MOTHER
Kelle Mortensen and Joey Burford of MILF Manor Know What You’re Thinking
TLC is making reality TV weird again. The network’s newest dating show, provocatively dubbed MILF Manor, brings together a group of handsome young men and equally attractive women in a sprawling beachfront mansion, a tried and true reality formula. But the twist comes in the very first episode, when it’s revealed that the cast is made up entirely of mothers and their sons. With its campy, offbeat premise, MILF Manor is a callback to the chaotic TLC of the aughts—predictably, there are ill-fated hot-tub hookups, filial drama, and gags that would’ve made Freud raise an eyebrow. In the show’s first challenge, the titular MILFs are blindfolded and asked to identify their sons by feeling up a row of washboard abs; in another, the mother and son pairs conduct an anatomy quiz with a papaya plucked from a bowl of yonic fruits. Despite inspiring a flurry of exasperated tweets and a New Yorker thinkpiece that refers to MILF Manor as a new “rock bottom” for television, its contestants remain unfazed. To pull back the curtain on the polarizing show, we had Kelle Mortensen, the self-described “disco mommy” and her sweetly fratty 20-year-old son Joey Burford, sit down for an illuminating family chat about love at first sight, age gaps, and who has more game.
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JOEY BURFORD: She’s probably taking a little bit longer to get ready. Oh, there she is!
KELLE MORTENSEN: Hey, Joey.
BURFORD: Hey, mom. I can’t see you.
MORTENSEN: Wait. Hang on. Let me undo my Bluetooth. You’re on my Bluetooth on my radio, in my bathroom. Now you’re on my phone, but I still can barely hear you.
BURFORD: Well, that explains it. We’re talking through your phone. Turn it up.
MORTENSEN: I did.
BURFORD: If you put the headphones in, that’ll work too.
MORTENSEN: Stop pressuring me, Joey. It’s so annoying. Hello! Can you hear me?
BURFORD: Yes, mom.
MORTENSEN: I’m in business! Joey, do you want me to start? No, ladies first. I’m going to ask you a question.
BURFORD: All right. Let’s go.
MORTENSEN: Joey, who was the first person you had your eye on in the house?
BURFORD: Honestly, the first girl that I had my eye on was—
MORTENSEN: So it wasn’t a guy?
BURFORD: Shit. It was Jose at first, but then I switched to SoYoung. [Laughs] SoYoung had my first glance because she’s a really beautiful woman and she actually does look so young. I thought she was in her thirties at first, mom. I thought Jimmy was 19 too because of how young she looks. But then after she let out that secret, that changed up everything for me. Oh, my god. It left me disgusted, mom. You know why.
MORTENSEN: Yeah.
BURFORD: It would leave any guy disgusted. I need a truthful woman.
MORTENSEN: You ask me a question now.
BURFORD: What were your initial thoughts about the big reveal in the first episode? We went into it together.
MORTENSEN: Right. When I saw you, I thought it was a joke and I wasn’t really sure what was going on.
BURFORD: Because we both got taken on separate paths. I didn’t know if I was going to see a bunch of daughters or something.
MORTENSEN: That’s what you were hoping for.
BURFORD: Yeah. That’s what I was hoping for. But hey, I was fine with either.
MORTENSEN: Well, we were the last ones to know, so we didn’t have any intel on what was going on. Was it strange seeing yourself on TV?
BURFORD: It was very strange. I don’t even like seeing myself on camera and I don’t like hearing my voice. That’s just how I am.
MORTENSEN: You have a beautiful voice.
BURFORD: I just don’t like people watching me all the time. I know that’s how reality TV works, but it just feels a little strange to me. People are just watching my everyday life.
MORTENSEN: Have you been recognized out in public?
BURFORD: Yes, I have been recognized. By a lot of young women, girls my age, actually. They’re like, “Joey!” and I’m like, “How do you know my name?” It’s so weird. Okay, how do you think being on MILF Manor together has changed our relationship?
MORTENSEN: I don’t think it’s really changed our relationship. I just think it brought us closer together.
BURFORD: Yeah, I agree.
MORTENSEN: We have this special bonding experience together. It happened to be on TV, so we can laugh about it, go back and watch, and talk about our memories. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity for both of us that none of your siblings got to do with me, which is very special.
BURFORD: Yeah. It didn’t change anything. We just gained more memories.
MORTENSEN: Absolutely. What attracts you to someone?
BURFORD: Well, the thing about the MILFs, it was a little bit different for me. I talk to older girls all the time. Cougars, MILFs, same thing. When I’m in bars, I’ve talked to them and they’re cool and I can tell they’re into me. But I’d never dated a MILF. Wait, what was the question?
MORTENSEN: What attracts you to someone? I didn’t go into age. [Laughs]
BURFORD: Someone who doesn’t lie. You have to be upfront. It’s like you taught me that in a way when I was young. As far as looks, age—I like them all, honestly,
MORTENSEN: “I like them all?”
