“Shark Tank” star Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary (and his defining black suit) is hosting a new six-part series on CNBC.
“Money Court,” premiering Wednesday (Aug. 11) at 10 p.m., features the straight-shooting O’Leary ruling on family financial disputes via Zoom, flanked by veteran trial attorney Katie Phang and Ada Pozo, a former trial attorney, public defender and judge.
“I think it really is a snapshot of life,” O’Leary, 67, told The Post. “Everybody sees themselves in these cases — everybody’s got that uncle, that sister, that brother who borrowed money from them and never paid it back.
“There’s so much talk about marriage being a business, and that’s true…but when you’re supporting a family in a family business it gets more complicated,” he said. “One of the reasons marriages break up — and it’s the same for family businesses — it’s not infidelity, it’s financial pressure. One member of the family outspends the others or goes into bankruptcy or does something financially that puts a tremendous stress on the family and that severs that relationship.”
O’Leary, Pozo and Phang hear three cases on each episode of “Money Court,” listening to both sides of a dispute. They break to discuss the cases, then O’Leary delivers his final verdict. The parties involved must adhere to his ruling.
“I don’t really know the backstories of people until we start peeling the onion… and then I realize, ‘OK, this person is lying to me, this person isn’t forthright or I have this feeling of ‘Let’s go down this road and explore it further.’ Because these are families ripped apart over money, I really feel the weight on my shoulders,” he said. “One case was brutal. A mother sued her daughter — I mean, who does that? But that’s what money can do to a family.”
Casting Pozo and Phang was challenging, he said.
“The thing you don’t see, and probably never will, is all the casting we tried. Ada and Katie were some of the last people we tested. I remember Ada was maybe the last candidate we tested and I just felt it and went, ‘Wow! Who is that? Ada, a former federal judge, smells BS a mile away — I was amazed with her BS radar — and Katie rips the flesh off you if you screw around with contract law. They’re amazing.
“I really love Ada’s compass; she always advocates 50/50 for the woman, like, ‘Why doesn’t this woman get half of this settlement?’ And I like that balance. She looks at it from the family-law perspective from being on the bench all those years.”
“Money Court” also includes a segment called “Ask Kevin,” where O’Leary, who’s also an executive producer on the series, answers questions from viewers beamed in via video.
“I didn’t like it originally and I thought we’d cut it,” he said. “I thought it would be too difficult and stiff, too weird. I thought it would suck… but when we had an actual person there [on video] it jumped to life. I think it’s a feature that will stay and develop.”
O’Leary said he expects the Zoom element to be a part of the show going forward, even if/when there are in-studio participants. (“Money Court” was shot at the Telemundo facilities in Miami.)
One thing that will never change, though, is his ubiquitous black suit and black tie.
“I have 25 of those suits, 25 shirts, 25 ties, tie pins, the red pocket square and big red-band watch,” he said. “One day, [‘Shark Tank’ co-star] Barbara [Corcoran] and I were in New York, doing ‘Good Morning America’ together, and I put on a blue suit with a really swanky crisp blue shirt and a red tie that looked spectacular. When I walked into the studio the wardrobe lady said, ‘What are you doing? Everybody knows you one way, you don’t want to upset the audience.’
“It’s true. People are used to seeing me one way,” he said. “No show has ever let me switch from this suit.
“This is who I am.”
