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If you watched Wednesday night’s episode of Basketball Wives, you saw that Cece Gutierrez and Kristen Scott finally put their differences aside. It wasn’t easy to get there though, especially since CeCe found herself at the end of some harsh words from Kristen and Byron Scott’s daughter, LonDen.
Malaysia Pargo wanted to get the women together for some time to hash out their differences, so she hosted a “ponderosa,” as Jackie would call it, at her home. LonDen came along because she didn’t feel supported by Cece and wanted to get some things off her chest, too.
A few minutes into the conversation, Kristen told Cece that her decision to tell the women in the group that Byron didn’t want her at their upcoming wedding was “disgusting,” especially since she wasn’t aware that this was the case. Surprisingly, Cece could understand, immediately apologizing for doing so. Unfortunately though, that wasn’t good enough for Kristen and LonDen. Kristen rolled her eyes after being apologized to. Byron’s daughter said she’s almost “a liability” in their family. Kristen said that Byron was upset with her because of Cece’s issues with her. They were tag-teaming her.
When Cece told her it was actually Byron who was upset because of the fact that she pretty much called him a bad grandfather on television, and Cece then asked why that was her fault, things went left for no reason. LonDen’s daughter loudly asked her “What are you talking about?!” and when Cece decided she wanted to leave because she felt she was being yelled at, they made her seem like she couldn’t be held accountable for her actions and that she needed to go.
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Malaysia was able to get her to come back (after saying the women yelled at her because she yelled at them first, which per the editing didn’t seem to be the case), and from there, Cece ended up in tears while no one else took responsibility for their actions. Kristen literally walked away still feeling like the key to fixing her family issues was by working through things with Cece, when in reality, she didn’t get that Byron still didn’t want anything to do with her.
In the end though, the ladies were able to hug it out and agree to move forward, even though Kristen and LonDen ran back to Byron’s son, Thomas, and they still talked less than positively about Cece. Thomas went on to say that in the past, things weren’t as contentious and divided as they are now in the family, but if Cece is the person his father loves, they have to learn to be cordial with her.
That’s when it hit me about why Kristen, LonDen, Thomas, Malaysia and the whole gang are giving Cece such a hard time.
Despite the fact that all of the issues Cece and Kristen have stem from Kristen going around talking about that nasty rumor Jennifer and Evelyn started (about “happy endings”) and not backing her up when she was being low-key bullied last season, the focus has been on the belief that Cece doesn’t own the sh-t she talks and that has been the real problem. Because of that, the issues both women have creates tension with Byron; it’s allegedly keeping Byron from seeing his granddaughter; and it’s causing Byron to feel like he can’t even have Kristen at his wedding. That’s not the truth.
If you ask me, I think everyone has an issue with Cece because she isn’t Byron’s first wife, Anita, and they use that to fuel their opinions and problems with her.
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Byron filed for divorce from Anita in 2014 after 29 years of marriage and three kids, and around that time, he and Cece began their relationship (there are rumors that they may have started dating earlier). Meanwhile, Byron and Anita battled it out intensely in court for years over how they would split their possessions, and what she should get depending on when he started seeing Cece. Anita initially wanted Cece to testify in their proceedings about “Byron’s money, spousal support issues, and date of separation.” The divorce was just finalized in June, more than four years after the filing.
I can’t help but wonder if it’s because of the way Anita and Byron’s marriage ended that everyone is having such a hard time with Cece. If you’ll recall, when she was introduced in Season 7, Malaysia and Kristen both remarked, in non-offensive ways, that they had been closer with the ex-wife.
I get it. When your loyalty lies with a particular person, it can feel hard to embrace someone new, especially if you see that person as playing a part in the end of a marriage. If my father split from my mother and started dating someone that I was being pushed to embrace, I would be annoyed and would likely keep my distance. The issue though is that everyone in this family has high expectations of Cece in order for her to be a part of the family. They pretend that they’ve given her a fair shot when they haven’t.
LonDen was upset with Cece because she didn’t feel like her future stepmother was supportive and empathetic enough. Kristen was mad because she felt like Cece wasn’t encouraging Byron to visit her daughter. Malaysia felt like Cece needed to be the one to sit down and fix things in order to restore the family. Truth is though, everyone is putting all this responsibility on the wrong person.
Cece’s main role, as she put it, is “to love and take care of Byron.” His kids are grown. While Cece definitely shouldn’t encourage Byron to cut off anybody, at the same time, it shouldn’t be her duty to get him to do one thing or another, or to keep the family tight. She can only do so much, because that is his family. He can best support his daughter. He needs to visit his granddaughter or tell his daughter-in-law to bring her over since they live “down the f–kin’ street” from each other. He needs to sit down and talk with everyone to keep the peace, not Cece. He needs to be the one to “put the family first.”
It is more than likely that Anita was the glue that held the family together, and when she and Byron split, those in the family were no longer as close and things changed. That’s sad. However, it’s not on Cece to be Anita 2.0, to hold the family down and hear everyone’s problems and make everything good and warm and fuzzy, especially when Byron isn’t asking or expecting that from her. LonDen said, “Nobody wants you to be perfect,” and that may be true. However, they certainly want her to be someone she’s not, and if they’re going to talk about accountability, they need to own that and stop barking at Cece when they need to talk to Byron.
Anywho, that’s my opinion. Check out the many others that popped up via Twitter after last night’s episode by hitting the flip:
