Barbara Corcoran’s Shark Tank costar Daymond John got the wrong first impression of her upon filming season 1 in 2009.
“I kidded with Daymond because his hotel room door was right next to mine. I said, ‘Hey, you want to come in for a drink?’ I kid. He got in his room and slammed the door so fast,” Corcoran, 74, exclusively told Us Weekly on Monday, September 25, while chatting about Shark Tank season 15, which premieres on Friday, September 29.
Years later, Corcoran said John, 54, told her “he thought I was hitting on him.” She told Us: “I’m like, ‘No, I wasn’t hitting [on you]. I was just trying to have some fun with you.’” Both of the Sharks are in relationships as Corcoran has been married to her husband, Bill Higgins, since 1988 and John tied the knot with Heather Taras in 2018.
Despite getting off on the wrong foot, Corcoran said that John is the “house favorite” in the Shark’s “dysfunctional family.” She explained: “You have Robert [Herjavec] who wants to be Mark [Cuban] — he’s the older brother, the big man on campus. You have Lori [Greiner] who tells us that we should play with our toys nicely when [someone] steals our toys.”
When it comes to costar Kevin O’Leary, Corcoran jokingly dubbed him “the town bully,” adding, “But somehow it all goes together and it merges well, and we’re a dysfunctional family like everybody else.”
As much as she loves her cast mates, the businesswoman called former guest Shark Kevin Hart “the smartest Shark we had on set.” However, she is still “angry” with the comedian for turning down a potential business deal with her. Hart, 44, previously appeared in two season 13 episodes in 2022.
“He picked Lori as a partner, and then he gave me a chance in the afternoon to pick me, and then he — just because I hesitated on a price that the entrepreneur wanted, I said, ‘No, you’re not paying us enough’ — Kevin said, ‘You’re out,’ and Mark jumped in,” she shared. “So, he said, ‘Well, when you have a girl in your bed and she jumps out of the bed, you’ve got to replace her with somebody else, and you replace her with Mark.’ He’s incorrigible, but he’s so good at what he does. So good.”
With the show’s season 15 premiere days away, Corcoran teased that fans can expect to see lots of “scrappy young hustlers” enter the tank this season. “I want[ed] to buy everybody who pitched, which I can’t, but I did spend way, way too much money this season,” she stated. “But I’ve gotten myself some great people with great dreams, no money, and they had to get it from Shark Tank, so the stakes are higher. It was very exciting to shoot this season more so than any other year.”
Shark Tank season 15 premieres on ABC Friday, September 29, at 8 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
