One of our favorite members of E!’s Second Wives Club is the no-nonsense businesswoman Katie Cazorla.
Seeing her in action, along with her “forever fiancé” Walter Afanasieff, makes the show seriously fun to watch.
Never holding back her opinion, Katie comes across as the real deal on The Second Wives Club.
She is a self-made woman blessed with a natural comedic sensibility who was not born into wealth nor married to it.
However, her longtime love Walter is no slouch in the accomplishment department either.
“We’ve been together for 11 years and we’ve been engaged for almost six,” Katie told Walter in last week’s episode, adding: “Everyone thinks it’s your fault, but it’s really mine!”
“Walter is a Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated record producer,” Katie added on the premiere. He has written and worked on some of the most iconic songs of all time, from Whitney Houston classics to A Whole New World in Disney’s Aladdin.
He also produced Titanic’s song My Heart Will Go On and wrote Mariah Carey’s Hero.
Katie is truly a small town girl, originally from Elmira, New York. She has credited her work ethic to her upbringing.
Not afraid to speak her piece, Katie made her way on her own and her unpretentious and affable nature really sticks out on a reality TV show where one of the “wives” has a 15+ bedroom mansion.
Monsters and Critics met Katie back inside her salon The Painted Nail when it opened in 2009.
Her swanky salon served up wine and took nail art to stratospheric heights. That scenario and the whole “off the charts” vibe caught the eye of mega-producer SallyAnn Salsano (Jersey Shore) who created a TV series Nail Files with Katie as the star.
But her path to being a successful business owner was hard, and Katie noted on the new E! series how she lived out of her car early on as she made her way in Los Angeles.
The road to doing nails and creating her own line of nail products was made possible through proper cosmetic nail school and following her imaginative take on this fun and lucrative beauty discipline.
The Painted Nail sits right outside the W Hotel and will be used in the series as a set while the Second Wives Club cast gets buffed and dishes on other cast members not present.
All through it, we see Katie act as a Swiss mediator and referee with a wicked sense of humor.
In past interviews, Katie has mentioned that she really loves fast food chain Taco Bell and we saw this as she took one of the affluent wives, Veronika (formerly married to plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Obeng), to the drive-through for tacos.
Even though she loves “the Bell”, Katie can go high-brow too with food and has a new place to visit in Los Angeles: Hi SocieTEA, which she describes as a “mini tea bar serving gourmet loose leaf teas, artisan sandwiches and ‘Hi Tea’ with a twist.”
A total fashionista, Katie has described her look in previous interviews as a “bit butch” and has a knack for pairing inexpensive clothes with high-end accessories like shoes and handbags.
Her complete off-script realness and sense of humor and her willingness to work hard daily to make everyone feel more beautiful makes her one of our favorite reality stars, period.
Second Wives Club airs Thursdays at 9/8c on E!