We haven’t seen Nene Leakes on our tv screens in a while, and we may have finally got some insight as to why. In her most recent interview with former RHOA executive producer (now creator of shows such as Love and Marriage Huntsville, and Belle Collective) Carlos King, Leakes revealed in a two-part podcast rollout the unfair treatment she received from producers and cast members. She’s since departed from the show in 2020 following season 12 and is currently in an ongoing legal dispute with Bravo and it’s producing frontrunner Andy Cohen for racism and receiving an “offer that was not fair” in contract negotiations for season 13.
Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Atlanta franchise debuted on our television screens in 2008. The reality genre was expanding—for a while, MTV had a hold on white socialites and captured their livelihoods on camera with shows such as Laguna Beach (2004) and The Hills (2006). Following suit, E! broke onto the scene with Keeping Up With the Kardashians in 2007. However, it wouldn’t be until the following year that we saw Black women reflected on screen with the RHOA.
The reality series, now in its fifteenth season, can attribute much of its success to its ensemble cast, which in the first five seasons of the show, included Sheree Whitfield, Kandi Burrus-Tucker, and Kim Zolciak-Biermann. However, at the show’s epicenter, was perhaps RHOA’s earliest cast member, and OG of the franchise, Linnethia “Nene” Leakes.
Whether people choose to admit it or not, Leakes is arguably the undisputed Black queen of reality television as we know it. Her banter, one-liners, and quotables from her nine seasons on the show have helped to make Atlanta Housewives—and pop culture—what it is today.
Check out our 7 takeaways from the two-part interview Leakes…
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