Within the glitzy world of reality television a certain amount of dramatization and even outright fakery is accepted as a way of creating the moments of entertainment gold that draw in millions of viewers.
But Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kenya Moore is pushing the boundaries to the very limit.
The former Miss USA has been bombarded by claims from co-stars that her story that she’s been swept off her feet by an ‘African Prince’ – who has never been seen – is fake.
Mystery: Kenya poses with D’Banj in Texas last year labelling him ‘My African Prince’. It led to claims that he is the millionaire she boasts about. Both denied claims she was to pay him $40k to pretend to be her beau.
Koko Master: D’Banj, who splits his time between Nigeria, the UK and Lagos, is known for his playboy lifestyle as well as his music. He calls girls who are good in bed ‘kokos’
Valentines: African press reported that Kenya and D’Banj met up in Lagos over Valentines weekend this year. Kenya posted this image of her ticket to Nigeria on February 13 on Instagram.
And Walter Jackson, who claims he was asked by Kenya to pretend to be her ‘love interest’ in her first season of the show, told MailOnline he believes her latest relationship is a fauxmance too.
Kenya also faces claims she actually has very little money, despite driving around in a white Range Rover and boasting of driving a $220,000 white Bentley and at one stage living in a huge mansion.
And to top it all off, Jackson added that he thinks she doesn’t even live in Atlanta anymore.
MailOnline has learned that the closest anyone has got to guessing the identity of Kenya’s mystery man is that he is Nigerian pop star D’Banj – real name Dapo Daniel Oyebanjo.
Kenya has been accused of drawing up an agreement to pay him up to $40,000 to pose as her boyfriend and provide her with an interesting storyline for the upcoming reunion show.
And Jackson has told MailOnline he would not be at all surprised if she had recruited D’Banj – because that is exactly what she did with him.
Jackson briefly dated Kenya three years ago, before they went their separate ways. But when she decided she wanted to land a slot on RHOA in 2012 she got back in touch with him and asked him to pose as her on screen boyfriend.
He agreed and got a first-hand look at what he claims is her made-up, on screen fantasy world. The charade blew up when he found out on camera she was telling her castmates he was going to propose and she planned to have his babies.
‘Kenya’s a great actress, you have to give her that’, Walter said, speaking from his car towing business in Lithornia, east of Atlanta, Georgia.
Fake: Walter Jackson, Kenya’s first pretend boyfriend, told MailOnline: ‘She’s very good entertainment and the viewers want to tune in and watch what she’s going to do or say next, but nothing you see is real’
‘She’s very good entertainment and the viewers want to tune in and watch what she’s going to do or say next, but nothing you see is real, I mean come on, does anyone actually believe what she says anymore?
‘It’s been almost two years on the show now, people must know what she’s like.
‘She talks about an African boyfriend, but nobody on the set or in the cast says they have ever seen him. I am still close friends with a lot of the stars on the show and it has become a bit of a joke, no one believes he is actually real.
‘She has started talking about getting a sperm donor so she can have a baby. If she had a boyfriend, would she need a sperm donor?’
On an episode earlier this season cameras followed Kenya to an ob/gyn appointment where she had her hormone levels checked for fertility and was filmed perusing a catalogue of sperm donors for purchase.
Kenya, 43 and D’Banj, 33, have laughed off the suggestion they came to a financial arrangement. Kenya tweeted last month, ‘Hey @iamdbanj I would have paid u at least $40,000.99! Lol these ppl are so crazy.’
He replied: ‘C’mon baby,u know it won’t cost you a thing,I’m from a land flowing with Oil and honey and u are an angel I would do gladly do it FOC lol!!!.’
There is no doubt the pair do know each other. They were pictured together at a Nigerian Town Hall Meeting, held by the All Nigerian Nationals in Diaspora (ANNID), in Houston Texas last March.
Kenya was in the city for an episode of Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live and D’Banj was performing in concert.
How I roll: Kenya has boasted that her African Prince has bought her the Bentley as a gift.
‘Rentley’: But co-star Phaedra Parks and Walter say that her flash new car can’t be owned by Kenya.
On the night she posted a picture of the two of them on Instagram captioned, ‘My African Prince #Dbanj.’ Then in June she tweeted that she was in Lagos to host his birthday party.
And last month it was reported that she flew to Nigeria to visit the star – who has had a UK top ten chart hit – over the Valentine’s Day weekend.
While she refused to name D’Banj, she spoke about her new man on the Wendy Williams show in January.
