NeNe Leakes calls out former RHOA co-star Kenya Moore for changing the dynamics of the show forever with her fake storylines.
NeNe Leakes appeared on the July 25 episode of Carlos King‘s Reality With the King podcast, where the two discussed the Real Housewives of Atlanta and how the show’s dynamics have changed over the years.
As any OG Bravo fan knows, NeNe is an original cast member of the Real Housewives of Atlanta. She starred on the show from seasons one through seven and then seasons ten through twelve. Carlos, on the other hand, served as an executive producer on the show for four seasons.
It is safe to say that these are two people with the most insider knowledge of the Atlanta Housewives franchise beyond Andy Cohen.
In one clip from NeNe Leakes‘s interview with Carlos, the two chat about how and when the dynamics on the Real Housewives of Atlanta shifted.
According to NeNe Leakes, the show shifted from pure reality to an altered version of it when Kenya Moore joined the show during season 5 in 2012.
The 55-year-old explains that when Kenya joined RHOA, something shifted within the show. Why? Well, NeNe believes things changed due to Kenya bringing fake storylines to the show when the rest of the cast had been showing their real lives and real relationships on the show for the prior four seasons of the show. The RHOA cast was forced to go along and accept Kenya’s fake boyfriend storyline.
NeNe explains:
“Whenever Kenya came, it was [season] four or five. That’s what I think it changed. I think all these things started. So, for instance, when me, Lisa [Wu], DeShawn [Snow], and Shereé Whitfield all of us started, they were our real husbands and our real boyfriends. Shereé was really married to Bob, and they really were going through a divorce. DeShawn was really married to Eric, and they started to have their issues. Lisa was really with Ed Hartwell. I was really with Gregg. Kim [Zolciak] was really with Big Papa. Our stories were real. Everything we talked about and did was real.”
The longtime Bravoleb noted that when Kenya joined the show, all of a sudden, it was “let’s create our storyline,” which NeNe believes changed the show.
She continued:
“When we had disagreements, they were real. We didn’t pretend like we had a boyfriend and we didn’t have one. I mean, and then I think once Kenya came on the show, I’m not saying that Kenya started it or did it, but I’m saying at that moment it was, it started to be, uh, let’s create our storyline. Well, we didn’t create a storyline. We just showed up to work and just were filming and being who we are. They started having boyfriends. They weren’t really their boyfriends, and they, that kind of stuff to me changed the dynamic of the show to me; if you didn’t have a boyfriend, you just didn’t have a boyfriend, and that’s how it should have been shot.”
If you remember, Kenya was dating a man named Walter Jackson when she joined the show in 2012. During season five, Kenya was desperate to get Walter to propose to her, but he seemed to have little to zero interest in her at the time. Walter later confirmed that Kenya asked him to “pretend” to be her boyfriend for the show, and he agreed in order to get his 15 minutes of fame.
Per Urban Belle Magazine, in December 2012, Walter told Atlanta radio station V-103:
“[Kenya said]. ‘I’m going to be doing this show. So what do you think about doing Reality TV?’ I said I don’t know that’s kind of a big stretch there. ‘What if you played my boyfriend on the show? ‘ So you know, I had to think about it. So I call my boy Chris Ruffen, I call my boy Greg Johnson, I call my boy Morris. And I asked them what do y’all think about this? I asked them should I put myself out there because that’s not me. Everybody was like, hey man, get your 15 minutes of fame.”
RHOA airs on Sundays at 8 pm on Bravo.
