The dust has officially settled after NeNe Leakes quitting Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice”. Though some often throw the term “Reality TV star” around like a gypsy curse, others embrace the 5 to 10 years of fame that becoming a reality show favorite or villain can net them in the long run.
On “Real Housewives of Atlanta” we thought NeNe Leakes enjoyed kicking over every sand castle and raining on every parade that she came across, but when Obnoxious caught up with her at one of the Atlanta Hawks playoff games, Leakes said that isn’t so. She doesn’t enjoy being cast as the bad guy at all. She says that, in fact, her reasoning behind agreeing to appear on “Celebrity Apprentice” was altruistic and pure. NeNe said that she is not the bitch that everyone things she is, but she does not take any sh*t!
NeNe shared that she had said all that she really needed or wanted to say about Star Jones and “Celebrity Apprentice” she quit rather than get fired, which is what she felt would have happen if she continued. “It was obvious that Donald had bought into Star’s bullsh*t and I was sick of it. You have to admit that you were proud of how far I made it in that game and that I did do very well William.”
Honestly the world was amazed that NeNe did last for as long as she did and the Black Community was equally embarrassed by her behavior. For some reason NeNe allows her self to constantly be put in situations on Reality TV that causes her to go off. Amazingly enough NeNe is not embarrassed of ashamed of any of her actions on camera and said frankly she had no regrets about her behavior towards Star Jones and frankly she told me that she did not want to discuss it anymore, but would respond to any other questions I might have had for her since I was a good friend of her attorney.
“They asked me to do the show last season and I said no,” NeNe explained. “They asked me to do the show again this season and I said yes because I really thought it would be a good look for me to be on the show fighting for my charity. That’s what I thought. I wasn’t thinking anything else. I just thought that I would do the show and have something outside the ‘Housewives of Atlanta’. You get to see the business side of me which you really didn’t get a chance to see on ‘Real Housewives’. People probably thought that all I wanted to do was fight and get in people’s face on ‘Real Housewives of Atlanta’.”
Ummm, yes that’s exactly what people were thinking. And based upon her attack of Star Jones and wanting to take it to the street is for the most part true. To be honest NeNe is so sweet in person that I almost forgot about the ghetto ally cat she can be on television. It makes you wonder if it is all just an act. She was open, honest and no subject seemed to be off limits since I caught courtside after the game with her attorney Randy Kessler, the top Family Law Attorney inGeorgia.
“This past year I’ve gone through something that was very life changing for me,” said Leakes. “It was already out there that my husband and I were having trouble and I filed for divorce. We are no longer living together, I have filed for divorce and it is close to being final. That is what our mutual friend Randy is taking care of for me. I’ve been with him for 14 years. It was the hardest time in my life. I know I didn’t show a lot of emotions on the ‘Housewives’ show, but it made me be something that I never thought I could be. I’ve always been able to control everything in my life and this is one thing I wasn’t able to control and it almost destroyed me.”
We walked through the tunnel of Philips Arena and eventually sat in a lounge and continued to talk.
“I was working on the ‘Housewives’ show and I felt like nobody on the show cared, and I know they don’t and they don’t have to care. But when you’re going through something like that you need people around you who love and care for you. Being on the ‘Housewives’ show I had become fed up with all of the bullsh*t. I’m not fake, there’s a lot of fakeness on the show.”
Such honesty and fearless straightforwardness is just the kind of interview that Obnoxious loves and it might have been the cocktails she had during the game that allowed her to be so open. With all that being said, if there is a fourth season of “Real Housewives of Atlanta” will Leakes be there?
“What you see on the show is a lot of women that are one thing, but then something different when the cameras aren’t there,” continued Leakes. “I say all that to say that I don’t know if there’s going to be a fourth season and if there is going to be a fourth season I don’t know if I’m going to do it. I’m just saying that’s how I feel today. I just want to be clear about that. I’m not saying that next month I won’t be ready to do the show; I’m just saying I’m not feeling it right now. I’m just not, I’m just not. The reunion show if you watched it I really didn’t want to be there.”
If we recall the reunion show it appeared as though it was open season on NeNe Leakes because everybody took their shot and rightfully so due to NeNe having and issue at some point with every woman on the show.
“I’m just in a better place today that I was when I shot either one of those shows,” she explained. “The New Year came in and I decided to work on getting my happy back and I wanted to be in a better place. I’m not where I need to be, but I’m in a much better place today than I was then. And I just don’t want to be surrounded by a bunch of negative people and bitterness and fighting.”
If Leakes is so adamant about not wanting to be around what she dubs as “fake” people then why not just say ‘to hell’ with the whole thing?
“Well, I’m in a contract, not that contracts can’t be broken,” she explained. “They can. It’s just a lot of stuff that me and the producers have to talk about. Can I go away? And if I continue to do it can they change up the editing? When work becomes work it’s not fun anymore. I want to get back to my happy and I want to have fun. I love television, but I certainly don’t want to go to work everyday and be arguing. I don’t want to go to work everyday and be around people who are negative and don’t give a damn about you. I just don’t want to do it anymore. I want the character to be portrayed fairly. I don’t want them to take a piece of what I said and don’t show all of what the other people said.”
“Randy can certainly help you get out of that contact right?” Obnoxious asked laughing.
“He certainly can do that,” NeNe laughed. “I’m and not saying that it is that serious as of yet, but I am saying that I want something different and I do not always want to be around negative people and fighting.”
No comments