Ashley Darby Almost Quit Housewives When She Became A Mom. She’s Glad She Stayed.

The single-mom archetype has long been a staple of reality TV and dating shows in particular. But between the “mamacita” meme heard ’round the world in 2025 and the Bachelorette shakeup that made headline news earlier this year, she’s been scrutinized like never before. So what’s it really like to be a single woman and a mother on reality TV? Ashley Darby wasn’t a parent when she joined The Real Housewives of Potomac in 2016, but a decade later — and with a stint on Bravo’s Housewives dating show spinoff, Love Hotel, under her belt — she finds sharing her life with 6-year-old Dean and 5-year-old Dylan with the RHOP audience “rewarding on so many levels.” In her own words, Darby, 37, opens up about the ground rules that make it work, the fan feedback that makes it worth it, and the changing stigma around going on TV.

Respecting motherhood is part of a code of ethics we have among us on The Real Housewives of Potomac. Part of the reason we were brought together as a cast is because we have a shared moral compass, particularly as it relates to family. It unifies us, and it gives us a foundation. If we didn’t have any boundaries and gave zero F’s about these core pieces of our lives, I don’t think we’d have a successful show.

When I had Dean, though, I suddenly became very apprehensive about sharing my child with the world. It was one thing to go into this worrying about myself, but now I had this innocent being that I was opening up to public consumption. I know consumption is a strong word, but that’s essentially what it is. So I almost didn’t do it. There was maybe a 70% chance I was going to say no to another season. I also had postpartum depression. I was so worried about my son’s safety, I thought some psycho was going to try to kidnap Dean — all of these intrusive thoughts that were coming out. I love being a Housewife so much, but during that time, I was like, “This is no longer a part of who I am.”

“The support I got from mothers was on another level. In watching me, people felt seen, and I felt seen by them.”

A few things helped me come back around. I credit my husband at the time, Michael, for really helping me feel comfortable in my own skin again. (Part of negotiating co-parenting is figuring out the words to use, so in my family now, we say that I’m a single woman who is also a mother, not a single mother, because their father is in their lives.) I also have to credit the production company. The producers I’ve worked with reassured me that they would prioritize my children’s safety and always respect my boundaries. The perimeter of my house is never to be shown on TV, especially now that my kids are older, go to school, have friends, and do extracurriculars. The show is considerate of sensitive information that might give too much away about my children. Producers are in constant communication with me about my comfort levels, and they never push me to share more than I feel like sharing.

I’m glad I came around because sharing my family life on television has been rewarding on so many levels. The outpouring of support I got when I took the audience along to find my father, whom I’d never met a day in my life — it gives me chills to this day. I can’t really put it into words. And then when I talked about my postpartum depression, about how I didn’t want to leave the house and was having suicidal thoughts, how I thought everything could harm my baby, the support I got from mothers who had experienced that or were currently going through it was on another level. In watching me, people felt seen, and I felt seen by them.

At the same time, you also have to develop a really thick skin with the public. I’m grateful to other Housewives for being tough on me during my first season because that prepared me for when the show starts airing and you open up the doors to your personal life. I work hard to parent my children differently from how I was parented. My mom was a great mom, but she was a single mother with limited resources, and she was a very strict disciplinarian. There’s a scene where my kids are climbing up on my counter to get something to eat or something, and the amount of people who had just a complete conniption about it — they still bring it up to this day. I’m like, “I don’t know what to tell you. It works for us. You don’t have to love it. You don’t have to do it.”

“Housewives doesn’t shy away from us talking about the struggles of being a mom and the fact that we still got it and want to be, like, Ashley Got Her Groove Back.”

When you become a parent on reality TV, you start to reevaluate how you share the other parts of your life, and that definitely includes dating. I didn’t accept the offer to do Bravo’s Love Hotel until the eleventh hour because I didn’t really know the answers. How much do I show or not show? Do I kiss or not kiss? At that moment, my older son was becoming more aware of the fact that I wasn’t living with his dad, so I wasn’t sure about the timing of it all. But my mom and friends who know me — and know I’m a lover girl at heart — were like, “You have to do it. Otherwise it’ll be a coulda-woulda-shoulda situation.” One day the kids will grow up and move out of the house. Will I still be here thinking about the fact that I could have lived out one of my dating-show dreams?

I really love dating shows. It’s been a minute since I watched The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, but I watch Temptation Island, Too Hot to Handle, every Love Island edition — USA, U.K., Australia, South Africa. I watch them all. And it’s interesting: I find the international dating shows feature single parents way more than newer American shows. It’s refreshing to see.

There was a time when being a single parent going on a dating show carried some stigma, but I think that’s changing. Maybe because single parents are becoming more common in general, society is realizing that we were people before we were parents. And — especially in conversations about maternal health and mental health — we have to allow people to nurture who they are without looking at them through the lens of only being a parent. When Huda was on Love Island last year, I know some people were like, “Why did she take so long to share that she has a daughter?” But I totally understood it.

I actually credit Housewives a lot with this shift. Andy Cohen and the production companies don’t shy away from us talking about the struggles of being a mom and the fact that we still got it and want to be, like, Ashley Got Her Groove Back. We’re not all the way there as a culture, but I do think we’re a lot better. So if you’re a single parent and reality TV piques your interest, I say do it. You’re still a baddie — you just have to take a few more steps and assess the situation on so many fronts: How long you’re going to be away from your family is the big thing. And how far away will you be? How easy would it be to see your kids? As long as you cross your T’s and dot your I’s to make sure that your family is OK — because then that’ll bring you peace of mind during filming, too — it’s possible. There’s a lot of camaraderie and community ready to embrace you on the other side.

As told to Nolan Feeney.