Former “Real Housewives of Altanta” star Nene Leaks on Wendy Williams, Andy Cohen beef, feeling blacklisted and not supported by cast — plus, thoughts on current cast and if she’d return.
NeNe Leakes is spilling even more tea about her tumultuous relationship with Andy Cohen and Bravo after she was let go from “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” hinting at a possible racial element, as well as feeling blacklisted after falling out with Wendy Williams.
It all went down during the second part of her podcast interview with former “RHOA” executive producer Carlos King on “Reality with the King,” where she talked about her allegations of “unfair treatment” that led to a lawsuit she would ultimately drop in 2022.
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She explained that the reason Season 13 marked the end of her relationship with Bravo was when she saw she was only being offered six episodes of a season that wound up going 21.
Leaving Real Housewives of Atlanta
According to Leakes, producers told her they cut her episode count because she seemed “unhappy,” which she didn’t understand at all. “You’re going to tell me that I’m unhappy. I’m not unhappy,” she said. “I’m unhappy I got six happy episodes. I mean, shouldn’t I get more than six episodes?”
“Like, why is it a phase-out when there’s other girls who are not the same complexion as me and started as an original housewife?” she added. “Why are they being offered 18 episodes, and I am being offered six episodes?”
“What did I do?” she continued. “Because I don’t know anything that I’ve done ever on this show that no other housewife in this franchise have not done. I’ve never done anything that no one else has done.”
That last line was in reference to bad behavior caught on camera, like when she pushed a camera operator. She compared it to when “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Teresa Giudice pushed Andy Cohen, and faced no apparent career repercussions.
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Feeling Abandoned by RHOA Cast
She also said that she doesn’t think she had the support of her castmates. “All I ever wanted, on this show, was to be treated fairly,” she said. “And it pains me and hurts me deeply how I fought for some of the girls that are on the show and how they did not fight for me to stay on the show.”
All I ever wanted, on this show, was to be treated fairly
When King tried to get Leakes to name names, she went all-inclusive, saying, “The cast, period. Like, all these girls that knew there was unfair treatment.”
She said the cast had a group text where the rest of her castmates said “that they were feeling unfair treatment,” but “no one fought.” She even said that she still has their messages, purportedly supporting her privately but not publicly.
Burying Hatchet with Andy Cohen
Despite specific beef that has been air publicly between Leakes and Cohen over the years, she says she has no “hard feelings” now. “I’m a Sagittarius,” she said by way of explanation, “so at some point, I may be mad with you, but then I get over it.”
“You don’t have to work together to do anything,” she added. “But it would be nice to either just to just work through the issues.”
“I’m not the kind of girl that carries a grudge … forever,” she continued, expressing her desire to mend fences. “I hate that we’re in this place,” she said. “I really wish it was a way for us to find our way back to each other because, you know, life is short and you just don’t want to carry ill feelings for the rest of your life.”
Despite everything that happened, though, and how it all went down, Leakes insists she is still open to having those conversations with the powers that be at NBCUniversal.
According to the reality star, though, that sentiment is not mutual. “I’ve always been open to working it out,” she said. “I’ve always been open to having a conversation. They have never wanted to have a conversation or they’ve never wanted to move forward in any kind of way.”
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Could Have Been as Big as Kim Kardashian
In fact, she suggested that she believes she’s instead been held back in her career multiple times, including early on when she believed she was on track to be as big as Kim Kardashian.
“I felt like they pushed Kim, and they didn’t push me,” she told King. “Kim came on after me, and they opened up every door and every opportunity for her.” She thought she should be as big, “if not bigger,” than Kardashian.
She was able to get opportunities and walk through doors that they just did not want me to walk through
It is Leakes’ belief that the two women were held to different standards and she was held back intentionally. “They pushed Kim to the front and pushed me to the back, and I don’t think that was by chance,” she said. “I think that was the way they wanted it to be.”
As an example, she claimed that though both she and Kardashian held Shoe Dazzle deals, only Kardashian’s line was promoted. She also claimed that during the early seasons of “RHOA” the cast was forbidden from promoting their outside business ventures, while the Kardashians made their outside work major storylines on “Keeping up with the Kardashians” on E! Both Bravo and E! are owned by NBCUniversal.
“I just think that they made her more successful. And she was able to get opportunities and walk through doors that they just did not want me to walk through,” said Leakes. For his part, King agreed that she “should be on the same level as Kim Kardashian.”
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Lost Friendship with Wendy Williams
Another moment that she felt ultimately led to lost opportunity was when she and Wendy Williams a falling out. Leakes believes that it cost her an opportunity to host her own talk show, as well as a friendship.
She explained that throughout their relationship, she would have these great experiences together, “being with Wendy, going out and having drinks with her, going to her beautiful place that she had,” and then the talk show host would “switch on me right on the same day.”
“Every time it would be like, we’re having a great time and then suddenly, I’d turn on the TV and she would be saying something about me,” Leakes said. “I would be like, ‘We were just having a damn good time, how did we get here?'”
The tension reached a crescendo in September 2020, as noted by ET, when Williams called out Leakes on her own show, as well as Cohen’s “Watch What Happens Live.” She said she had no idea what Leakes would do for money without “RHOA” because she hadn’t established herself outside of the show like “RHONY” alum Bethenny Frankel.
She said that Leakes “likes attention, dramatic attention,” and at the same time was too “boring” to headline a show of her own. According to Leakes, she was in negotiations at the time to headline a talk show by DebMar-Mercury, Williams’ producers, that suddenly disappeared.
“Debmar-Mercury pulled my deal and I no longer had a deal to do a talk show,” Leakes told King, also referencing Williams saying she couldn’t afford to deface a Birkin purse (a viral trend at the time). “I’ve had a couple of people come to me to do a talk show, but I’ve never been able to do a talk show since.”
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State of RHOA and Possible Return
Leakes said that if she were ever to return to “RHOA,” she’d be doing it “100 percent for the fans,” who she said have been asking for her to come back. She joked, “The check is not a bad check, although I think my check should be bigger.”
She also didn’t hesitate to throw some shade at the current cast and the whole franchise. As King pointed out, “RHOA” went from number one on the network to number three after Leakes’ departure, and she said it’s because of a lack of star power.
“It’s shame, and it’s a shame [producers] don’t get what it needs,” she told King. The problem, as she sees it, is that the show doesn’t have an “anchor” personality — this, of course, being her during her 12 seasons — and in fact doesn’t have any stars at all.
I just don’t see any stars on the show
“I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of the girls that are on the show currently. Just meeting them in-person they weren’t entertaining,” she explained. “I just don’t see any stars on the show.”
Her favorite cast member is one who just got promoted to the main cast, Marlo Hampton. At the same time, she argued, “If Marlo is the biggest entertainer on the show, they have got to do something.”
She doesn’t appear to be at all impressed with mainstays Kandi Burruss, who she called “overrated and overpaid,” and Kenya Moore, who she says is underperforming because she’s also bored with the rest of the cast.
“We know that Kenya can give. We know that she can read. We know that she can come in and do a whole scene, but we’re not seeing that,” Leakes said. “And I think that is because she’s not interested, because there’s no interesting talent for her to be interested in.”
As for others in the cast, Leakes described Porsha Williams as someone with “star potential,” Phaedra Parks as an “entrepreneur star” rather than a reality star, and Claudia Jordan as simply “star-less.”
