Angie Everhart Bonds With Fellow 'Ex-Wives'

The Host of ABC's New Reality Show Dishes About Her Friendships With Shar Jackson and Marla Maples

Related Links More About 'Ex-Wives Club' More About Angie Everhart

June 18 -- Model/actress/reality TV star Angie Everhart -- along with pals Marla Maples and Shar Jackson -- certainly knows what it's like to have her dirty laundry aired in public. And that made her the perfect candidate to co-host 'The Ex-Wives Club,' ABC's summer reality show in which Everhart (whose famous exes include Sylvester Stallone, Howard Stern and Ashley Hamilton), Maples (the former Mrs. Donald Trump) and Jackson (the woman K-Fed dumped to become Mr. Britney Spears) help recently divorced people put their lives back together after crushing break-ups.

The show has turned out to be surprisingly heartfelt and inspiring, partly because the three hosts have clearly bonded with each other and their makeover candidates, who've ranged from a cancer survivor and a man who still lives with his ex-wife to a woman whose ex turned out to be gay and a military veteran whose wife left him and his children.

Everhart chatted with AOL TV's Kimberly Potts about the friendships she's made on the show, how a fourth co-host went MIA, and how the series has made her revisit some of her own most painful break-up memories, including one that's revealed in an upcoming issue of PEOPLE magazine.

You, Shar and Marla seem like you've been friends forever. Did you know each other before the show?
No we didn't, in fact, but we're good friends now.

It shows; you have great chemistry together and have all the bases covered, personality-wise.
Yeah, you know they originally had a fourth co-star [Tawny Kitaen] and for some reason she didn't come back, but it is really perfect chemistry between the three of us. We get along so well together. I'm a little bit of the outspoken one, Marla's very conservative and then there's Shar, who's very hip.

A lot of your own personal relationships have played out publicly because you're a celebrity. But what do you think inspires someone to choose to open up their private lives to the public?
I think it's because heartache is a pain that can be shared by everybody. [Marla, Shar and I] all have had very public breakups, so I think people know they can relate with us in one way or another. And this is one of the few reality shows where they didn't have the cameras right in people's faces. Like when we were sitting around the table talking with the divorced people, the cameras were way back. And we just listened. Sometimes people just need an ear.

Is it tough, when you first meet the people on the show, to hear all their sad stories?
I thought I was going to be the tough one, but in every single show I ended up crying ... Because they are telling such sad stories, and they're being so honest about it. To go on television, and to go to a complete stranger and tell them the worst thing that has ever happened to you is not an easy thing to do. And to come straight out and say things that can be shameful, hurtful, regretful, you know, it's not easy. These people really shared their hearts with us, and I respected them a lot. We became very close with them.

Have you kept in touch with any of them?
Yes. On our very first show, which won't air, because it had the original fourth host, there was one girl that I absolutely just adored. I really became friends with her, her name is Lilly, and she was absolutely adorable. When we went through this whole process with her, she really affected me, and I wanted to help her so much. I wasn't used to having so much compassion for a complete stranger. It just affected me, and it made me open my heart a lot more than I thought I would.

The three of you bonded a lot with Rebecca, the woman whose husband bullied all her self-esteem out of her, too.
We did! You know, there's something really inspirational about helping someone and to see them change, to go from heartbroken to laughing and smiling. It's so gratifying to be able to affect someone's life in a positive way.

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