Think of Lifetime’s new reality show “Kim of Queens” as a cross between “Dance Moms” and “Toddlers & Tiaras” — with a bit of southern-fried charm.
The show follows Kim Gravel — a former Miss Georgia and current pageant coach — as she transforms young girls that may not fit the ‘beauty queen mold’ into winners. There’s a family aspect too (now commonplace in reality shows), since Gravel runs her business, The Pageant Place, in Suwanee, Georgia, with the help of her mom, Jo, and younger sister, Allisyn.
Since premiering last month, “Kim of Queens” is averaging 1.3 million viewers on Tuesdays at 10 p.m. after “Dance Moms,” up slightly from Lifetime’s nightly average.
Gravel, a self-described “ugly duckling” as a kid, got into pageants to win scholarship money and gain exposure at the urging of her own mentor, a clothing designer who took her under her wing. That motivated Kim to do the same for other young girls that don’t have the typical pageant look, first informally through her career as a makeup artist and host of local talk shows before opening Pageant Place five years ago.
“Normally I don’t like to train ‘pageant girls’ because for me the pageant is not the main thing. I’m trying to build leaders here,” Gravel tells The Post. “I emphasize what they’re good at instead of saying ‘you have to fit a stereotype.’ That’s why my girls win a lot because they’re not the typical.”
Episodes this season have focused on a hillbilly-tomboy who wanted to learn ‘how to be a girl’ and a fuller-figured bookworm looking to break out of her shell. Though it’s a transformation show — complete with hair curlers and false eyelashes — Gravel wants the series to also have a message of building self-confidence.
“We’re promoting individualism and trying to break down the stereotype that same is good. I want to promote that different is better,” she says. “I’m hoping in a light, funny, Southern, gaudy, bizarre way with the backdrop of these pageants that we can show people . . . That you can have a takeaway . . . that’s it’s OK to be this way.”
Gravel says the second half of the season will include the stage moms — who sometimes clash with her tough-love style — participating in some of her unorthodox training methods. It will also dig more into the backstories of the girls, including one who has a father in prison she’s never met and another that grew up in the projects, leaving her with embarrassing scars on her legs that make her afraid to compete.
The goal is to balance the tearjerking moments with the humor, lightheartedness and, of course, cattiness and drama that makes for good reality TV.
“We want ratings, we want people to watch, but at the same time I’m proud of the show that it’s not the typical reality show,” she says. “It’s hard to be meaningful and entertaining at the same time.”