BURFORD: They just can’t lie to me and they need to be cool. They need to be really outgoing because I keep to myself.
MORTENSEN: You’re more of an introvert until you get to know someone.
BURFORD: Yeah. They want to know, did we ever exchange flirting tips with one another?
MORTENSEN: I don’t think we did. But I enjoyed watching you flirt, watching you go in and talk to so many different women there. I just thought it was funny because I feel like you made them nervous.
BURFORD: Some of them made me nervous! I’d never been on a one-on-one date with a mom before, especially not with their son right next to me! It made that a little bit more interesting, especially a son that’s not scared to scream at you or throw crickets at you.
MORTENSEN: Did you go on the show to find love or have fun?
BURFORD: I’m going to be honest. I really just went on to have fun, make memories, and really just expand my knowledge, try to get out there. Do you believe in love at first sight?
MORTENSEN: Yeah. I think I saw him in Vegas this weekend. No, I’m kidding.
BURFORD: You like [Stevie] McKenna, huh?
MORTENSEN: [Laughs] Well, I don’t know if I believe in love at first sight because it’s never happened for me. I don’t have a certain look, so I think it would be hard for me to tell. It’s about connection and energy. Hey, this is something you can help me with. What are some tips to bag a boy toy for your mama?
BURFORD: Oh, sheesh, mom. Well, that ain’t even hard. You’ve got thousands of them in your DMs right now. Just pick and choose whatever you want. They’ll be there. Who did you think was the hottest in the house? I know you liked Ryan in the beginning.
MORTENSEN: I was going to say Ryan and Jose, because Jose’s taller.
BURFORD: What? You didn’t like Billy—
MORTENSEN: I’m answering the question. I would say Jose and Ryan. Ryan has the swag and Jose has—
BURFORD: Yeah. Ryan definitely got the swag.
MORTENSEN: And then, Jose. He just reels you in and makes you feel very comfortable with his presence.
BURFORD: Yeah. He makes me feel like he was my brother in a way because he tries to touch you, not in a weird way. Touch your heart. He tries to touch your heart. [Laughs]
MORTENSEN: Oh, my gosh. What have people in your life thought about your role on the show? Your boys, what do they think about this?
BURFORD: My boys think it’s sick. I work at a bar so all the people that I’ve been talking to, they’ve really loved it. “How many MILFs did you get with?” I’m just like, “Bro, you’ve got to watch the show.” One, I’m not trying to just bang every MILF I’ve seen. I’m a MILF hunter, but—
MORTENSEN: You don’t take them down.
BURFORD: Yeah.
MORTENSEN: You hunt, but you don’t kill. It’s like bow and arrow season, you hit them and you wound them and then you leave them there.
BURFORD: I’m a lover, not a hunter. [Laughs] Has being on MILF Manor given you a new outlook on dating?
MORTENSEN: No, not really. I’m still doing the same thing. It’s not like it helped me level up. It just helped me be more vulnerable.
BURFORD: I agree with that.
MORTENSEN: My level’s already super high. How do you feel about the reaction to the show?
BURFORD: I love the reaction to the show. I know there’s a good reaction and a bad reaction, but shit, all the reactions are hilarious. I’ll tell you that. That Cody Ko video had me fucking dying.
MORTENSEN: You know Howard Stern was talking about us yesterday?
BURFORD: Really?
MORTENSEN: Yeah.
BURFORD: I think the reactions were amazing. Whether they were making fun of us or not, everything was pretty damn funny so I’m fine with it.
MORTENSEN: We don’t care. Make fun of us.
BURFORD: Yeah.
MORTENSEN: Hey, let’s rate each other on our game, on a scale of one to 10.
BURFORD: Your game is a 20 out of 10 because on the show, you had all the guys getting nervous. Your game is just on point at all times.
MORTENSEN: Well, thank you. I’m going to say you started out at a two or three because you were definitely super nervous. But you evolved into this amazing man, and definitely scaled the chart.
BURFORD: Thanks, mom.
MORTENSEN: You’re welcome. It was almost like you went from a boy to a man.
BURFORD: Holy shit, man.
MORTENSEN: I’m proud of you.
BURFORD: It’s crazy how everyone says that I look like I’ve gotten so much older and it’s only been a year since we were filming. I want to ask you too, mom, what have people in your life thought about your role on the show?
MORTENSEN: They love it. I was just with a bunch of cheer moms this weekend. They’re screaming, “This is Kelle from MILF Manor,” and I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, stop.” It’s so embarrassing. Everybody that’s seen me out in public that has watched the show has been super supportive and loving it. When I was at a huge hotel in Vegas, this guy came in yelling “DISCO MOMMY!”
BURFORD: That’s awesome, mom.
MORTENSEN: You should ask me what was my favorite place in the house to get down.
BURFORD: That’s the one that I laughed at and said I’ll skip.