| Kendra Wilkinson has gone from ‘Girl Next Door,’ to wife and mom.
The 24-year-old Playmate, who gave birth to Hank Baskett Jr. in December, debuts the second season of her show ‘Kendra’ tonight, and talked to PopEater about being first-time parents with husband Hank Baskett and what the audience can expect to see this year.
“I’m excited, but I’m also nervous. It’s been the most real that we’ve ever shown — that we’ve ever filmed,” she tells us.
Wilkinson also discusses her struggle to get back into a bikini and body issues in Hollywood.
Are you excited for the second season?
I’m excited, but I’m also nervous. It’s been the most real that we’ve ever shown — that we’ve ever filmed. I’m part-producer and I have a choice, I have power to turn off the cameras or to turn on the cameras. I got a chance to tell them to turn on the cameras because this is something real, something that I want people to know about me, that I’m actually going through. I’m a normal human being just like everyone else and I go through problems. I just wanted the chance to capture those real moments. I invited some of my friends from California that are Playmates and that was just wrong timing because their bodies — they were so beautiful and I didn’t feel so beautiful then [because I just had a baby.] … I wanted the chance to capture my feelings from that.
What else can we expect, since things have changed so much in your life?
I’ve never held a baby, or changed a baby or taken care of a baby before. The cameras captured a lot of firsts — the first time bringing him home, the first time for a lot of things. The first time bringing him outside [which] was actually in Miami for the Super Bowl. It was a lot of firsts for everything … The thing about this season, we see it as a home video more than a show. We allowed the cameras to capture a lot. We’re excited to show the fans that we’re normal just like you. It’s cool because we’re not in Hollywood. We were in Indianapolis. We weren’t in New York, we weren’t in L.A. It’s so different — going from a glamorous life in L.A. to Indianapolis and raising a baby. Indianapolis is just so cool. The weather wasn’t the best, but the people were the best. You get a chance to see how [the city] is in the neighborhoods are and how cool the people are here.
How does Baby Hank feel about the cameras?
When we were shooting the show, he actually breaks the fourth wall and he stares in the camera all the time. He follows the camera guy … he loves it so much. He loves the cameras. He laughs and smiles at them. The camera guy is like “Your baby keeps staring in the camera!” It’s so funny. He is enjoying it. Every single person like me, Hank, the camera crew, the producers — they all know, before shooting the season, we said “Guess whose schedule we’re on this year? We’re on the baby’s schedule.” So guess what, that means, every three hours, the baby has to feed. So the cameras shut down. It’s definitely different shooting this season. It’s a lot more work, but it’s a lot of fun.
Cameras have been following you for a long time, was it an easy transition with the baby?
It was hard to agree to shooting this second season because of the baby. We only agreed to [it] as long as we had the same camera people as we did for years. We’re out here in Indianapolis and they were going to hire a whole new crew and we said “Absolutely not. We’re not going to shoot with other people, we don’t know them.” … We were used to them and they were people we trust. But it’s been great. We’re so comfortable with doing it. And it’s just like shooting a home video.
That must make it easy to go back and watch them.
I don’t think it will be that easy this year. Of course I’ve grown a lot. I’ve grown out of a lot things that I’ve gone through. It’s going to be crazy to watch the show and see our first diaper change compared to now.
You’ve said you didn’t have a lot of experience with babies before.
Our first couple of diaper changes, we were set on going into his room and putting him on the diaper desk and now we’re can be anywhere and change his diaper. We swap him around, we’re so careful before. We were so scared and so careful with every single step we made with him. And now we’re just like flopping him around.
You hear that a lot with first time mothers.
After the first of everything, everything else is just a breeze.
A few weeks after giving birth, you posed in a bikini on OK! Was it nervewracking getting back into a bathing suit?
It was really scary … I wasn’t ready for that after-body shoot, but I did it.
Did you feel pressure to lose the baby weight?
There was a lot of pressure for me to lose the weight. I feel like going back to Hollywood, is the pressure itself. In Hollywood, anything over a size 2 is considered fat and I really hate that. I’m really against all that. It’s not Hollywood, it’s the fans. The people on message boards that call me fat because I’m not a size 2 anymore.
That must be hard to deal with.
It’s really hard. I know I’m not supposed to listen to people. It’s also pressure, it’s my job. My job is Hollywood.
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