Women Of "The Real" Talk Jeannie's Messy Divorce & Vince's Sabotage
Women Of “The Real” Discuss How Jeannie’s Divorce Turned Messy & Vincent Herbert’s Sabotage
PASADENA, CA – JANUARY 15: (L-R) Adrienne Bailon, Loni Love, Jeannie Mai, and Tamera Mowry-Housley attend the 49th NAACP Image Awards at Pasadena Civic Auditorium on January 15, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
The women of “The Real,” sat down on “The Breakfast Club,” to discuss everything from Jeannie Mai’s divorce taking a turn for the worst, to what they decide to share on the show and what they think really happened with Tamar’s exit and how Vincent Herbert tried to sabotage them. Check out the highlights on the following pages.
How do you decide what you want to share on the show?
Adrienne: There are actually moments on the show where we don’t plan on sharing it and somehow the conversation just goes there and we forget the cameras are running. And it’s like, ‘Damn, should I have said that?’ And then you kind of just say, everything that comes out of your mouth—like I look back at other seasons, and I’m like, ‘Who was I then?’ I had different opinions then than I do now. And I just appreciate that I shared where I was on my journey.
Jeannie Mai: In the moment, in the heat of what I’m going through right now, for anybody who knows what divorce feels like, it effing sucks. It’s terrible and you wake up with a rock in your heart and you just feel like you can’t really make it through the day because it just feels so heavy, especially when finances get involved, especially when people change.
It just erupted in me and it made me realize Adrienne when you said, ‘Girl, I forgot you were going through divorce.’ And it’s because as a good ole Asian person, we suppress ish and we just focus on working.
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA – NOVEMBER 14: Television personalities Jeannie Mai (L) and Freddy Harteis attend the Roku grand opening on November 14, 2015 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images for Innovative Dining Group)
Dj Envy: Everything was so nice at first. When did it turn?
Jeannie Mai: It turned when money got involved and ego. It’s been about one year. You know how people say, ‘Money changes people.’ So does ego. So does social media and so does the press. And all of that mixed in between, you’ve really got to keep yourself grounded at who you are at the core. You’ve got to remember who you are because you can’t speak for other people.
We didn’t get divorced on bad terms but love is a word—I have to figure out what that means between us right now. One thing that he always said, I really believed it. ‘You don’t truly know a person until you don’t get what they want.’ That’s when they show you who they are. It’s a good quote but you wouldn’t think that the person you were married to and were with for fourteen years and taught you the quote and would be the best number example of what it was.
Now correct me if I’m wrong, y’all got divorced because he wanted kids right?
Adrienne: No…
Jeannie Mai: It’s a little more to that and I can’t really get into that right now but right now, I’m just keeping afloat.
Angela Yee: When you guys are doing the show and you have to talk about people you’re friends with in real life.
Adrienne: This is honest to God my favorite thing about the show. We will tell you the story and then we try to turn it around and go ‘Well, man if I was in that position…’ and then we bring it back to a personal story of our own. We just use the headlines as a jump off to the conversation.
Did the show lose anything with Tamar?
Loni: That’s the big elephant in the room. I think everybody’s been waiting for us to talk about it. In season 1 and season 2, we were all different. We didn’t really know each other that much. It was a new show and as far as I know, I was sitting at a table with a girl named Tamar Braxton. I’d just met her and these ladies. I was excited.
I’ve been doing this for a long time. I had a production deal with a studio that said ‘Let’s develop a show for women of color.’ So I was already tied in. I had no type of tie in as far as the casting. I wanted my own show. But the studio said ‘We’re trying to do this show about women of color, so why don’t you just sit in on the casting?’ I said ok. So I sat in on the casting. Tamar and the rest of these women were the best. We had some of everybody come to the audition. Talk show’s hard, the chemistry and everything.
