‘RHOP’ Star Dr. Wendy Osefo Wanted to ‘Protect’ Candiace Dillard and Monique Samuels During Their Fight (Exclusive)

Dr. Wendy Osefo is one of the most accomplished women in reality television, but even she admits that joining The Real Housewives of Potomac cast during a turbulent season was “very challenging.” With a PhD, professorship at Johns Hopkins University, career as a political commentator and three kids at home, the newest addition to the Bravo reality show had a whole new realm to navigate as she stepped into a different kind of spotlight.

Osefo sat down for an interview on PopCulture @ Home ahead of Sunday’s all-new episode of RHOP, airing Sundays at 9 p.m., during which she opened up about her “organic” addition to the cast and role in the fight between Monique Samuels and Candiace Dillard that would turn violent later in the season. Of adding Housewife to her resume, Osefo confessed, “I felt like I was juggling a million things, but it was definitely fun as well.”

Having met many of her castmates in the same Potomac social circle and boards they frequent, Osefo said the opportunity to join RHOP “fell on [her] lap.” She continued, “When it did, at first, I did not want to take it, because it was so different than anything I’ve ever done. But then I spoke to my family members, and they all were like, ‘Absolutely, why not?’ And so I went ahead and did it.”

“I’m a big fan of YOLO — you only live once — and I don’t want to be 90 years old and say, ‘What if?’ So here I am,” she joked. Beginning filming just four weeks after giving birth to daughter Kamrynn in most difficult pregnancy she had ever experienced, Osefo admitted that getting into the mix with the other women and opening up her life to the cameras was “definitely hard.”

With Dillard and Samuels’ personal issues escalating towards a fight fans have only seen glimpses of, Osefo lamented the “unfortunate” situation between the two women. “If I had a magic wand, I wish I could wave it, and it never happened,” she told PopCulture. “I’m friends with Candiace; I was getting to know Monique, and I just hope that they can come together after this. I really wish that they could all come together, and the group can come together after that incident.”

In the brief moments of the fight shown in the season trailer, Osefo can be seen putting herself physically in between the two women as things turned violent, which she says was part of her protective mothering instinct. “I was just like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening right now.’ I guess just me being a mom, I stepped, right? As if my boys were going to be fighting or something.”

“I’m one of those people — I’m big on respecting each other and protecting each other, so I just wanted to protect both of them. So I was just trying to push them apart as best as I can,” she continued. As for if she has hopes for the two women to reconcile, despite the women declaring they are completely done with one another, Osefo thinks they have to “decide what it is that they need from the other one in order to feel as though they could move forward.” She added, “I just hope that they can one day have that conversation and they can move forward, because I like both of the, and I think that both of their personalities add a certain dynamic to our group.”