If you’ve ever watched a single episode of any Real Housewives show, you know that they’re all a damn mess. Drinks are thrown, tables are flipped, and rumors are shamelessly spread. But it looks like even Andy Cohen and his team of minions over at Bravo have limits, and Phaedra Parks’ fuckery has gotten her fired from Real Housewives of Atlanta.
For those of you who don’t watch RHOA, here’s a little context: Phaedra has been on the show for six seasons, and she’s known for her constant shit-stirring. She’s a lawyer, but some of her gossiping tactics probably legally qualify as slander. At least, that’s my expert opinion based off the countless hours I’ve spent watching Law & Order. Anyway, this season things got more heated than ever, when Phaedra seriously crossed the line with a malicious rumor about date rape. We wish we were exaggerating, but we’re literally not.
The story went like this: Back when the season was being filmed, Phaedra apparently told her cast mate Porsha Wiliams that another housewife, Kandi Burruss, and her husband Todd were planning to drug Porsha and bring her to their house to rape her. Yeah, you read that correctly, and the appropriate response is WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. This obviously would have been horrifying if it was true, but it wasn’t. Like, at all. It’s unclear why Phaedra thought this was remotely a good idea, or how it would even occur to someone to make up something like this, but she definitely can’t sit with us. Because no one wants to hear that they’re an accused rapist on national TV, Kandi threatened Bravo if they aired the accusations, so we never saw the actual clip; we just heard them reference it a lot throughout the season.
Fast forward to the reunion, which aired Sunday night. After being accused of spreading the disgusting rumor about Kandi, Phaedra admitted she made the whole thing up. No one was amused, fucking obviously. The women were all furious, and Andy Cohen was having none of it. A source said that she “dug her own grave,” and Bravo was happy to put the final nail in the coffin. They informed Phaedra that she was being fired last month, and that’s the end of it. She’s casually removed all mention of the show from her social media, and she’s quickly being forgotten.
So, what’s the lesson here? First of all, don’t fucking spread fake rape rumors because that’s fucked up and why on earth would that seem like a good idea? Even if it’s your literal job to spread rumors and create drama on TV, there are lines you just don’t cross. Now Phaedra will have to go back to like actually being a lawyer (is that going to be like, allowed?), while RHOA is getting their true queen NeNe Leakes back next season. Sorry, Phaedra, but ain’t nobody got time for that.
