All Hail DMX's Return to Reality TV
[There was a video here]
Tonight, VH1 premieres Couples Therapy (9 pm ET), a series from the creators of Celebrity Rehab that will trade drug-withdrawal seizures for sex-withdrawal whining. Ah, the lighter side of dysfunction. As is VH1 custom, the cast is full of persons of meh-trest like Linda Hogan and the man who's 29 years her junior that she calls love (Charlie Hill), perpetually returning trash lady Angelina Pivarnick (Jersey Shore) and her dude Chris Nirschel (The Next Food Network Star), some Bachelor/ette alums who aren't content to be undone by those shows' curse (Vienna Girardi and Kasey Kahl) and some gays (The A-List's Reichen Lehmkuhl and Rodiney Santiago).
But the crowning jewel of this cast is the couple of America's next top Drake-hater/Celebrity Rehab dodger DMX and his long-suffering wife Tashera Simmons. They previously shared their business on BET's little-watched/long-forgotten DMX: Soul of a Man. Relive that show's opening scene above, in which the inebriated rapper runs amok in a Jersey convenience store and explains why he'd fight a little person, while his producer Swizz Beatz waits for him in vain. X is willing to be unhinged while remaining aware of his commitment toward entertaining ("Gum anybody? Bazookas? I mean, come on: you get a joke and a piece of gum."). He is, in short, the perfect reality TV specimen. It's taken him way too long to return.