Women Of “The Real” Discuss How Jeannie’s Divorce Turned Messy & Vincent Herbert’s Sabotage
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.
