The December 28 episode of The Real Housewives of Potomac marked the end of the show’s most talked about, most controversial season in its five years on air. It was explosive and emotional, leaving Bravo’s resident moderator Andy Cohen exasperated until the very second that it wrapped. But the biggest development out of the eventful reunion came shortly after it ended, when Monique Samuels announced that she was giving up her champagne flute for good and cutting ties with RHOP.
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To say that season five of RHOP has been chaotic would be an understatement — from start to finish, the latest installment of the Maryland-based Housewives franchise has been a lot. All of the Housewives were involved in the drama, but most of it centered around a long-running beef between Samuels and her former friend Candiace Dillard-Bassett. The relationship between the women, who started off being friends as close as sisters, quickly devolved into full fledged-blowout.
Where exactly did things go wrong? Fans of RHOP know that the demise of Samuels and Dillard-Bassett’s friendship can be accredited to a number of things: the former Miss United States’ tendency to run her mouth, Samuels’ underlying trauma from childhood bullying, the persistent presence of a former Housewife, and an unsavory rumor involving adultery with a personal trainer. Still, none of those things can excuse the fight that took place between the friends-turned-mortal-enemies in episode eight, which saw Samuels quite literally black out and put her hands on Dillard-Bassett. The physical altercation totally changed the course of the popular Bravo reality series, featuring most of the women taking sides against Samuels.
At the in-person reunion, which was the first time that many of the Housewives had laid eyes on Monique after the fallout from the fight, Cohen tried his damndest to hash out the issue between Samuels and Dillard-Bassett. He wasn’t particularly successful — the women’s husbands got involved, voices were raised, and tea was spilled all over the place — but at least an apology happened. Sort of.
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“I take full responsibility for my part and my actions in the altercation,” Samuels told Dillard-Bassett during the reunion. “That fight wasn't about you. Nothing that you said or did in that moment warranted the response that you received. I offer you my apology, and I'm sorry for the pain that you are still going through and the fact that you still haven't healed from it. I hope that you are able to heal and move forward."
Samuels’ apology led many to believe that she was willing to at least be cordial with Dillard-Bassett should they both appear on the next season of RHOP, but the entrepreneur quickly crushed those dreams in a revealing Instagram live conversation that aired shortly after the reunion finale. Shit was not sweet with her former friend, and they wouldn’t be braiding each other’s hair anytime soon because Samuels has decided not to renew her contract with Bravo.
"It’s not easy doing reality TV, and to be quite honest, I’m over it," Samuels explained in the IG Live. “When you cross certain lines there's no going back," she continued. "For me, my family is that line. The opinion of my family and my kids and what they think about anything that I do is more valuable than anybody’s opinion, so I’m over it."
"I wanted to represent real Black love and show people something outside of what the stereotype has been on TV," she continued. "Unfortunately, this season, I played right into that stereotype...I was working overtime to really check myself because that is the opposite of what I want to display on a TV show and in real life, most importantly. I'm always going to be a great example of a role model for my kids and you have to know when enough is enough."
Can future installments of RHOP survive without Samuels and the drama that she inevitably provided for four successful seasons? It's hard to say. But the reality star isn't too concerned about where else the series can go — she would just like to be excluded from the narrative from now on.