We had a different type of show back then. Then season 2 happened and it was getting better. There’s something that happened. And I don’t know what happened. Everybody has a different story with Tamar. She was getting to the point, where I was at her house one day, this is after “Dancing With The Stars,” all this other kind of stuff. She looked at me and said, ‘I want to get a new manager.’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know about that.’ She said ‘You know Rushion McDonald.’ Rushion McDonald is Steve Harvey’s ex-manager. She said, ‘You know him. Give me his number.’ So I said, ‘Okay.’ We were sitting there and she said, ‘What about him?’ And she pointed out to Vince because he was out the room. I said, ‘That’s your husband. I don’t know. Talk to him or whatever.’ But I believed in her talent so much, that if she asked me for something, we all sisters. When she was sick, we all went to the hospital to see her. Even when her sisters weren’t around, we were around for her.
When the incident happened when she got fired, I went on “The Wendy Williams Show” that Friday. Why would I go on the Wendy Williams show if I knew one of my castmates was going to be fired that next Monday? I got a call on Saturday. They said that Tamar was being let go. I asked a question. We all got on a text like ‘What is going on?’
She stopped communicating with us. She put out an Instagram that said she had been backstabbed and the first person she unfollowed was me. So people assumed that I was the one. I know Tamar. She’s a good person, she probably saw all the heat that I was getting, then she unfollowed Jeannie, then she unfollowed these two [Tamera and Adrienne]. They were still trying to get in contact with her because they went to Logan’s birthday party to talk to her.
Jeannie: And I was actually in Singapore and I was still talking to her and Vince at the time and then they stopped.
Loni: Then when all of that happened, I get on a plane to go to Atlanta. And guess who’s in front of me, first class? This how God works. Her sister Towanda. She said, ‘Loni, I’m so sorry this is happening to you. We know you didn’t have anything to do with this. But I’m going to tell you something, they just did an emergency filming of “Braxton Family Values” and you need to see the episode. I had a person who worked at WE tv and when you’re a good person, people will look out for you. The person at WE tv said, ‘We saw the rough cut. You’re being named. The girls are being named and Vince is doing the naming.’ So I called my attorney. I called my attorney and I said, ‘If they’re naming us, we’re going to have to legal action. Because that’s defamation of character.’ So they did an extra cut but if you Google there was a blogger that saw the rough cut and he said, ‘Vince names us saying that we’re jealous. He names me specifically. And you know why I say he does that? Because I gave her the number of Rushion McDonald.
Charlamagne: You may not have gotten her fired but you definitely got her to get a divorce.
I just think she’s embarrassed. She knows the truth. If you don’t like us. If you thought we had you fired, why would you want to sit with us when we all got nominated for an Emmy. We’ve been accused of ‘She invited the show.’
Tamera: I would find out how she found out about us on Instagram and Twitter.
Loni: At the time, Vince was invested. He would help us. He was all about all of us getting something from the studio. Something happened and he knows what happened but he’s trying to save face because he knows something happened with him and Tamar. It wasn’t like we had a meeting, tiptoed to the office. We don’t have that kind of power. We ain’t got no power.
Tamera’s husband and the claims that he’s racist.
Tamera: My husband is Mr. Mom right now and he owns a winery killing. What people don’t understand is that my husband was a Fox News correspondent. There’s a difference between being a Fox News correspondent and a Fox News opinion host. My husband is about hardcore facts. And that’s one of the reasons why he left. Everybody is polarized. Right now, it’s a great time for us to take a break. We have two children who are in school right now. And being a correspondent, you would travel half the year. We got to have someone at home. And one thing about my husband, and that’s why I always defend my husband, he is my number 1 fan. He is willing to be Mr. Mom for me so I can live out my dreams.
Loni: That’s a good White man right there.
[The agenda at the network has changed.] News has changed.
I think it’s difficult to be married to a White man in this political climate who worked for Fox News. And my husband got tired of always fighting that. He was like ‘Listen, I don’t endorse those thoughts.’
