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Credit: Abaca Press/INSTARimages
Bozoma “Boz” Saint John looked back on an odd complaint she received from a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills producer while appearing on a podcast last week.
As she also explained her friendship with Dorit Kemsley, 48, revealed if she’s planning to return for season 15, and reflected on Garcelle Beauvais‘ exit from the show, Boz, 48, spoke of her decision to wear only Black designers on season 14, and dished on her exciting new show with Jimmy Fallon, 50.
“I remember in maybe the first or second week that I was a part of all of the filming and having the conversations with the women, one of the producers came to me and he was just like, ‘You know, Boz, you resolve issues too fast,’” Boz shared on the May 22 episode of Nice Talk With Nikki Ogunnaike. “And I was like, ‘I’m sorry, what?’”
According to Boz, the producer told her that she was “supposed to let it be.” But that isn’t how she is wired.
“I was like, ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’ Because that’s what I do. That’s what I’ve been trained to do. That’s what I do in leadership. If you have conflict or issues, that’s gonna cost you time and money. So I am trained to quickly identify, ‘Here’s the problem right here. Let’s solve that,’” she explained. “So what was happening and what I found myself becoming was the person in the group who could see very clearly what the issue was and just call that, instead of trying to go round and round and round. In the business world, you have to be direct.”
In addition to raising questions about her ability to move on from situations and drama quickly, Boz was also criticised for her whirlwind friendship with Dorit.
“People were like, ‘How dare you? Why would you be friends with her?’” she recalled. “[But] you have to meet people at a certain time in where they are. Would I have been close to Dorit if I met her six years ago? Maybe not. But where she is today? I met a person who was desperate to be heard at a time that is just chaos in her life and unfortunately, she’s in a group of people who perhaps are burned by her previous relationships or the way that she has been, but who of us have been the same over a number of years? You can’t. You’re not.”
“Sometimes you do need grace, and sometimes you need somebody to come and give you a fair shot,” she reasoned.
Then, after sharing, “Yes, I am,” when asked if she was planning to return to RHOBH, Boz admitted to being “so careful” about her relationship with Garcelle, 58, amid filming on season 14.
“I know people always want to pit the two Black girls against each other … [So] I was so careful to make sure that whatever conflict we had, that I didn’t bring it to the forefront because there was no need,” she explained.
Regarding Garcelle leaving the show, Boz continued, “I’m so sad and disappointed that she’s not coming back next season cuz I would like to have shown the development of our relationship, the conflict that we’ve had, and find resolution.”
As for her decision to wear all Black designers on season 14, “53 looks” in total, Boz said the idea formed after she chose her first look of the season.
“I knew we were going to [Sutton Stracke]’s surrealist ball … I really wanted to harken back to who I am and the way I know to show up in fashion .. so I partnered with one of my favorite designers, Mimmy Yeboah, who is Ghanaian, she does couture. I’ve worked with her numerous times and she made this extravagant confection of a cape … it was just spectacular and when I wore it I knew the significance of wearing her and what that would signal,” she shared.
From there, Boz chose her look for the cast’s marketing photo.
“I was like, ‘Okay, it’s an ode to Old Hollywood.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I gotta do Black Hollywood if we’re doing Hollywood,’” she revealed.
Amid a search for who dressed the late Dorothy Dandridge, Boz found Zelda Wynn Valdes, the first Black person to have her own salon on Madison Avenue.
“After that, I was kinda like, ‘Well, I can’t go backwards. I’ve gotta keep going with significance.’ And so I just started pulling things out of my closet that were Black designers,” she shared. “Fashion is such an important topic on this show … [And] if everybody has a thing, why can’t my thing be Black?”
Also on the podcast, Boz said that “On Brand,” her new show with Jimmy, is a “dream come true” and a “culmination of life.”
“It’s a marketing competition show. You have contestants, and every week, there’s a brand who comes in, gives a brief, and then contestants create ideas and pitch the ideas back,” she explained. “Jimmy is the host … and the CEO of the agency that we own, and I am the CMO. And so I’m the resident expert. I then am the one who’s giving critical feedback or giving praise based on technicalities to the contestants, and Jimmy is giving his creative opinions and all that, and then the brand decides, ‘Okay, we like this idea,’ and that person wins the day and somebody else is voted off.”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 15 is expected to go into production sometime in the coming weeks.
