‘RHOP’: Ashley Darby Shares Where She and Candiace Dillard Bassett Stand Today (Exclusive)

A brand-new season of the Real Housewives of Potomac is set to premiere on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo. Ahead of the premiere, PopCulture.com got to chat with RHOP star Ashley Darby about what fans can expect from the upcoming season. More specifically, she opened up about her relationships with her fellow cast members. Of course, viewers know that Darby has had her fair share of drama with one co-star, in particular, Candiace Dillard Bassett. Where do they stand today?

When asked about where she stands with Bassett, Darby told PopCulture.com that they’re simply two “different” people. She added, “You know, there are just some people you mesh with and you kiki like, ‘Oh my gosh we’re puzzle pieces that fit together.’ She and I could not be further opposite. We are the opposite sides of a magnet. We just don’t do well together.” As for why the two don’t get along, Darby said they seem to have two different ideologies when it comes to one factor seen across every Housewives franchise — conflict resolution.

The mom-of-two said, “I find that, for me, if I do something wrong or if I make a mistake, I find that it’s important to just apologize and own it. And I don’t necessarily think that can be said for Candiace, which affects how I interact with her because I don’t know if she’ll ever be open to taking accountability for her actions. And it’s hard for me to move with a person like that.” While fans will get to see how Darby and Bassett’s relationship plays out on RHOP, most recently, their feud took another turn thanks to social media.

According to The Grio, their drama started about a month ago when a fan account on Instagram shared a highlight reel featuring moments from the Bravo series. A fan responded to the video to write, “This reel shows how reckless Ashley’s mouth has been and still is. Yet Candiace was the villain and ganged up on by so many fans. It’s crazy how Ashley was in my opinion worse but people want to ignore that. I wonder why????” Bassett then responded by sharing her own take, writing, “Because she’s light-skinned. There. It was said. I said it. Now, let’s see how fast it gets around.” Well, it didn’t take long for that statement to make its way to Darby. According to the reality star, Bassett’s comment is just one of the reasons why the two “don’t mesh.”

“When she was writing about me on Twitter, she was calling me a slave and calling my husband [Michael] a slave driver,” Darby recounted. “So, I don’t understand exactly like am I black or am I not black. She always wants to bring my skin color into this conversation and I’m just, quite frankly, over it because what she does is she detracts from the real issue and the real issue is, as I mentioned, she does not take accountability for her actions. She doesn’t know how to move on. She’s not mature enough to evolve when there are confrontations and that’s the issue, not my skin color.”

Darby continued to share a message for Bassett, explaining, “And I just wish that whatever Candiace is going through, however she’s feeling, I hope that she can talk to somebody about it and stop taking it out on me because bringing my skin color into the conversation constantly, it’s not going to bring us to any better place.” Clearly, it seems like Darby and Bassett still don’t see eye to eye. But, fans will be able to see how their drama continues to play out when RHOP premieres on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET.