Kenya Moore & Phaedra Parks Beef, Trade Insults over Fitness Video Drama

By: Amanda Anderson-Niles

The Kenya Moore and Phaedra Parks beef is on. Phaedra and Kenya started off pretty great but things got a little rocky between them when Kenya appeared to be flirting with Apollo. Kenya explains she wasn’t and has no interest in Phaedra’s husband, but Phaedra still thinks her behavior was tacky. Despite that, both ladies moved forward in their friendship, and Kenya became interested in helping Phaedra and Apollo move forward with their fitness video project, Donkey Booty/Phine Body.

Kenya was particularly interested in distributing the DVD series, however, Phaedra wasn’t too thrilled when Kenya told her she wanted 10 percent of the profits and that it would cost around $100,000 to distribute. She also didn’t like that Kenya didn’t use an attorney as she proposed the deal.

As a result, Phaedra turned down Kenya’s proposal, and Kenya seems to be clapping back with her own fitness series. However, both took to their Bravo blogs the other day to trade insults and shade each other for what went down on the show.

Phaedra explains why she couldn’t go forward with the deal and cites Kenya’s “lack of business skills” as the reason why things didn’t work out. She writes:

While I have been noted as many things, a less that astute business woman has not been one of them. While we considered using Kenya, just like every other production company we contacted, we expected a budget, transparency, and the right to ask questions and receive answers. However, Kenya was opposed to all of this. She instead wanted my husband and me to pay her $100K in production fees with a 10% back end for an idea she did not invest in or assist in developing.

Instead of her using an attorney, which is standard for most business transactions, she wanted to negotiate the deal herself and became offended when our attorney questioned her about her budget and alleged distribution deal that we never agreed to nor received any paperwork for. I am assuming that she thought since we had known her for one month we would trust her with $100K without doing our due diligence. This blatant lack of rudimentary business acumen made me very skeptical as her resume and actions were not consistent with what she was telling us. Everybody knows if you do million dollar deals you minimally have an attorney on retainer and no one pays anyone 50% or a 10% back end for a product that they have no intellectual property interest in or financial risk/investment in. We never asked Kenya to secure a distribution deal, she did that on her own accord, we asked her to produce (i.e. tape/record and edit) our workout DVD. However, she used my name to solicit offers.

Kenya’s primary contention was we wanted her to work for free. Which is bologna! If payment of $100K is free, please let me use your magic calculator and meet your accountant. While she continuously said she was working for free, our research with over five different production companies revealed to us that with our $100K payment she would minimally net in profits no less than $47K for her services which is more than ample compensation for a day’s work and 2 half hour meetings.

Unfortunately, business deals often go sour. I have never been one to cry over spilled milk, because I usually have another gallon or two in the refrigerator to pour. However Kenya, who obviously does not have any current projects and/or business ventures, became obsessed with working on our project; taking every opportunity to whine about it with anyone who would listen. Her time would have been used more wisely if she would have just been forthcoming with us, or better yet, hired an attorney to negotiate the deal. Thankfully, we did not use her or her company and our Phine Body with Phaedra & Apollo Donkey Booty Volume I was successfully released on December 11 without a hitch or an emotional roller coaster attached to it! We do hope that Kenya will invest in a Business 101 class and we wish her all the best!

Kenya clapped back and claims her proposal was a fair one but also suggested that it was the best deal Phaedra could have taken because no other distribution company was interested:

As the little guy all my work is transparent. I’m upfront and honest unlike her shady creepy attorney lingering in the shadows of her office rather than join the meeting to set the facts straight. Honesty was not their paramount concern. I’m a producer, I’m paid to negotiate. I don’t need an attorney to negotiate my deals. I direct them on what to do. We need attorneys to solidify and “paper” the deal once made. The initial budget discussed with the distributor was $100,000 as I was aggressively pushing for them to finance the entire project at no cost to Phaedra. Once I knew that they weren’t interested in financing, I moved forward with a more modest budget according to their budgetary concerns of $35,000.

My distribution deal would have paid for MOST if not ALL of the costs to make the video because of the cash advance offered. For that, all I asked is for a mere 10% of her profits from the sales if any. Reasonable? OF COURSE. This also means if she never sold 1 video I wouldn’t receive any money. Respectively, she wouldn’t have lost any money. Again, she had a sweetheart deal.

The truth is the distributor was less than impressed by her name or her physique and her pot of gold-less donkey butt was the least impressive of all. She bragged about having other offers on the table yet, she distributed herself online to Amazon.com to abysmal sales using her own money. The truth is, no one wanted her video because they did not believe in her or her gimmicky video. I softened the blows in order to be positive, because I believed she was my friend and didn’t feel a need to hurt her feelings.