I know it wasn't just me who watched the Real Housewives of Miami reunion and was beyond confused. Sure, Lea Black's voice annoys me to no end, and I am not a fan of how she makes passive aggressive digs under the guise of joking. However, when Ana Quincoces came out guns blazing during the sit-down, I was totally floored. To be honest, mild-mannered Ana had been my favorite. She seemed to be the voice of reason. However, her actions on the reunion, to me, screamed that she was trying to remain relevant, following the reality mantra that the loudest gets the most attention…and attention, bad or good, is reality gold.
Ana showed up to the reunion with her voice loud and her silly file folder, hitting below the belt with ageist insults and accusations of sleeping around. It was ugly. The worst part is that had Ana refrained from such unbecoming behavior, the shrill and obnoxious Lea would have likely made herself look like a fool. Now, Ana has turned her into a victim.
In her Bravo blog, Ana does her best to defend her actions, but, in my opinion, she ends up sounding even worse. Of course, Lea isn't much better when she speaks out against Ana's attack. I have to keep reminding myself that these are grown women, successful women. I guess that's what happens when you add a camera and an audience to your life. Sheesh!
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So, without further ado, let's get down to the she said, she said! We'll begin by breaking down portions of Ana's blog.
So many people were surprised to see the dramatic fallout at the reunion between Lea and myself. It seemed to come out of nowhere. Lea and I interacted very little on the show save for the Marysol [Patton] debacle. I never felt I had much in common with Lea and for that reason kept my distance. I always got the impression that she was all "smoke and mirrors" as I said many times. She wanted people to buy into this persona and she tooted her own horn incessantly. Nothing about that particularly bothered me. I just kind of found her to be an odd yet amusing bird.
Weeks before the reunion I started hearing that Lea was boasting about town that she was "coming after me at the reunion." I was taken aback because we had never had much conflict. I knew she was upset about my defending Marysol but there was certainly no need for retaliation of that magnitude. There is a saying in Spanish, "Guerra avisada no mata soldados." It means that when you announce a war ahead of time you don’t get to kill any soldiers. And so I prepared. This soldier would not go down without a fight. It didn’t take very long and I didn’t resort to unethical means or ultra-sleuthing to discover anything. It was all there for the taking to anyone who spent a few minutes researching. I tucked all my findings neatly into the now infamous file folder and hoped I wouldn’t have to use it.
Okay, let's get this straight. Ana "heard a rumor" that Lea was going to attack her at the reunion, and that rumor forces her to come foaming at the mouth with a file folder full of Internet research? It reminds me of that State Farm commercial…"It must be true, because I saw it on the Internet, and they can't put anything on the Internet that isn't true." "Where'd you hear that?" "The Internet." It's going to take more than a manila folder with some Wikipedia pages to convince this gal. Again, I don't doubt that there is a ton of dirt on Lea out there if you look hard enough, but why waste your time? Because of a rumor around town? Please tell me Ana is more intelligent than that.
The first thing she said (quite aggressively) was that my husband (now ex) has been sleeping around for years. I was not sure how that was a character flaw on my part. After all, even if that were true it certainly can’t be imputed on me. She then corrected herself when I reminded her that we had been separated for two years. She backpedaled and retracted saying that she never said "cheating." Sleeping around = cheating, no? Thesaurus? So that was the big plan of attack she had spent weeks boasting about?
Lea’s pattern of retraction, her disclaimers like "that is not my recollection", her tired overly rehearsed little lines about not "building her life into the camera but rather building the camera into her life", are a testament to her pattern of finding the proverbial escape route. Intelligent people don’t buy things like "my reasons are both qualified and quantified" because the statement is both nonsensical and laughable. People are smarter than Lea thinks — both her cast mates and the viewers. She did not fool anyone.
I will agree with one smidge of this sentiment. The viewers are smarter than Lea thinks, but we're also smarter than Ana thinks. I watched both parts of the reunion multiple times (I have no life, I realize this…), and I didn't get the impression that Lea accused Ana's husband was cheating. I think she was simply saying/screaming that Ana wasn't ready to move on from her marriage even though her ex had since moved on with someone else since their separation. While Lea's sharp tongue was tacky, she wasn't saying that Ana's husband ever cheated on her. If I recall correctly, Lea was going after Ana at this point in retaliation for an insult Ana hurled first.
I will not spend too much time on the "socially awkward" comment as it was the subject of many interviews I’ve done and practically trended on Twitter. I know most of you who post here know what really happened and perhaps even feel a little embarrassed that it was the viewers and not I who dubbed RJ that. Had Lea really thought I was referring to her son she would have lunged across the cocktail table at me. She sprung to her feet for far less at least 10 times during the taping. So many times in fact, that Andy had to ask her repeatedly to take a seat. The fact that she now uses her 10 year old son as a scape goat to garner the sympathy of the viewers after spending an entire two seasons in a vicious and bigoted attempt to attack and discredit the Cuban girls on the show is pathetic.
Is it a coincidence that every girl that Lea has attacked is a Cuban girl? Cristy Rice during Season 1, Marysol during both seasons, and me during the reunion? I think not. She stood idly by while Alexia’s Cuban husband was being badmouthed, but stood up and defended Thomas Kramer, a misogynist who has acted in a despicable manner for many years. Yes, I was angry and reminded Lea that at her age she needs to behave and not be a disingenuous hypocrite. But, if you watched closely throughout the season, I rarely became involved in any of the petty drama. I spoke up when it was necessary and made a difference (i.e. Thomas Kramer). I stood by and defended my friends. I had the same friends at the beginning of the season as I had at the end. I opened myself and my life up to the viewers at the risk of falling flat on my face — even enduring being called a fool for mourning the loss of my 23 year marriage. I was honest, I was open, and I was real.
I agree that Ana shouldn't spend much time on the "socially awkward" comment…I wouldn't want to remind anyone I said it either. It was the one part of the reunion that made me gasp. We all knew exactly what she meant, and that wasn't cool. Act a fool to the other adults, but children should be off limits. Plus, is she insinuating that she was only echoing what the viewers said? That doesn't make it better. As for the Cuban comments, more than half the cast is Cuban…unless you get along with everyone (which, let's face it, is never the case on these shows), you have more than a fifty percent chance of having beef with someone of Cuban descent. Ridic. I think that Ana should have owned up to her statements and apologized. I don't care what she said, but I do care that she thinks I'm dumb enough to buy into her thin excuses.
Now, as for Lea, she could also benefit from staying mum, but she wants to get in the last word. Speaking to Rumor Fix, Lea claims to be totally confused by Ana's attack. She reveals, "This was all a surprise to me. She is auditioning to get back on the show. I guess she realized the audience thought she was boring so tried to take it up a notch at my expense…No one wants to be the subject of false accusations. She made many false accusations, particularly about my relationship with my husband, and about my son. No one wants to be subjected to lies like she spews. It is not my style and I won’t participate, but I do defend myself. She’s desperate for attention. Any type of attention."
In response to Ana's accusation that Lea made her fortune by "lying on her back," Lea says, “I have come to realize that this is all her own desperate attempt for attention and relevance. What kind of a woman would say that about a successful woman? Implying- a woman can only be successful by sleeping her way to the top. That is offense to all women.” She makes a good point.
Wow, these women are beyond exhausting. At least it's Friday!
TELL US-WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ANA'S BLOG AND LEA'S INTERVIEW? ARE YOU TEAM ANA, TEAM LEA, OR TEAM OVER IT??
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
