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Tamra Judge took aim at Emily Simpson and Gina Kirschenheiter while appearing on Lala Kent‘s podcast on Wednesday.
In addition to looking back on her heated spat with Heather Dubrow, 56, admitting to intense struggles amid Teddi Mellencamp‘s brain cancer diagnosis, and revealing that she actually quit The Real Housewives of Orange County three times amid season 19, Tamra, 57, explained the moments leading up to her first “exit” and lashed out at Emily, 49, and Gina, 41, for talking behind her back.
“This season, I’m really hurt by Gina and Emily because I truly thought that they were my friends,” Tamra began on the August 20 episode of Give Them Lala after being asked which castmates were most guilty of talking behind her back.
“To hear them say the things they’ve said, knowing what I’m going through at the time, I mean, Emily even said to me, ‘Geez, if this was happening to my best friend, Gina, I don’t know how I would be able to film this show.’ But knowing that, and still coming for me and saying things, to me it’s just hurtful, and it makes me think they really don’t care about me or they’re really more interested in making good TV,” Tamra explained.
While Heather also lashed out at Tamra’s behavior amid their girls’ trip to New Orleans, Tamra said she “[understood]” since she “wasn’t very nice to her,” and she revealed that she texted her afterward.
“I’m like, ‘I’m so sorry you don’t deserve that,’” Tamra recalled. “She does [call me on my sh*t]. But I love Heather. Heather comes from a place of kindness. Me and Heather have had arguments, but we always have resolution, and I care about her, and I care about her family, and she cares about my family … she’s just a very kind person, but we’re also filming a show together, and if I do something that’s out of line, I expect Heather to call me out like I do for anybody else.”
Before traveling to New Orleans, Tamra learned of Teddi’s diagnosis, which sent her into a bit of a tailspin.
“What people don’t understand [is] Teddi is one of my good friends, but also she’s my business partner, and we built this amazing podcast together,” she explained. “Five days a week, we’re talking, we’re chatting, we’re on the phone, we’re on Zoom. And now this is happening, two weeks into filming, she got diagnosed, and we had just been in New Orleans. We come back and I have to hold the podcast down on my own, bring in a co-host, I’m doing this five days a week … I would do that in the morning, go film, come home, watch the show, sometimes I have to do two podcasts in a day, depending on how busy the Bravo schedule is with housewives, and then do it all over again.”
Amid her heartache, which was paired with her hectic schedule, Tamra said she “wasn’t eating” and “wasn’t sleeping.” On top of that, she shared, “I was taking Xanax.”
“It was not a good time in my life. I won’t even watch last week’s episode … because I don’t want to relive it,” she confessed.
Although some have suggested that Tamra shouldn’t have been filming if she was in such a dark place, she shared with Lala that she had already started the season when she learned of Teddi’s brain cancer.
“I didn’t really have much of a choice,” she stated. “I was already in it.”
Following her first “exit” from RHOC, Tamra said quitting became a knee-jerk reaction to stress.
“Every time I got very upset or emotional, my first instinct was to say, ‘I quit,’ and I probably did that three times this year,” she admitted.
Also on the podcast, Tamra looked back on the night she decided to leave New Orleans.
“I took Xanax that night before we went to dinner, not thinking about the two drinks I had with [Shannon Beador]. I don’t remember that scene. I don’t remember going to [Shanon’s] hotel room, and when I saw that, I’m like, oh my God, it’s yellow, it’s champagne,” she recalled.
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 19 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on Bravo.
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