“Real Housewives of Atlanta” alum Nene Leakes is opening up about the racial bias and unfair treatment she faced within the Bravo Universe.
In the Sept. 29 episode of Bethenny Frankel’s podcast, “Just B with Bethenny Frankel“, the reality star detailed her experience with the “Housewives” franchise, citing the “different treatment” of Black women as the main reason she ultimately walked away from the show in 2020.
“My thoughts in leaving were, it felt like I was being phased out. I didn’t understand why I was given less and less episodes,” she explained.
“All the original housewives on their shows — all white women — they are all given full episodes, and I’m the only Black original on my show, and I was given less,” she continued. “I was given six, and they were given 18. Why?”
In the candid conversation with the “Real Housewives of New York City” alum, Leakes also shared moments when her white co-star, Kim Zolciak-Biermann, was given preferential treatment.
“We are a cast of Black women and we have a white woman on our show. She doesn’t travel, we travel. She doesn’t shoot, we shoot.,” Leakes revealed. “There was a lot of different treatment happening on the show and I was more of the outspoken one, the one that was in the front. Me and the girls would talk about it and we would say, ‘You know it’s unfair that Kim doesn’t have to take any cast trips. Like, none of us want to take cast trips.”
After expressing her grievances to the network, Leakes claims the response from Bravo was silence: “They never picked up the phone. No one ever wanted to speak to me.”
And Leakes isn’t the only reality star that has recently addressed racial inequality within reality TV.
On an Aug. 3 episode of “Dish Nation,” “Braxton Family Values” star Tamar Braxton expressed her concerns about the disparities in pay between Black and white reality stars.
“The pay is not fair between Kim Kardashian, the Braxtons, or ‘Atlanta Housewives,’” she said. “That’s not fair. We’re doing the same thing, why are we not getting the same price?”
In April of 2022, Leakes filed a lawsuit against Bravo and NBCUniversal, alleging a hostile work environment and that network bosses turned a blind eye to the racism she faced from Zolciak-Biermann for years on the set of “Atlanta.”
In August of 2022, Leakes dismissed the action without prejudice, meaning she has the option to reopen the case in the future.
