Thanks to the OWN Network, your Saturday nights are going to become just a little sweeter!
The Oprah Winfrey Network will serve up all new-seasons of “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s” and “Raising Whitley,” returning Nov. 21.
“Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s,” starring acclaimed soul food chef and Sweetie Pie’s restaurant owner Miss. Robbie Montgomery and her son Tim Norman will air at 9 p.m. ET/PT, followed by “Raising Whitley,” starring actress and comedienne Kym Whitley and her son Joshua Whitley at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
To celebrate the network’s popular Saturday night programming lineup, a press luncheon was held Nov. 12 at the OWN Office “The Lot” in West Hollywood. Lunch was catered by the world famous Sweetie Pies. There was a sneak peek of the upcoming episodes of “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s” and “Raising Whitley,” a Q&A discussion with Miss Robbie, Tim and Kym Whitley from “Raising Whitley,” and more.
During the Q&A session, both Whitley and Miss Robbie made it clear that it truly takes a village to make things happen.
On this season’s “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s,” the Sweetie Pie’s brand is growing bigger as Miss. Robbie and Tim take their soul food empire to the City of Angels, where they have now opened their fifth restaurant in the trendy city of North Hollywood, better known as NOHO. Did you expect just Ms. Robbie and Tim to make the big move alone?
“As you can imagine a group of people from St. Louis moving out here to L.A. so, it is kind of like a 2015 Beverly Hillbillies,” said Norman jokingly. He then pointed to the chefs and fan favorites from the show saying, “All of them are St. Louis folks back there.”
Miss. Robbie echoed Norman’s statement by saying, “The amazing thing is, they all moved out here. I thought they were just coming to open the restaurant, but they moved, they all moved. So, we have a whole new bunch back in St. Louis, no one wants to go back. I can’t believe that.”
As for the witty Kym Whitley and the “Raising Whitley” clan, fans can expect to see Kym tell her son that he was adopted and the many firsts she and her “village” share with little Joshua, such as their skiing trip at Big Bear.
For Whitley, sharing with viewers that she told her son he was adopted was tough, but necessary.
“To share with the masses is not hard. It’s for Joshua and for other adoptive parents. If it is to help, then it is okay. It also helps me. It forces me to do things that are uncomfortable on the show. Sometimes even the things I do not want to do because I don’t want to have conflict with Rodney or to discuss things,” said Whitley. “The show forces me to put my big girl panties on and grow up and do things I normally would not want to do. I am hoping by me telling Joshua that he is adopted at an early age that it would show parents not to wait until they are 13 and 14, where they can be angry. If they hear the word adoption from the day they are born, the same way they hear mommy and daddy, or any other word in the house, it is not foreign to them. So, I always say ‘adoption.’”
From big moves and heart felt moments, both shows are worth watching. Set your DVRs and tune in to OWN Saturday, Nov. 21. To find out more about the NAACP-Image Award winning docu-series “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s” and OWN’s hit docu-series “Raising Whitley,” check out the following links.
Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s
http://www.oprah.com/app/sweetie-pies.html
Raising Whitley
http://www.oprah.com/app/raising-whitley.html
I am a recent graduate from the University of Central Missouri. I majored in Digital Media Production with an emphasis in news. My aspiration is to become a television Journalist.