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So if you watched Basketball Wives on Sunday (sorry for the late recap, but #LaborDay), then you had the chance to see Kristen Scott and CeCe Gutierrez finally hash out their differences — or something like that. Honestly, all of Kristen’s issues seemed to be more with her father-in-law, Byron Scott, than they were with CeCe.
After tip-toeing around one another for the last few episodes, Kristen staying close with the “cool kids” of the cast (Evelyn, Shaunie, Malaysia), and CeCe sticking close to Jackie and fellow newbie OG, they were finally forced to sit down and talk out their issues during the Amsterdam trip. Y’all know Malaysia wasn’t going to let it go until they did…
After tearing up soon into their conversation about how rough things had been among the family, Kristen called out those tears, and that text message CeCe sent that said Byron didn’t want to do outings with her and husband Thomas (Byron’s son) anymore because no one but he and CeCe were paying. She said that message kept her from attending any of the events predating CeCe’s birthday party (which she didn’t invite Kristen to). It also created an understandable wedge.
But she lost me after that. Kristen said she was angered by the fact that CeCe and Byron haven’t seen her daughter in quite some time, knowing they live “down the f–king street.” She also said she and Thomas’s relationship with Byron has changed, and that CeCe hasn’t done enough to get him to want to be as present as he possibly was before. I listened to the conversation and thought, “Girl, you’re mad at the wrong person.”
Kristen is making CeCe more responsible for Byron’s behavior than she should be. And while the tone of the text message CeCe sent about why Byron didn’t want to do family outings with them anymore may have come off as dry and hurtful to Kristen, it did sound like a way of telling her so that she could relay the message to Thomas, that things would need to change. That was CeCe’s first chance to speak on behalf of Byron, and since it obviously didn’t go well, maybe she felt like she should stay out of it.
And for all the responsibility she wants CeCe to have in terms of helping Byron have a change of heart and be grandfather of the year, Kristen sure flipped and said, in the confessional, that CeCe’s “place in the family isn’t solidified.” So if she isn’t doesn’t think sis has a permanent place in the family, why is she expecting her to bring them all together? And how are her hopes for CeCe to step up on her behalf supposed to work if she keeps throwing sis under the bus every time they hang out with the girls?
It’s exhausting, honestly.
Kristen has a right to be disappointed in the family drama they’re dealing with, and there are probably other conversations and issues had that we don’t get to see. However, as a viewer, based on what’s been shown, she’s handled everything pretty poorly.
If she wanted Byron to know that he needs to make a better effort to see his granddaughter, taking her child “down the f–king street” and just saying that (of course with Thomas there to respectfully get the message across) would have helped. It also would have helped if the situation was talked about soon after the text message drama played out, instead of Kristen talking to Malaysia and immediately setting CeCe up as the evil puppet master tearing the family apart. Kristen talked about her issues with CeCe, which were really her issues with Bryon, to everyone but CeCe. She allowed her to be guilty by association.
Honestly, if family is so important to Kristen, that feeling has to extend further than to just her immediate, nuclear family. She can’t only care about how everyone else hurts her and her husband and baby, but not be cognizant of how her behavior might hurt the rest of the family and drive wedges further apart. If you throw your family to the wolves (that is the ladies of this show) the first time you feel a certain way, there shouldn’t be any shock if that family member, and their partner, grow distant. Kristin is not Thomas. She is Thomas’s wife, so Byron may not have felt like he had to deal with her if she wasn’t getting along with his partner, and was, in fact, actually going out of her way to hurt her.
Kristin’s decision to befriend and defend Jennifer Williams, a woman who helped push a rumor that CeCe, her potential mother-in-law, was out here giving happy endings in her medical spa was a terrible one. Her decision to bring that so-called friend to a meetup to make peace with CeCe? Also a bad idea. Her decision to tell CeCe’s detractors comments that were said in private, in confidence, and to share them incorrectly? Another bad idea. And her decision to allow Evelyn Lozada to call her family member a race-based derogatory name and claim “she can take care of herself” in response? Really bad.
If Kristen felt so hurt by CeCe and Byron, she should have made it a priority to speak to them about it early on, as opposed to focusing on trying to get in good with the other women in the group. Had she done that, instead of only focusing on the ways in which she felt betrayed and victimized, things wouldn’t have had to get this far, and she wouldn’t have positioned herself to appear as disloyal mean girl on national television.
Of course, folks on Twitter had a lot of thoughts over Labor Day Weekend about Kristen and CeCe’s conversation. Check out what the people had to say:
