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Throughout this season of “Real Housewives of Atlanta,” Kenya Moore has been especially vindictive towards some of her cast members. And while Kenya has never been the image of love and kindness, it seems that her brand of nastiness has been turned up several notches following her one-year hiatus from the Bravo franchise.
Initially it appeared that the former pageant queen was attempting to solidify her spot on the show and reclaim her crown as one of reality TV’s most impolite and offensive villains, but Sunday night’s episode seemed to confirm that there’s another driving force behind the callous behavior that she demonstrates towards her fellow cast members: misplaced frustration and an inability to voice her concerns within her marriage.
For several weeks, cast members have joked about the stark difference between Kenya and her alter ego, Ken. Kenya is outspoken and will read you to filth just for kicks. Ken is docile and passive. Kenya is who Moore is to the rest of the world, while Ken is who Kenya is inside of her marriage. Even Kenya has confessed to using “avoidance” as a means of navigating difficulty within her relationship.
Marc’s charity event provided a crystal clear picture of how Ken’s passivity fuels Kenya’s cattiness. Despite enlisting his wife’s resources and know-how to make his event a success, Marc failed to publicly acknowledge his wife as even being in the room. Everyone noticed and Kenya was clearly flustered as a result. However, she never takes this up with her husband. Instead, she focused her attention on Marlo and Tanya.
Despite trying to convince her to attend Marc’s charity event after calling her out of her name and attempting to ruin her relationship with cheating allegations, Kenya still went out of her way to treat Tanya unkindly by dismissing her and having her sit at a table alone as a passive-aggressive way of dealing with the fact that Marc forced her to invite Tanya in the first place. Similarly, after Marc failed to acknowledge her during his call-to-action speech, Kenya chose to focus on Marlo’s reaction to having to sit at another table instead of simply dealing with her feelings of being snubbed by her husband. Cynthia, however, was easily able to see through the smoke and mirrors to see the real issue. In a confessional, she speculated that Kenya’s anger towards the other women was misplaced. Later, she spoke more extensively on the matter.
“Kenya is the reason we’re all here,” Cynthia said during the after show. “Thank your wife. Acknowledge your wife. He gets up and gives this speech and does not even acknowledge Kenya. I know how involved she was in making his event a success.”
“Marc is just not nice,” Cynthia continued.
Kenya also addressed the situation on the after show, stating:
“I think there was a lot of tension. He was never warm to me. He never thanked me in front of the crowd. But I kept my head up and a smile on my face to represent our family well. It just wasn’t a pleasant evening and it did not end well. I just think at that moment we were very tired of the back and forth and just the stress of our relationship and where we were.”
Of course, Kenya has yet to admit that there was any connection between her unhappiness within her relationship and her treatment of fellow cast members. Truthfully, a lot of Kenya’s behavior could be attributed to misplaced anger and unhappiness. Sadly, the rejection she repeatedly experienced from Marc seems to mirror the same treatment she received from her mother. Hopefully, it’s something that she’ll deal with in therapy.
