'Real Housewives of Potomac': Ashley Darby Shares Crazy Experience

By DAN TAYLOR (Patch Staff)

From America's couch, Bravo's "Real Housewives" franchise looks like a terrifying champagne-fueled bloodbath for anyone unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire. For "Real Housewives of the Potomac" star Ashley Darby, however, it's almost like a mental vacation.

"How often would I get the opportunity to do that, to talk like that, to really be my raw self?" Ashley said alongside her husband, Michael Darby, also featured prominently on the show, which is now several episodes into its first season (filming wrapped last August).

Media reports are speculating that “The Real Housewives of Potomac” will add new ladies to the frothy mix when the reality series starts its second season.

SEE ALSO:

• Real Housewives of Potomac': New Cast Members Coming?
• Meet the Cast of ‘Real Housewives of Potomac’
• ‘Real Housewives of Potomac’: What You Need to Know

Ashley was Miss D.C. back in 2011, and Real Housewives is a welcome opportunity to ditch the "prim and proper" persona for a strong, stiff dose of the real, she says.

"Being a 'Real Housewife,' I can just be me," she said. "Now I can say whatever I want and I do, and it gets me into trouble, but it's just meant to be fun now."

That's not to say it's been easy. Ashley certainly has been to glamorous Potomac, home of the rich and famous, but her home is in Arlington, VA, along with her "baby," the brand new Australian restaurant Oz at 2950 Clarendon Boulevard. The other women on the show not only are from Potomac, but they already knew each other. She didn't know anything about them when it came time to mix it up on camera.

"That all have some relationships, some rapport," Ashley said. "Then there's me. They don't tell me anything. I know nothing. They plop me down in a circle."

She shakes her head, recalling the intense experience.

"Woo!" she lets out. "They are very independent, very boisterous and certainly don't hold back anything. So I just had to learn to hold my own."

Many of these women are a decade her senior or more, making it all the more difficult to ingratiate herself in such an intense group of strong-minded women. But she certainly doesn't regret the experience.

"Sitting here after filming, I feel so much stronger than I ever was," she said. "If I can hold my own with these women who are much older than me, by like 10 years, I can do anything."

Now, the Darbys are going through the second intense part of the show: waiting to see what the final product looks like.

She doesn't seem to worry too much how she'll be portrayed -- after all, she airs the show at Oz Restaurant every Sunday night. The fact that she gets to view it a few days before helps, but there's always that anticipation of what the final product is going to look like after the producers get done with it.

"We lived it, but it's so crazy, because you don't know how they're going to edit it," she said. "We filmed five days per week for six hours per day, and they have to put that into 10 45-minute shows. That's pretty crazy. And it's terrifying because you don't know."

A lot of people might feel a bit shy with the camera around, or at the very least want to stop the filming once there is a personal moment. Not Ashley, however.

"I feel like I'm growing up with America, as cheesy as that sounds," she said. "I want a baby, my biological clock is suddenly going off, people are watching me go through it -- it's pretty cool."

She admitted it was "difficult being vulnerable," because she had no idea how it would come off to America. But ultimately, she decided she wasn't going to worry about it.

"Obviously I don't really hold my tongue very well sometimes, so I'm really nervous about that," she said. "Now that I see it's out of my control at this point, I just have fun with it.

"At the end of the day, I may get into some arguments, but I like to have a good time," she said.

There is perhaps one thing that can hold her back on the show.

"I was just worried about Michael," she remarked, glancing at him with a smile. "I don't want to embarrass my husband. I have to keep a bit of class."