Paper Mag Interviews Phaedra Parks

Papermag.com:

It's no secret that here at PAPER we're big fans of many a reality TV show.  While there are a slew of reality stars whose lives we obsess over and dissect at the kitchen table, perhaps no one is more beloved than Phaedra Parks, the amazing and larger-than-live breakout star from Real Housewives of Atlanta.  Over the course of a lunch and a follow-up visit to our office, PAPER's Kim Hastreiter and Mr. Mickey sat down with Phaedra and talked about everything from her funeral business to being close friends with the Ghanian royal family.  Here, we present the definitive Phaedra Parks interview.

Kim: So let's talk about your new funeral business, Phaedra Fantasy Funerals. What can you share with us about it?

Phaedra:  I'm in school so I'm actively burying people and embalming them because you have to embalm so many bodies in order to get your complete certification to be licensed.

Kim: How'd you get into the funeral business?

Phaedra: [My] best friend was murdered in New Orleans on her birthday and I helped with her funeral. It was tragedies like that that put me in a position to get up close with funerals and bodies and see how they should be restored. I wanted my [deceased friends] to look like they did when they were alive and I wanted them to have a great funeral. So I took it upon myself to go to the funeral homes, talk to the morticians and really get involved in the planning of the service and through that I got really intrigued with the whole process of the burial and what you had to do to restore people to what they looked like prior. And so that's what brought me to where I am now.

Kim: What about the production? Because in a way it's like an event production.

Phaedra: It's definitely like an event.  I really see myself as being the Vera Wang of funerals. I'm very creative and I'm always thinking outside the box.  I want people to call me from Wisconsin and say, "Honey, so-and-so died.  Can you come make us this huge, fabulous event?"  I want to travel.  I want to be the "master funeral planner." I want to be the life celebrant, giving them the concept, executing a beautiful service, sending them away with nice mementos of the service and making it special.

Kim: Sky-writing, fireworks...

Phaedra: Yeah, exactly. And I've looked into some [new] stuff.  Now they have the eco-friendly burials at sea and ashes in diamonds.

Kim: Ashes in diamonds? What do you mean?

Phaedra: You can get ashes put inside a diamond.  And I wanna put the "boom" in "tomb."  I don't want to be routine. I want to be really cutting edge.

Kim: Have you actually produced any amazing funerals yet?

Phaedra: Oh god yeah.

Kim: What were they like?

Phaedra:  Most of the funerals I do are usually in Atlanta and high-end stuff. I focus on those bells and whistles.  I have people who want a specialty casket that looks like a car.

Kim: Where do you go to find that?

Phaedra: There are custom casket companies, so if they can pay for it, I can get it.  I've also had people that want to be changed several times.

Kim: Outfit changes? During the wake?

Phaedra: I've had a three outfit changer.

Kim: Oh my god, that's so good! Was it a woman?

Phaedra: No, it was a guy.  He wanted three outfits: one for the wake, one for the funeral and one for the burial. He had told his family [that]. And so we actually moved him three times. He wanted to be in three different places. So that was very interesting.

Kim: Wow.

Phaedra: Yeah, so people have weird requests like that. And then some people want to look like they did when they were younger so they want a hairdo change.  For instance, they might have been balding -- and these are usually guys -- so I've taken hair from the back and put it on top to make them look younger.  Some people want a horse and carriage, and at the funeral home we've got five different types of buggies. And some people want a whole procession of people marching behind them on the street.

Kim: And what about your other businesses?  Can you tell us about your exercise videos?

Phaedra: Donkey booty! It's a beautiful thing to have a beautiful bottom. My husband and I are both workout fanatics -- we work out six days a week.  He's all into the insane stuff and I'm not quite that extreme. I'm big on cycling, yoga, pilates. I had a fabulous booty before I had my baby and when I had him, my butt just did this kind of smoosh thing. It tripped me out so I was like "God, I got to get back into the gym." So I really focused on my butt and my legs and a lot of women started saying "Well, how do you get that donkey booty?" My husband was like, "You know, we should help women do that." And I'm gonna introduce a line of padded panties, so if you can't work it out, you can work it out.   I've been working with the guy who does shapewear, so I'm in the process of making some that incorporate a little padding in the butt for people that aren't sitting on a pillow. 

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