“Real Housewives of Atlanta” newcomer and Slutty Vegan founder Pinky Cole is facing a steeper financial hill than originally known. Amended bankruptcy documents filed on May 19 now place her total personal debt at roughly $4 million, a significant jump from the figures disclosed when she first filed for Chapter 11 protection back in February.
When Cole initially filed, notably without legal representation, court records showed she owed $1.2 million to the U.S. Small Business Administration and approximately $192,000 to the Georgia Department of Revenue. The updated filings, first reported by the Atlanta Business Chronicle, were submitted after Cole retained bankruptcy attorney Jamie Christy of Schreeder, Wheeler & Flint to help reorganize and amend the case.
The new disclosures paint a much fuller picture of her liabilities. They include $82,000 in credit card balances, $363,399 in unpaid rent, $107,625 owed to restaurant supplier Edward Don & Company (plus attorney’s fees and interest from an ongoing lawsuit), and $250,000 to Atlanta-based investment firm CIH Group. Smaller debts to medical providers, EMS services, and toll authorities in Georgia and Ohio round out the total, per TheGrio.
Cole has been candid about what brought her here. In a March 2026 interview on “The Breakfast Club,” she traced the crisis back to the brand’s explosive growth phase: “As a result, we got $20 million in debt. Yes, we were making money, double-digit millions, but if your payroll is high and you have all of these costs and everything is adding up, your bottom line is going to be red.”
Cole elaborated further, explaining that at the brand’s peak it was costing between $800,000 and $1 million to open each new location, and that a $25 million Series A raised in 2022, which valued the company at $100 million, wasn’t enough to outpace the mounting costs of operating 14 restaurants during a period of record inflation.
Before the Chapter 11 filing, Cole had already endured a painful restructuring in 2025, when she entered into an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors — a state-level process that required her to temporarily transfer ownership of Slutty Vegan to a third-party administrator before buying it back. She closed multiple locations during that stretch to improve her financial position, per Atlanta News First.
Despite the downsizing — from 14 locations to just five — Cole has pressed forward with a franchise-focused reinvention she’s calling “Slutty Vegan 2.0,” while her personal assets, valued at roughly $3.75 million, remain on the table as the reorganization proceeds.
The bankruptcy filings are playing out in real time on Bravo. During the April 26 episode of “RHOA,” Cole opened up to her husband Derrick Hayes, about the Chapter 11 filing — a conversation she had kept from him until that moment. When he pressed for details, she revealed the full scope of the debt tied to the brand’s rapid expansion. Hayes described it as a “public nightmare,” and Cole agreed, saying it already was one.
The financial cleanup is far from over, but Cole insists the story isn’t finished. I’m just a walking testimony for entrepreneurs that no matter what you go through, whether it’s good times or bad times, you still can rise,” she told Bravo’s The Daily Dish.
