BY DEBASHINE THANGEVELO
THERE is life after the Playboy mansion, but it is no party. And it’s something Kendra Leigh Baskett (née Wilkinson), one of Hugh Hefner’s seven girlfriends, is acutely aware of these days of.
Having once basked in the limelight, especially in their reality series, The Girls Next Door, Kendra, along with Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt, decided to leave the mansion in October, 2008.A year on, she bagged her owna reality series, Kendra. She had also gottenwas engaged to Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver, Hank Baskett, and they two tied the knot at the Playboy Mansion in 2009. In December that year, Hank Baskett IV was born.
Kendra, which captured her love story, induction into motherhood, including her and postpartum depression, only survived three seasons. After that, she published Sliding Into Home and made E! True Hollywood Story. Then she started Kendra On Top, which debuted in June, 2012. This series introduced the entire family and didn’t shy away from her meltdowns, the deterioration of her marriage following Hank’s transsexual scandal and their last-ditch attempt to save their relationship with a marriage boot-camp.
Unlike Keeping up with the Kardashians, where everyone always looks cover-ready, Kendra keeps it real. There are often moments when she is bare-faced, in slacks and has her hair roughly scrunched up in a bun. She wears her heart on her sleeve. And in the fourth season, she doesn’t hold back those ugly cries.
The show kicked off with flashbacks of Hank finally coming clean about the scandal that tore their marriage apart. However, there’s still an unmistakable distance between the two, despite them trying to make a go of things. Kendra, who is now wearing her ring again, still has many questions. There is a fragility lurking beneath the veneer of strength and fake smiles. In a chat with her therapist she admits to the “incident” being a wake-up call as to how weak her marriage was. She also admits to not being okay with any form of PDA with her husband.This festering rage inside her clearly isn’t being addressed. Kendra is feeling claustrophobic. She’s exhausted from trying to play happy family in Calabasas with Hank and her gorgeous little ones. She is yearning for an escape and a business trip to London offers her the opportunity to let her hair down.
In a chat with Hank, she says: “I’m looking forward to London. I’m so drained from everything we’ve been through.”
At the same time, Hank, nursing a lot of guilt, is also trying to bounce back from the scandal, news of his depression and his career taking a massive knock. He says: “People don’t want positive sh*t.”
He feels the public and media are baying for news of a divorce and/or some sort of negativity and aren’t thinking about how all of this impacts their kids. In London, Kendra rethinks her life choices. She also makes a few bad ones, too.. That’s coming up this season and there’s a lot on the line as Kendra is in hot pursuit of happiness.
Kendra on Top airs on Vuzu Amp (DStv channel 103) on Mondays at 6.30pm.