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2018 Daytime Emmy Awards

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When Tamar Braxton was cut from The Real in 2016, there were a lot of questions about whether or not the talk show could survive. Producers started bringing in guest hosts and people wondered if any of the special guests would take that fifth spot left behind by the singer.

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But two years, an Emmy win and a renewal to 2020 later, the show is doing just fine with four hosts. And while they welcome guest hosts, fans are happy with Loni Love, Tamera Mowry-Housley, Jeannie Mai and Adrienne Houghton.

In a new interview with OK!, Houghton spoke about why she doesn’t see a fifth host being brought into the fold again.

“I think we are the core and we love it that way,” she said. “But at the same time, we love love love having guests. Guest co-host [sic] are so much fun. I think they add a little something different to the show every time one comes on. And I think that’s how we like it. We were playing off of that for a while and we’ve been loving it that way.”

When asked why she thinks The Real has defied expectations and become a fan-favorite, Emmy-winning talk show, Houghton said it’s because the hosts truly keep it as real as possible about the ins and outs of their lives.

“I think the winning ingredient to our show is the four of us. It’s the chemistry. It’s the love. It’s the respect. It’s the friendship. It’s the honesty. It’s the realness. You can’t produce [all of] that,” she said. “We just get up there and we talk. We have a conversation. We laugh. We have a good time and I love the fact that we’re actually producers on the show and we bring topics to the table that are things that we want to talk about. I love the fact that Tamera will get on the show and be like, ‘Girl, I didn’t sleep last night because my son is still sleeping in the bed with us.’ And that’s a real conversation that women around the world can relate to.’”

And not only are people relating to the women, but they are also being honored by their peers. The ladies took home an Emmy in April for Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host. As Houghton told us in May, the win was a shock, but also confirmation that they are offering something unique and necessary in the morning talk show market.

“To this day there were so many people that were like, ‘We can’t see an all-minority multiculti daytime talk show working.’ There were so many doubters,” she said. “We would even joke about ourselves and say, ‘We’re the little show that could. Because it was such a big gap in the marketplace for daytime television where there really wasn’t anything speaking to women like myself. And I think also being the newbie in the category was a lot. You have The View, which has been around forever. You have The Talk, who are like our big sisters at this point and they show us so much love. Kelly and Ryan Live, that show has been on forever. So to be the newbies in the game and be nominated three times and to win on the third? We were honored just to be there, let alone win.”

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