Ready To Love is celebrating 100 episodes and Tommy Miles is dishing on the spicy series that’s spanned seven seasons.
Source: OWN / OWN
The host is preparing for tonight’s retrospective Ready To Love special that takes a look back at the sexy singles who sought love in Atlanta, Houston, DC, and Miami.
Tommy will be joined by past participants, Oprah Winfrey, RTL creator Will Packer, and super fans who’ll recap the show’s most dramatic moments and most heartwarming connections.
Ahead of that, Tommy told BOSSIP what we can expect and also revealed his favorite RTL couple of all time that he “thought the world of.”
Check out our Q&A and tune in to the Ready To Love 100th episode special at 8 p.m. ET/PT on OWN.
Congratulations on one hundred episodes of Ready to Love! Why do you think that the Ready to Love fans have been attracted to this show and continue to watch it?
I think people want to root for someone to win. I think it’s that Friday night tune-in, it’s the show that you get to root for whom you want to root for. Everybody is wanting this person to connect with that person and vice versa. And it has become a show that couples watch together and they have their likes and their dislikes and their differences and it’s just great. You get so many love stories out of it and you get to tune in and you get to pull for sometimes the underdogs, sometimes you get to pull for those that you had no idea were going to be together. And I think that’s the thing. People like to be able to tune in and get to cheer on for something. And to me, I’ll be honest with you, ain’t nothing like Black love and they get to see it nice and fresh on the OWN network every Friday night.
You’ve got a show that is really making that happen and you’ve been with it since the very beginning…
I have, I’ve been with it from the beginning. I can’t forget, I was at my apartment in Los Angeles and Will Packer gave me a call. Well, he sent me a text. He sent me a text and showing me that he had a new show that was going to be hitting the OWN network with Oprah Winfrey. And I said, “Well congratulations, you’re doing your thing.” He says, “I’m starting Ready to Love and I want you to be the host.” And I was like… I’m thinking this is a Will Packer prank! I prank call everybody else so I thought he was pranking me. And I’m like, “Yeah, okay. Come on man, don’t do this.” He’s like, “Nah Tom, you’re the man for this.” And I was like, “Oh my God.” I dropped to my knees, I cried like a baby. And it’s been home runs ever since from season one all the way to now, to a hundred episodes. We’ve been getting it, we’ve been doing it, and we’ve been walking away with some couples who are finding wedding bells and it just doesn’t stop. The success it just keeps rising.
How have you seen the show grow and change since that first season in Atlanta? Have you been able to add more of your curve balls or help develop challenges?
Yes. The curve balls got stronger and stronger as we progressed, as we added more seasons. And rightfully so because I think the curve ball is not only for the contestants but also for the viewers. And it helps because you sit down for another season and guess what? You don’t know what’s going to happen. And that’s what I like about it because we get the people on the couch are sitting on the edge of the couch and then the contestants are standing there like, “Oh my God, what’s about to happen?” And that’s what the curve ball does. It keeps everybody on their toes, everybody anticipating and not really knowing what’s going to happen. And it just makes the show a whole lot better.
Since you’ve hosted this show for so long, do you feel like you’ve learned a lot about what makes relationships successful?
Yes. You know what, I think the majority of the hiccups that I see on this show are always communication. It’s always how people communicate with one another, how they talk it out. What are some people thinking that you’re saying even though you haven’t said it, and why do you think that person said that when they never said it? And it’s just bad communication.
And I think oftentimes they rely upon text messages that can be so misconstrued sometimes and you just lose that genuine [connection]. The way my mother and father met, the way me and my wife communicated when we first met, and it was always face-to-face or on the phone and we talked. Now you got a new age and time, you got new technology, which is great, I love it. But sometimes it can throw you off course. And I think if we can get back to communicating that way, I think a lot will not be lost. And a lot of people will be on track together. So communication, communication is definitely the key.
You always encourage RTL participants to communicate with each other and open up and be vulnerable. What do you think about people that bring in their baggage and open it up right away?
You know what, there’s a lot of people that come in and just dump everything out. Here’s what I’ve gone through, here’s what I’m going through. And then I went through this last year and then year before I went through that. And when you unload all of that, that’s a lot for someone to digest in opposed to ,let me spoon feed this. I’ve had some issues, I’ve had some things in the past. When we get to it, we’ll get to it. But right now, I’m going to be as open as needed right now. But we’ll get to unpacking a few things and then you can unpack a few things and then we can unpack together. But when you just come and just dump it all out, trust me, it is one of the… Everybody’s running to the hills. Nobody wants to see it, it’s too much junk laying around. You took everything out all at one time.
What is most rewarding about the Ready To Love process for you? Because you really are guiding these singles through a process.
You know what, I think the best thing to me is that, first and foremost I want you to find someone. And in the fact that you don’t, let’s just say you don’t, I want you to at least find yourself. Because I promise you, if you find yourself, later on you will find someone for you. But right now, maybe you’ve been lost and don’t know who you are and you need to find and get back on track with you. So let’s find ourselves. And a lot of people haven’t, and when we come on this show, I think sometimes I can look at a person and I’ve seen them for three, four weeks. You know what, this is not about you finding somebody, this is about finding you. And if you can just leave with that, we’ve already accomplished a whole lot. Because now when you go out in the world, you’re going to have a little bit more confidence in yourself because at least you know who you are.
