MadameNoire
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Clearly, there’s been a lot going on behind the scenes of The Real Housewives of Atlanta when it comes to the drama and questions surrounding the authenticity and intentions of Porsha Williams’ Black Lives Matter activism. In a recent Instagram Live session, Porsha sat down to air out her side of the story.
If you didn’t know, several days ago an article came out via Vulture titled The Soul of Bravo, which detailed and explored how the impacts of a “year of national reckonings on race and inequality” tested how racially sensitive Bravo stars should and can be both on and off of the network’s hit shows. As a staple on the network and being a show that’s revolved around the lives of Black women, RHOA and its cast members were an important part of the piece overall.
Amidst the article, it highlighted the growth Porsha has exemplified throughout her time on the show when it comes to her public activism on race-related topics. From her unforgettable blunder back in one of her first seasons where she mistook the Underground Railroad for an actual railroad that transported slaves to freedom — to the show’s current season where her protesting and multiple arrests as a voice in the Black Lives Matter movement have been documented — Porsha’s work for BLM and growth overall has become something viewers have admired and enjoyed seeing this season.
That being said, one of Porsha’s harshest critics (at least from the footage we’ve seen this season) has been her castmate Kenya Moore. Even though the two have never seemed to have an amicable relationship for more than a few months before once again becoming enemies, this season seemingly took their feud to uncharted territories when in addition to making whether Porsha slept with B.O.L.O the Entertainer a major part of this season, Kenya also was vocal about her not believing Porsha’s BLM efforts were genuine and authentic. In the write-up, Vulture recalled Kenya saying of her, “Porsha wanted to be the only one that was the face of the movement for TV purposes.”
The thing is though, the aforementioned is only what the viewers saw. In Vulture’s article, the journalist explained that when fellow cast member Kandi Burruss decided to send a letter to one of the Bravo executives (during summer 2020) suggesting some internal changes be made within the network that would incorporate BLM initiatives, more diversity, inclusion, and proposed the airing of a special on the network that would focus on race, rumors surfaced that her castmates weren’t happy about her going to the higher-ups with her ideas before giving them a heads-up.
“They say they were upset because I did not include them,” Kandi told Vulture about how her castmates felt. Defending her actions, she added, “But we all have our way that we’re helping with the movement.”
Essentially, the article later reported that in an unaired scene, Kandi confronted Porsha on why the latter allegedly had an issue with her going to Bravo and trying to do her own part for Black Lives Matter even if it was without the rest of the cast’s initial input. Explaining what really went down, Porsha addressed all the drama via an Instagram Live yesterday. Interestingly, even though the unaired verbal disagreement with Kandi was more so the focus of that portion of Vulture’s article, Porsha shared that as she sees it, Kenya is the main person that’s been consistently and unnecessarily questioning her activism.
“The reason I’m bringing this up is because there are some things that are in this article that are said to be facts and they are not facts,” Porsha said of Vulture’s coverage. Alluding to the unseen footage of her and Kandi’s conversation on Black Lives Matter activism, she continued, “These same things have been repeated on Speak On It (Kandi’s show), these same things have been repeated by Kenya on various outlets where they say there is a scene that was deleted, edited out, or not aired on Bravo because I asked for it to be taken out.”
As she explained, it’s no secret that powerful housewives on occasion have some pull with the Bravo executives and might even ask that some scenes and pieces of their lives be left on the cutting room floor rather than pieced into the show for viewers to see.
“It is what it is,” Porsha said. “I’ve worked very hard to get to where I am in life, I’ve worked very hard on the show — and if I’ve gotten to a place where I can call the execs up and get something taken out then so be it, right?”
“However, in this particular situation,” she highlighted, “the way that Kenya is putting it out there that I asked the Bravo execs to not play a scene of Kandi and I ‘having an argument, having a fight, me dogging Kandi about her efforts concerning Black Live Matter,’” she said while using air quotes, “is simply not true.”
Essentially, Porsha said that the drama dated back to when NeNe Leakes was still a part of the show. According to her version of the story, she explained that NeNe had shared out-of-context text messages from a cast group chat to a blogger who ended up making them public. Because the circumstances surrounding the conversation weren’t explained along with the now-public texts, that’s what supposedly started the rumors saying the RHOA ladies weren’t happy about Kandi going “behind the cast’s back” and making them feel “blindsided.” Porsha also clarified that when Kandi went to confront her in an effort to figure out why there was an issue about her letter to the Bravo higher-ups — a scene the Housewives production crew filmed at Todd’s birthday party for season 13 of the show — Porsha explained that it was the controversial scene viewers didn’t see this season. Speaking on her thoughts at the time of that conversation with Kandi, Porsha said she wasn’t expecting it to even go down the way it did because it was the first scene she’d been in with the cast since the season started filming and in her opinion, the group chat’s text exchange discussing Kandi’s activism wasn’t negative anyways.
“…The way the blogger put it out there was that Kandi went behind the cast’s back and went to Bravo to try and get some programing done without telling us which blindsided us [and aimed to] make Kandi look bad. So Kandi got upset with that and she decided to confront me about it on Housewives… The beginning of the season happened and I had not seen any of the cast — this was my first scene with the cast which was [at] Todd’s birthday. I walked into Todd’s birthday and I was told Kandi wanted to question me about something. And I said, ‘Okay that’s fine, I haven’t done anything, I’m happy to answer any of her questions.’”
“…We were having a decent conversation. It was nothing to be upset about and I thought “Okay, this is fine because I have the text messages,’” Porsha said recalling her feelings on the conversation between her and Kandi at that time and her self-assurance that at the end of the day she had the receipts to back up that she hadn’t bashed Kandi’s letter.
Reading a portion of the group chat exchange later in the Live, Porsha went over her texts to Kandi during the discussion on the latter’s letter. “I said [to Kandi] ‘I’m not going to let the show make a mockery out of BLM. We have been doing great things and cannot let them try to make a mockery.’” While Kandi replied in the chat saying she didn’t think that’s what Bravo was trying to do, Porsha explained that from her perspective, the network airing footage of the both of them arguing about BLM activism during Todd’s birthday would do just that.
“If we as Black women are sitting on Bravo arguing about Black Lives Matter,” Porsha explained in the Live, “you’re absolutely making a mockery out of us using our platform. And that’s a bad thing, and it’s a terrible look, and it’s not progressive. It’s counterproductive.”
See the rest of what Porsha had to say about all the drama and hear more on what really went down in the RHOA ladies’ group chat down below.
