RHOC star Tamra Judge dishes on her “breaking point” with former friend Shannon Beador and admits that she has “no sympathy” for her post-DUI.
It’s no secret that Tamra Judge has been overly critical of Shannon Beador following her DUI in September 2023. As a result, many RHOC fans aren’t happy with Tammy Sue’s treatment of her former BFF while watching season 18.
Some fans believe that Tamra jumped ship on her friendship with Shannon Beador following her DUI so that she could go after her on the show and thus create a storyline for herself.
Amid backlash from RHOC, Tamra Judge is now attempting to save face by making a case for her behavior towards Shannon Beador.
“Oh, everyone hates me this season,” Tamra said in an interview with PEOPLE. “I know it looks like I’m being a bad friend to Shannon, or that I’m just attacking her for no reason. But as anyone who has someone in their lives who drinks like this will tell you, it’s very frustrating to watch that person refuse to get help and just keep making the same mistakes over and over again … There are going to be times when you just reach a breaking point where you can’t do it anymore. And that was my reality when the cameras went up.”
“Throughout the 10 years that I’ve known her, minus the two she didn’t speak to me when I wasn’t on the show, her life was always in shambles,” Tamra continued. “She would call me crying, almost daily — usually inebriated late at night — and she would be riled up about this or that. And listen, I cared about her. I was her friend. I wanted to help her, but she never did anything to help herself.”
Tamra confirms that her issues with Shannon stem from her drinking.
“I knew she had a drinking problem, but I was too afraid to say it to her. And I’ll take responsibility for that, I should have said something sooner,” the RHOC star said. “But every single person on our cast called her out on her drinking, and she would fight with them and ice them out. And I was worried if I did that, she’d cut me out, too.”
“After her DUI, we had a long, heart-to-heart conversation and for the first time ever, I actually told her what I thought,” Tamra explained. “I said, ‘Listen, you have a drinking problem. It’s time for you to get help.’ And she acknowledged it, and I comforted her and encouraged her to use this rock bottom moment to really make changes in her life.”
“Walking away from that conversation, I felt relief,” Tamra added. “I thought it was going to be a turning point; that crashing your car into the side of a house with a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit would be a wake-up call. But days later, I heard she was talking about me behind my back, saying, ‘Who do I think I am saying she has a problem?’ and telling mutual friends of ours that other people in our cast were the real ones with drinking problems.”
The 56-year-old says she jumped shipped on the Tres Amigas after seeing Shannon drink at one of their shows and began blaming her problems on “the toxic people in her life.”
“It was always someone else’s fault. I just lost respect [for her] and told myself, ‘If she’s not going to change, then I am,’” Tamra said. “I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to get off the train; I had to choose me. Nothing I was saying to her was helping, because she doesn’t want to get help.”
“I won’t enable her anymore,” Tamra added. “She won’t admit that she has a drinking problem because then she will have to stop drinking.”
“I have empathy for Shannon but I have no sympathy for her anymore,” she continued. “I know people make mistakes. I know plenty of people get DUIs who aren’t alcoholics. And I know alcoholics struggle to come to terms with their drinking. But this has been going on for so long. and if you can get behind the wheel that drunk, run your car into a house with your dog in the car, leave the scene while covered in blood with a broken nose, broken arm, and then go back to drinking again? I can’t have sympathy for that.”
Despite the blowback she has received from some RHOC fans, Tamra insists that plenty of fans have supported her decision to cut off Shannon.
“I’ve heard from so many people who have been impacted by someone in their lives close to them who struggle with drinking problems. And they have said, ‘Believe me, I know where you’re coming from,’” Tamra said. “They’ve said, ‘The pressure it puts on you is overwhelming. I don’t blame you, that’s what happened to me too.’ And they’ve reminded me, ‘If someone isn’t making amends for how their drinking negatively affected you, they’re not doing the work.’ So it’s helped me understand that I’m not wrong in my feelings. And that sometimes, all you can resort to is tough love.”
The Real Housewives of Orange County airs on Bravo Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.
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