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Monique Samuels is continuing to share her truth about what went down during the most recent season of The Real Housewives of Potomac, and is now giving some clearer details on why she chose to quit the hit Bravo show.
“The tip of the iceberg for me was the third part of that reunion,” Monique began in her interview with Hollywood Unlocked. “I was like, ‘This is how we’re going to do it?’ I think what turned me off the most was the fact that a lot of the drama behind the scenes involved my child. That’s how nasty and hateful some of these women were.”
Speaking on how the editing of the reunion was biased and failed to contextualize her and Chris’ stances properly, Monique said that even though she signed on to duke it out with the other housewives, she wasn’t prepared for how the show’s production team would pick and choose who they “protected.” For her, once her family became involved she felt the damage was done.
“I just said, ‘What am I up against here?’ It’s one thing to be fighting with the women on the show, but at the point where you see decisions that are being made behind the scenes, and then you watch how the reunion unfolds and so much was left out that was very important — people were protected,” she said. “People who didn’t deserve protection were protected and explosions and meltdowns that happened weren’t shown, and it really shows you the true character of some hate that these women had. So why would you protect that? Why wouldn’t you put that out there and let people see what’s really going on?”
“Since they wanna protect people that don’t deserve it, I’m like ‘I’ve met my limit,'” she continued. “‘I’m done. I don’t need this, I don’t have to deal with it.’ When you come for my family and my kids on the type of level? Ain’t no going back from there.”
According to her, the star had been planning to continue as a housewife for the show’s upcoming season but emphasized that after the third installment of the reunion aired, it was the last straw for her.
“When they asked me to come back I was like, ‘Oh, OK, well let me go ahead and come back and redeem myself and have a great Season 6,” the mother of three said. “I had the intention and hopes that they would show what really happened for the last, final part of the reunion. And when that didn’t happen, I was like, ‘Wow. Why am I here exactly? I’m not here for the money. I’m here for the platform. I’m here to be able to take the businesses that I’ve been growing and to have a place for them so that other people can benefit from everything I’ve been trying to make happen with my companies.”
“I’m like, ‘This is just too much!'” she said. “The hate is real, so I was like, ‘You know what? I don’t have to deal with this, so I’m not.'”
Further discussing how she and her husband felt they were treated unjustly during the reunion and how that contributed towards her decision to quit the show, Monique said, “We don’t feel we were treated unfairly — We were treated unfairly. Without a shadow of a doubt, we were. If you could’ve heard some of the lines of questioning — even the ones that weren’t shown — it was like guns a blazin’ in my direction.” Later, she mentioned that even though Andy Cohen had given her props for taking all the heat thrown her way, she hasn’t heard from him since.
“After we filmed the reunion, he actually complimented me and said I did all 11 hours and didn’t break a sweat,” she said. “He was proud that I was able to hang in there for such a tough reunion and that was pretty much the last parts of the conversation. I have not heard or seen nothing.”
In the end, Monique definitively said she has no interest in ever returning to RHOP because of how her castmates treated her, and how they never apologized for their behavior. While she sounds pretty serious about never being on the Bravo show again, it’s clear that the star plans to keep finding a platform for her voice.
“I’m not interested in that at all,” Monique concluded. “I will never be back on that show because too much has happened and to me, if people were very genuine and if they really felt any type of remorse — they tried to hold me accountable at a time that I wasn’t ready. Some of these ladies have done some really nasty, disgusting things and I’ve not had one apology in my direction. My husband has not been apologized to. For the network and production to allow that behavior, why would I go back to that? No. Not ever.”
