NeNe Leakes Blasts Current ‘Real Housewives’ Casts

NeNe Leakes has something to say about the current state of the Real Housewives franchise. During a recent appearance on The Breakfast Club, she mentioned that the current Housewives are “starless,” per Deadline. Leakes has been particularly critical of Real Housewives and Bravo ever since she left the Real Housewives of Atlanta in 2020. She has since filed a lawsuit against Bravo and Andy Cohen alleging racism and a hostile work environment, but it was later dropped. 

The conversation started after Leakes read some news about Real Housewives of Potomac star Robyn Dixon. On Monday, the RHOP star confirmed that she knew that her husband, Juan Dixon, had an affair, which was a major topic of discussion during the course of the current season. Leakes couldn’t help but be a little shady about the matter, as she said, “Ooooh, honey! Yes for the starless Robyn Dixon child. Starless honey, mmhmm.”

After the co-hosts questioned her use of the term “starless,” she repeated the phrase and added, “Like, these girls on these shows, they’re just not stars. If you really look at it, all of the stars that were on any of these franchises, they took them off and everybody that is left is starless.” Charlamagne tha God defended RHOP by saying that it has “high ratings,” to which Leakes said, “Oh, does it? When was the last time you looked at those ratings?” Charlamagne continued to say that he thought that Dixon and her co-star Gizelle Bryant were stars despite what Leakes was saying. 

After the program aired a snippet of Dixon and Bryant’s Reasonably Shady podcast, which is in the same radio family as The Breakfast Club, Leakes doubled down on her “starless” bit. She asked whether the RHOP stars were “famous,” to which Charlamagne said that they were because they appear on the Bravo series. However, that wasn’t a sufficient answer for Leakes.

“They’re not famous,” she said. “They may be known … there’s a difference between famous and known. And so, I don’t know about famous but maybe they’re known for a minute.” After more back and forth about other Housewives franchises, Charlamagne explained that “fame is subjective.” Leakes conceded this point and said, “I guess, honey. I guess, child. Well anyway, since Envy and Charlamagne say Robyn is famous, I take it back Robyn. Famous Robyn Dixon and Juan Dixon — sorry, my fault.”

As previously mentioned, Leakes has been away from the Real Housewives world for some time. After years of producing entertaining television on RHOA, she left the series in 2020 after she didn’t reach a deal to return for Season 13. In April 2022, she filed a lawsuit against the Bravo network and Andy Cohen and alleged that she worked in a racist and hostile environment. The lawsuit was later dropped in August.