Drama Is Her Middle Name by Wendy Williams

Performance.
    â€œRitzy, if you plan properly and are prepared, you can handle anything. Most people fail because they fail to plan.”
    It was a cliché Ritz never forgot. When she decided she
wanted to be in radio, she didn’t just jump in front of a microphone and start talking. She had internships and learned
the game from the inside out.
    Over a six-month period, she started looking better and
better. By the time she pushed through with the explosive
Delilah Summers exposé, Ritz was “runway ready.” It was
something Chas preached that complimented her mother’s
sentiments.
    â€œGirl, you must always, always be runway ready,” Chas
would say. “You never ever know when you’ll be called on to
be on television or do an interview or just get caught out in
the street. You want to always be runway ready.”
    Now Ritz was more than runway ready; she was ready-ready, thanks to Chas. He liked his role as Pygmalion. He
loved his deep-chocolate Eliza Doolittle. Perhaps working
with Chas over those months gave Ritz the confidence to
break out of her shell and do something radical. The physical
changes she made had spilled over into her personality.

6
    Ritz’s move from the night shift was swift. Ruff promised the
move would be “soon,” but she never anticipated it would
take literally three days after her bomb-drop on Delilah Summers for her to be given the coveted afternoon drive shift.
Radio was cruel in that way. Dr. Mark, who had decent ratings and quite a following, was summarily moved to Ritz’s
shift. He still had a year left on his contract that the station
did not want to eat. In radio, the drive for the best ratings was
nasty. WHOT saw Ritz as their next cash cow.
    â€œThis must have been the way that little William Hung
felt on
American Idol
or that Omarosa from the
Apprentice,
”
she thought with amusement. “Fuck that! I actually have talent! I deserve this.”
    Ritz started doing newspaper interviews and magazine
interviews. She was featured on
Extra
and
Access Hollywood
.
VH1 was hollering for her. She even made an appearance on
Bill O’Reilly’s show to talk about the shameful state of the
news field. There was Stephen Glass, Mike Barnicle, Jayson
Blair, Dan Rather, and now Delilah Summers.
    Ritz’s relationship with Ruff changed instantly. Soon he’d
turn into Ritz’s very own public relations rep as he and Ritz
had daily discussions about which shows to do and which
ones to avoid and what angle to take.
    â€œTell the
Enquirer
to fuck off,” Ruff said. “We have to have
some limits! But O’Reilly?! Damn, girl. You have arrived!”
    â€œShiiiit,” Ritz said. “He ought to add his own ass to that
list of fallen news heroes. Didn’t he have to settle out of court
with some chick who accused him of sexual harassment?
That’s the kind of shit I’m talking about!”
    â€œEasy, killa,” Ruff said. “You’re going to go on The O’Reilly
Factor
and you’re going to make nice. He has five million
viewers, and we want to get a few of them on WHOT. You
can work that. I know you can.”
    â€œWhy, of course,” Ritz purred. “You know I will make it do
what it do.”
    And they both broke out into a private chuckle. Soon Ruff
realized that he really liked Ritz. She was “a bitch with balls,”
a woman after his own heart—tough enough not to let people take advantage of her, but soft enough to know how to be
a lady. Ritz liked Ruff, too. He was the first and only boss she
had who was completely up front and honest with her.
    Ritz found most people in radio to be very shady. “Hell, it’s
that way with most people in life,” she thought. They would
smile in your face, telling you everything was fine, while taking out a knife to stab you in the back. Not Ruff. He would
look you square in the face