Watching your parent engage in PDA can be pretty ick — but “My Mom, Your Dad” star Breana Symone was willing to persevere if it meant that her mother, Karen Larrea, found love.
“It was awkward,” Symone, 20, tells Page Six exclusively of the HBO Max unscripted series.
“Sometimes I was like, ‘I’m just going to close my eyes for a second.’ Listen, my mom has game but it’s just so weird to watch her dance with men. It was so cringey!”
“My Mom, Your Dad” follows a group of single parents who have been nominated by their college-age kids for a second chance at love.
A brainchild of “Love Island” and “Parks and Recreation” producers, the show encourages those parents to pursue romantic connections at a palatial home called “Second Chance Retreat.” However, they are unaware that their adult children are surveilling their every move through hidden cameras and “meddling” in their dates.
“At first, I was in shock,” Larrea, 49, says of the moment she discovered that her daughter had a hand in her experience. “We didn’t find out until we left the house. Then in my mind, it was literally like a film [playing backl] in my head: What did I say? What did I do?”
The Miami-based music manager adds, “I was trying to think of everything that happened while I was in that house and I was like, ‘My daughter saw everything!’ And I wanted to die.”
Symone admits that she didn’t enjoy watching Larrea “twerk” in front of men or coach potential suitors how to “turn her on” — “That’s definitely something that won’t leave my brain for a while, unfortunately,” she says with a laugh — but is nonetheless happy that her mom ultimately found a match in Troy Petrick.
“I knew my mom was going to leave with Troy,” she says of the Atlanta resident and proud father, “from literally day one.”
Symone — who became close with Petrick’s son, Noah, throughout filming — believes Larrea and Petrick were made for each other.
“What makes them a great couple is that they have the same values when it comes to family,” she elaborates. “They both are great parents. They are also both musicians and singers. They just look really cute together. Like, look at them, it’s the Karen and Troy show!”
Larrea is equally thrilled about how her reality TV love story ended — and can’t wait to write more chapters with Petrick off-camera.
“Knowing that we have been given a second chance at love is a beautiful thing,” she says. “Troy is an amazing family man and father and that has made me fall even more for him. For me, the relationship a father has with his children shows me how he is going to treat my children and me.”
Larrea gushes that she and Petrick have “so many beautiful things to look forward to as a couple” — maybe even a wedding.
“Does the potential of marriage with Troy excite me? Yes, absolutely!” she says. “We both have seriously discussed it and that’s what we are looking towards but that surprise has to come from Troy. I know what my answer will be, along with the huge smile he has put on my face from the day we met.”
“My Mom, Your Dad” is available to stream on HBO Max.