Source: Robin L Marshall / Getty
You know what’s petty?
Having someone apologize to you for something, accepting the apology while hugging it out and forgiving them, hanging out with them after the fact, only to turn around and decide you’re not going to let your grievance go after all. If that sounds like a familiar behavior, you probably watched episode 13 of Basketball Wives last night and wanted to exit stage left like Tami Roman did.
As much as I find Jennifer Williams to be an individual always knee-deep in mess, I thought the way the mean girls Malaysia Pargo, Shaunie O’Neal and Evelyn Lozada turned on her was pretty ridiculous. It all started when Malaysia complained about the photos that came out from Jennifer’s sip and shop event to honor her late mother. Photogs at the time encouraged the women to come together for pictures, and when they ended up out there (they were official Getty images like the one above), Malaysia felt the photos were a publicity stunt. She said that the images gave the impression that they were all friends and cool again when they really weren’t, and she thought the fact that they were out there “on the blogs” as these chicks love to say, was fake. So instead of talking to Jennifer about it, Malaysia proceeded to share an image of herself, Evelyn and Jennifer from the event on Instagram, but cropped Jennifer out of the middle. She purposely did a bad job so that people would notice.
When she did that, next thing you know, Shaunie revealed that she was planning a girls trip to Costa Rica, but decided that she wasn’t going to invite Jennifer. Granted, she invited her to the cast trip to San Diego with no issues earlier this season, however, she said it’s a whole different story traveling out of the country with Jennifer.
And then, of course, when it came out (via Jackie Christie) that Shaunie decided not to invite Jennifer on the upcoming Costa Rica trip, Evelyn decided to jump in to say that she too felt the photos at the sip and shop event were phony and a slap in the face to her daughter, Shanice. Not only that, but she also said she didn’t find Jennifer’s apology to her in San Diego to be one that admitted guilt for talking negatively about Shanice. She no longer was okay with the apology. When Jennifer still maintained that she hadn’t called Shanice a latchkey kid, the women found themselves back at square one again, with Jennifer back on the outs.
No lie detectors this episode, huh?
What threw me off was the fact that Malaysia, Shaunie and Evelyn wanted it to be ever so clear all of a sudden that they weren’t cool with Jennifer, and yet, they spent the last however many episodes acting as though they were. After Shaunie embraced Jennifer at the crystal event, where Jenn broke down talking about how her mother’s death had altered her behavior, Jennifer sent Shaunie a hand-written note sharing her gratitude and looking to move forward. When she did, Shaunie then decided to invite Jennifer to San Diego and helped broker a conversation with Evelyn to seemingly fix their issues. At events that followed, they had no problems being around each other, and it was assumed past comments about Shaunie’s ex-husband (Shaquille O’Neal) were water under the bridge.
And while Malaysia and Jennifer never formally discussed the table throwing in Amsterdam and the behavior that allegedly caused it, she was quick to no longer have an issue being around Jennifer after the skating rink melee with Jackie. She not only met up with Jennifer and Dominique to find out what they knew about those rumors, but she also went to the sip and shop event.
As for Evelyn, she literally embraced Jennifer in San Diego and danced and had fun with her after their come to Jesus moment. Though it wasn’t her idea, she ended up having lunch with Jennifer and Kristen to talk sh-t about Cece, OG and Tami, and when she could have thrown Jennifer under the bus to save Jackie during the skating rink drama, she actually said she believed Jennifer. Evelyn also went with Malaysia to meet with Jennifer and had no qualms about going to the sip and shop event as well.
So why are they all of a sudden mad again? If you don’t want to give people the impression that you want to be friendly with them, then act as such. They could have kept their distance from Jennifer without being nasty about it, but they chose to go to her event and then got mad that they were photographed at it. What sense does that make? Keep your energy the same and it can never be confused…
It was all a reminder to me that you’re never too old to not be able to think for yourself, because none of these grievances were brought up in last week’s episode or the episode before that. Instead, the minute Malaysia expressed her problem with Jennifer, Shaunie found one, and Evelyn pulled hers up out of the grave to throw at the girl once again. At this point, I just want these grown women to admit they just like being mean girls because it’s the only storyline they have going on and let Jennifer be already. It’s all just unnecessarily childish at this point, and in a way, bullying. Jennifer should take Tami’s advice to OG to heart and stop trying to play nice with these bored chicks, because clearly, it will never be enough for them.
See what Twitter had to say about the change of heart these ladies had when it comes to Jennifer Williams by hitting the flip:
