Kandi Burruss
Candid conversations
with people we love.76 MONEY.COM MARCH^2019
MONEY: How did you think
about money when you were
growing up?
KANDI BURRUSS:I was a
saver as a kid—that was my
thing. I always wanted to make
sure I had something [stashed
away], you know?
My mom used to drive me to
neighborhoods with big fancy
houses and stuff. We’d ride
around all the time and dream,
“Oh, one day we’re going to
have a house like that.” It’s re-
ally crazy to me now that I can
afford any of those houses.Did you make a big pur-
chase with your first
paycheck?
[My group, Xscape,] signed
our first record deal when I
was 16. I only got a few thou-
sand dollars, but my mom
was like, “Okay, we’ll put this
with my money,” and we pur-
chased the house across the
street from where we lived.
That was my first invest-
ment—with my mom.
As soon as we had our first
hit record and we started do-
ing shows, all my other groupmembers bought Benzes
and different things. But
I wanted to see a certain
amount of money in my bank
account. I remember I was
like, “I will not spend a dollar
until I can see $100,000 in
my account.”
I finally purchased a car. I
put some money down on it so
that I could establish credit.What kind of car was it?
It was a BMW 325i. It was blue,
and I had trimming to match.
I wanted it to look like theMclass, even though it wasn’t.
So I just painted it and got the
rims that matched it. You
couldn’t tell the difference.How do you leverage The
Real Housewives of Atlanta
to make money?
When you’re first starting on
reality TV, they’re not trying
to pay you much. I gained a lot
of fans, but my thoughts were
[that] the money has to match
my popularity. I had to make it
bigger than the show.
So I was like, “Okay, every
year when [viewers] see me on
the show, they will see me ac-
complish something.” It’s my
timeline. If I say it’s something
I want to do, it is a rule of
thumb for me and my team—
it has to happen. I am going to
be a person of my word. You
know how you joke about a lot
of reality stars—they’re always
talking about something and
you never see the product?
I won’t be that girl. I don’t get
a kick out of just arguing with
people all day. That doesn’t do
me any good. You have to find
other ways to make it make
sense for you.Are you still getting a lot
of money from writing the
smash TLC song “No
Scrubs”?
Uh, yeah. Ed Sheeran used
“No Scrubs” in his song
[“Shape of You”], so we now
are cowriters on his song.
Because you can’t just use
somebody’s song—it doesn’t
work like that. So basically
he uses our song, and we got
a percentage of his. It ended
up getting awards; it was
huge. It was like the most
streamed song, and it’s a
good check every year.The Real Housewife
doesn’t let her fame
go to waste.
BY JULIAGLUMPA
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