Real Housewives of Atlanta star NeNe Leakes is confronting rumors that she is ready to leave the show that has made her a household name. Leakes explains that it is difficult to be in the public eye and reveals that she has been offered her own show, but says turned it down. NeNe looks back at how the show has changed over the years and shares advice on how to be successful on Housewives.
“It’s very difficult to be in the public’s eye. You get judged all the time. It’s bittersweet,” NeNe admits. “I just try to remain NeNe and be as humble as I can.”
And although NeNe feels like she is done with Housewives, she also reveals she is not interested in a spin-off show.
“Housewives is an amazing platform. We have millions of viewers. I’m known from that show. I started there. I can’t say that I will remain full time all the time. I feel like I always want to be able to play,” NeNe tells Buzzfeed. “I always want to see the show do well. So, in order for the show to do well, I feel like I can’t… I don’t want to abandon the show. When the time comes for me to totally step away, I’m sure I will. I just don’t know when.”
“When you do a show by yourself, that’s a lot of pressure. You are the entertainment. I’ve been offered my own show. [But] I don’t want the pressure,” she adds. “You need people around you to balance off of and play off of.”
Leakes admits she thinks of herself and RHOA as a trailblazer in the industry.
“There was no Love & Hip Hop, Hollywood Wives, or whatever. There were no African-American shows like that with ensembles. We just came on the scene and just did whatever. We had no handbook,” she says. “We had nothing to look at.”
Looking back at her time on the show, NeNe recalls how much it has changed… including the production budgets and storylines.
“I remember looking back at some old footage from Season 1… we were sitting in the interviews, half makeup done,” she says. “Now, these girls have all of us to look to so they know now when they’re sitting in an interview, they need to look a certain way.”
As for the editing process, Leakes says, “They don’t really show the whole 360. They don’t show the soft side sometimes. I don’t think they really show the vulnerable side of me. I don’t think that they show how big of a heart I have. But I guess people think I’m cool. They obviously do because I get people all the time saying, ‘Hey NeNe! I would love to have drinks with you!’ So obviously, they think that I’m cool enough to have a drink with!”
“Some of the reality shows we watch can be very, very negative. There’s a lot of physical fighting. I’m not interested in that. I’ve never been in a physical fight on our show ever,” Leakes claims. “I honestly don’t feel like you need to stoop to the level of physically fighting on camera. For what? There is no check that’s big enough for that. I certainly have had my moments of arguments on the show. But physically fighting to me is crossing the line. I don’t think that it helps your image, and I don’t think that you can open up doors or opportunities when you’re doing things like that.”
NeNe also shares tips for anyone who wants to join the Housewives franchise. She insists the person must be authentic!
“You should do something you enjoy doing when you’re on the show,” NeNe reveals. “So many of the girls, when I watch them on these shows, I want to just reach through the screen and tap them on the shoulder and be like, ‘Why are you doing that?! Why are you saying that?!’”
“I feel like a lot of [women] come on these shows to look for the next hot guy, or the guy with money, like they don’t really have the brain to do other stuff,” she continues. “They’re always looking for somebody to take care of them. I am not looking for anybody to take care of me. I love being independent. Because I don’t like the control of telling me what I can do.”
“I think that these girls are in competition with who can wear the longest weave. They all look the same,” NeNe shades. “What are you doing different than the other girl? Really, nothing. Everybody has a long, black weave. Who can wear 30 inches? Who can wear 40 inches? Parted down the middle. Straight. What else is going on? They all are the same.”
“You need to have the ‘it’ factor all the way around. A lot of them are banking on ‘I’m cute.’ Well, cute ain’t going to work, honey. Cute don’t pay no bills. It doesn’t get you jobs,” she says. “If you ain’t got a brain or nothing, that just really doesn’t work. A lot of them are just there to figure out how long their weave can be. That’s all I see, child. That’s why my hair’s short and blonde. I stand out.”
“The industry for a brown girl, it’s very different than for a vanilla girl. We have to walk through different doors. We have to carry ourselves a different way. We are perceived very differently in the industry,” NeNe explains. “Sometimes, somebody vanilla could do the exact same thing I’m doing [yet] I would get judged. So we have to do different things. I think at some point, I thought to myself, I know that I got to take a different road. I got to do something different. I was just like, ‘OK, well since everybody is going to the right I’m going to go left.’”
Thank you to RealityTea for the transcript!
Photo Credit: Bravo
NeNe Leakes Brags That She has Turned Down Offers For Her Own Show
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