She said: ‘I’m not dating a prince; I call him my African prince. He’s very successful and he runs a multi-billion dollar company.’
Kenya showed off her new Bentley for the show and claimed it was a gift from her new mystery beau.
Co-star Phaedra Parks referred to the car as a ‘rently’ on a recent episode while rolling her eyes at Kenya’s car.
While he may not be quite that rich, D’Banj is a huge star in his home country, where is renowned as a legendary womanizer.
His nickname is the Koko master, which is Nigerian slang for someone who has a harem of woman and he has even brought out his own range of condoms.
There was talk he would make an appearance in the upcoming RHOA reunion show, but sources at Bravo have revealed this is highly unlikely.
And as far as Walter is concerned, the fact they know each other definitely doesn’t prove they are in a relationship.
He said: ‘We did used to date about three years ago. We met at an All Star game and went out a few times, but that was it. After that we stayed in touch on the phone and texted a bit, but we didn’t see each other again.
‘She lived in LA, not Atlanta at that time. She used to stay at her aunt’s place in Lithornia, but she never actually lived in Georgia as far as I know. Then a couple of years ago I got a call from her saying she wanted to move over here and get on the show.
Money woes: Kenya was evicted from this $4,000-a-month mansion in Atlanta over $800 unpaid rent.
Ugly: Police were called by Kenya’s landlady who claimed that she didn’t get out of the property in time.
New digs: NeNe Leakes dubbed the four-star hotel Kenya had to move into after her eviction as a ‘hood hotel’
Riddle: It is not known what base Kenya has in Atlanta at the moment. She did recently post this picture of a newly decorated dining room. However, Walter alleges that she spends most of her time in LA now anyway.
‘I guess there must have been a few other people being considered for the part, because she knew she needed to make herself more interesting and she felt being in a relationship with me would help with that.
‘She asked me if I would be on the show and pretend to be her boyfriend. I thought about it for a bit and then decided that I might as well have my 15 minutes of fame.
‘Kenya told everyone she had moved to Atlanta to be with me. It was nothing to do with me really, she moved to Atlanta to be on the show and relaunch her career.’
The pair went to star in the series, with their relationship providing one of the major story lines last season.
Walter said: ‘I thought I sucked, because I couldn’t give them what they wanted. It was easy in one sense because they would call me up, tell me to be somewhere and then we would only film for a couple of hours at a time.
‘But in another way it was difficult because Kenya would throw in stuff I wasn’t expecting and I didn’t know how to react.
‘She’d start asking me “when are we going to get married” and I would be like “wow, I didn’t know that was coming!'”
The couple ‘split’ at the end of 2012 and Walter left the show. But despite his insistence and a number of comments from other cast members, saying the whole thing was fake, Kenya still insists they were really a couple.
Speaking in December 2012, she said: ‘The truth is and has always been that I want to be in a loving, honest, long-term relationship with someone who genuinely loves me for me — Walter’s recent statements are completely false. I am embarrassed that I allowed a deceitful and hateful person in my life.’
Baby blues: Kenya has been on the hunt for a sperm donor as she desperately wants to get pregnant. Walter asks that if she has got a boyfriend, why does she need to hunt for a donor?
But according to Walter, she reacted like that because Kenya knows just how important it is to keep up the pretence and stay on the show. It has been reported she pocketed around $370,000 for her fist series, with rumors she may get almost double that next season.
A year-and-a-half ago celebrity websites estimated her worth to be $1.5m, but now they speculate that it is more like $600,000.
Despite that and a number of minor roles in films, including, ‘Waiting to Exhale and ‘Senseless’, Walter does not think she has much money.
Her company Moore Vision Media has been attributed with a couple of projects, including her recent boot camp workout video, but Walter says he hasn’t seen any evidence that it is hugely profitable.
He said: ‘She needs this show, it pays her well and as far as I ever saw she hasn’t got much money without it.
‘She says she runs a production company, but I didn’t see any evidence that it makes money. I used to go and stay with her out in LA. Her place was OK, but she is nothing like the image she tries to give off on television.
‘She is not glamorous and she is not rich. I didn’t ever see her buy anything. I know she owns a Range Rover, but I am sure that Bentley is rented. She probably gets it from the dealership for free in return for advertising.
‘She hasn’t ever owned a house in Atlanta as far as I am concerned.’
In the last series of the show Kenya lived in a huge mansion in an affluent suburb to the north of the city.