You can just learn something about yourself and go away. And many of the contestants will actually say that, they’re like, “It’s okay that I’m leaving. It’s okay. I’m going to go out and do me now and I’m going to take that and I’m going to find my love. All this experience is going to help you as you move forward. It can’t hurt, it’s all going to help.
By contrast, what’s the toughest part about the Ready To Love process for you?
The toughest part is always the elimination. Someone has to go. I mean, it’s just the way this journey is laid out. And then I’ve seen so many people that have been let go that I hated to see let go. And you’ve gotten attached to them and you like them really wanted this for them. And it comes up short. I think that’s the difficult part. And here I am, I’m the facilitator, I’m your cupid, your love doctor, your therapist, whatever you want to call it. And I’m trying to get you there and get you there. And I have no control over votes. I have no control of what the contestants decide on who they’re going to eliminate. So when it happens and it’s one of my favorites, it hurts a little bit. So that’s the tough part for me.
I’m going to put you on the spot real quick, who is your favorite connection in RTL history?
Okay, we gotta go back to season one, Atlanta. Her name was Shay—and Shay was connected with… Oh my God, he was humongous. This guy was big, big Mike! Shay and Big Mike! I just thought that they were just an incredible couple. They had some ups and downs through the journey and I just thought they were good for one another. I don’t think it worked out later. But that was by far my favorite. I just thought the world of them. I was like, “Come on, I’m pulling for you. Let’s get it.” And that’s my favorite.
You’ve had success with this show, so I mean obviously this is working…
It’s working, it’s working, it’s working. I mean, just in the middle of this season that we’re in now, you got Symone and Rashid that just got engaged on the show. It is working.
You got Clifton, you got Clifton and Joi in DC. It is working.
So Ready to Love is tested and proven. And the main thing is knowing when you come on this journey, if you ever have the privilege of being on this journey, just come in open, come in vulnerable, come in ready. And you’ll be surprised. You might just find the right person.
So we only see a little bit of the process on the show, obviously, and the women talk, and the men talk—but who talks the most?
The men! Oh my God, it’s the men. I mean, I know the ladies talk, but the ladies come right back and tell me everything the men said in the lounge. And sometimes it’s damn near verbatim that they’ve said everything. I was like, “Oh my God.” And I tell the men all the time, “Listen, what happens in the lounge stays in the lounge. Let’s keep it in here. This is the man cave. This is what we are doing.” And later that evening, the men talking already, just like a parrot.
I think they use it to try to get more leverage. And yeah, they use it to their advantage. “Let me tell you what Tommy said.” And this and that. And it’s just, come on guys, let’s run the journey the way we’re supposed to run the journey. But you never get that. And I’m always going to find out who it is because everybody’s talking.
Right. Of all the cities you’ve been to, where do you think the singles are most ready to love?
Readiest, most ready to love….Now we know in Miami they’re ready for something, not necessarily love, it could be lust. But then there’s some there that are ready for love as well. I think Atlanta’s ready for love. It’s just so many, the ratio is so… Oh 30 to one, 30 women to every man. That’s pretty big. We did Houston. Houston’s ready to love, a lot of hustlers, a lot of people that are bosses as we say. Especially a lot of female bosses that are doing it and doing it big. DC, yeah, ready to love. I love that, I love the vibe. Where can we go? I think if we went to Chicago or New York, we might find love. We might find love, let’s just do it in the summertime.
We’re getting ready to go back to your home state of Texas…
My home state, Dallas, Texas baby. Here we come! Ready to Love Dallas.
How do you feel about that?
Oh my God, I think it’s going to be good. I think Dallas is big too, man. Dallas is big, it’s stretched out. It’s a big city. And I think we’re going to be able to find us 20. We’re going to shoot two seasons there. So you’re talking really 40, 40 singles man. Each season will be 10 men, 10 women. And we’ll figure out if we got it. But I think I’m looking positive. I think Dallas is going to be positive.
How do you decipher between people who are ready to love and people who are just acting like they’re ready to love?
I can pretty much weed them out. I see it almost from day one. But I give them the benefit of the doubt and I try to keep my eye on them. And if you give me about a week and a half, I’m pretty much on it saying, I know who’s running game. I know who’s not running game. I know who’s looking for love. I know who’s there for the right reasons. And then I know those who have an ulterior motive. And I just see it and I can pull them to the side and tell them I see it. And sometimes I just let them hang themselves and it is what it is. But sometimes when we’re vetting these people, they’re such good actors they get past the producers and everybody and they’re on the show. But it doesn’t take long for true colors to show. It’s just bound to happen.
What can we expect from this current season of Ready to Love Miami and during the forthcoming reunion?
I’m putting on a helmet for this reunion and that tells you a lot about what to expect in the second half. I’m putting on a helmet for the reunion and I’m staying out of the way. So get ready, sparks are going to fly and oh my God, it’s going to be great. There’s a few people that have found each other, which I do like. And then there’s some things that just went straight downhill. So be ye ready, it’s coming. Grudges will be born.
