Real Housewives Of Dallas came to an end last night in a dramatic and intense reunion focused on whether or not LeeAnne Locken is racist.
We all knew that the bulk of Part 2 was going to be spent on this subject. So after D’Andra Simmons was given a platform to gush about turning around Hard Night Good Morning and salvaging her relationship with Mama Dee, Andy Cohen got right into the matter of LeeAnne’s behavior in Thailand and the racially charged comments she made about Kary Brittingham.
First of all, Andy is FED. UP! I’ve never seen him so combative or out and out confrontational towards a Real Housewife as he was with LeeAnne last night. Of course, LeeAnne was trying to blame production for everything she did, and if there’s one thing Andy despises it’s a Housewife who tries to blame Bravo for her actions. I’m surprised LeeAnne didn’t accuse editing of dubbing the phrase “chirpy Mexican” into her mouth.
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I’m also fed up. LeeAnne isn’t sorry for her actions. She doesn’t see the error of her ways and she certainly feels there’s no dissemination between disliking Kary and it being OK to make comments disparaging her nationality. In fact, LeeAnne is still trying to double-down by feigning ignorance about how she didn’t realize saying “Mexican” was a pejorative. It’s not. But as we all know – LeeAnne included – it was her TONE and the tenor of her comments which made them so offensive. Like sneering that she should “Speak Mexican” so Kary can understand her better… As Kary said, LeeAnne is 52-years-old and has not been living under a carnival trailer (at least not physically) for the last 50 years.
LeeAnne justifies her anger over Kary not buying her BS for lashing with whatever she can. LeeAnne felt personally insulted when Kary didn’t give her a blanket pass to blame everything on her childhood, so she reached for the insult she felt was most personal to Kary: her heritage. I mean LeeAnne has yanked her belt off in the past, and this season she went below it!
The most interesting thing about the reunion, to me, other than Andy being so confrontational is how easily they broke the 4th wall. All the women admitted they didn’t think LeeAnne’s comments would make the final cut since the network has so often given her immunity in the past. Brandi Redmond even said that there’s an attitude that LeeAnne’s crazy has carried the show (it hasn’t ever for me) and she has expected protection from the network.
This infuriates me because it basically admits that so much of what has happened is fake. For instance, none of these women would have bothered making amends with LeeAnne for her nonsense if it weren’t for their role on Real Housewives Of Dallas being tethered to getting along with her, and because of this LeeAnne’s behaviors have grown increasingly tyrannical and unchecked. Last night was the reckoning.
And it went way back. When D’Andra was confronted about her L’Infinity Dress stunt, instead of trying to cover up her intentions she just admitted it was a joke, and not a “funny ha ha joke,” but a jab which LeeAnne deserved for all the muck she’s raked about the other women’s endeavors. This prompted Andy to read some tweets about that one time LeeAnne came to Stephanie Hollman‘s Halloween party dressed as Two-Faced, aka Stephanie herself. Stephanie is still hurt by that, which seems a little over the top, but this is indicative of how LeeAnne has been given a pass to behave however she chooses, with complete hypocrisy, and the other women are expected to forgive and forget, or suffer the consequences.
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Even Kameron Westcott got caught up in that mindset, because honestly what else could explain her ‘friendship’ with LeeAnne? And what was Kameron’s long tirade about Dallas society and how she can ruin LeeAnne there if she wanted to, but don’t worry, y’all – Kam is not an elitist! That’s just the way things work (in Kameron’s Barbie Dream House of a mind). So is Kam also gonna ‘ruin’ Stephanie? LeeAnne is low-hanging fruit.
So let’s get to Thailand. Kary and LeeAnne argue for a bit about the hat in the temple and Kary calling LeeAnne stupid, which was uncalled for. Kary blames pent up animosity over the way LeeAnne had been treating her the entire trip. LeeAnne counters that this is the true Kary, letting her “bitch light” shine. I imagine a bitch light is made of ground up unicorn horn and glistens like the first light on freshly fallen snow. Also it tastes like Sour Patch Kids.
LeeAnne then accuses Kary of being homophobic for making a comment on twitter about LeeAnne’s wedding planner “licking her asshole,” thus mocking Steve Kemble‘s sexuality. Andy doesn’t find anything homophobic in Kary calling Steve out for kissing LeeAnne’s ass, furthermore ,Eduardo licks Kary’s asshole – sexually – so maybe he’s gay too. See, it’s moments like this that make me love Kary. She’s unflustered and quick with a retort. She also doesn’t have the history of placating LeeAnne’s crazy antics and carny meltdowns, and therefore doesn’t suffer from Lockholm Syndrome.
When it finally comes time to address the racist comments, Brandi walks off set, grabs a folding chair and plonks it down across from Andy, suspect interrogation style. LeeAnne never sat in it, but that seat sat there the remainder of the reunion, staring everyone down ominously.
Upon seeing the full spectrum of LeeAnne’s comments about Kary’s heritage all of the women, except Kameron, are now openly calling LeeAnne racist. Being from Texas where everyone throws around the word Mexican (according to LeeAnne) she was merely unaware of how inappropriate her jargon was until she conversed with her social media following and realized the error of her ways. Really she tried that. Just like LeeAnne tried to say she can’t be racist because she was raised by a Mexican family (WHEN?) and had slept with Mexicans. This is all so ridiculously embarrassing! I mean teenagers have better logic than that. Brandi has better logic than this!
Seeing all this play out was shocking to Kary who actually started crying. She was obviously hurt, but also disappointed. It’s truly gross to me that we’ve only had two Housewives of hispanic descent and both were marginalized for their heritage. On Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills when Joyce Giraud was mocked by Brandi Glanville for being Puerto Rican, and Brandi made repeated jabs about Joyce’s culture. Now here on Real Housewives Of Dallas, we’re seeing LeeAnne lash out in a similar fashion. So unacceptable! Clearly, Bravo needs to get a handle on this issue.
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As for the roots of all this animosity although LeeAnne denies that it has anything to do with Kameron’s emerging friendship with Kary, that’s a major part of her Thailand meltdowns. Of course, there were issues with these two before, and issues outside of the Thai temple drama and the Red Light District episode, but it all came to a very fucked up head there, and at the enter of it all was the war for Kam’s pink-blooded heart.
Kameron defends her decision not to confront LeeAnne during the final dinner of the trip because she D’Andra and Kary were ganging up on LeeAnne. Although I commend Kameron for not wanting to be part of group-think (she only falls victim to LeeAnne-think), it’s a cop out. Kameron was complaining about LeeAnne’s treatment of her to Kary and D’Andra, then when they were ready to support her in asserting herself she turned around and blamed their participation for ruining her planned confrontation. We all know that confrontation was never going to happen.
Kameron would rather turn a blind eye and nod absently into the distance than deal with something “icky.” She’s so against getting her hands dirty she makes Court clean the toilets! Kameron is getting A LOT of passes for her hypocrisy this reunion!
Andy wonders why, in the months since filming wrapped, LeeAnne never reached out to Kary. Not even in the weeks since the episodes have been airing! LeeAnne says production told them not to communicate. Andy shuts that down immediately, and Kary clarifies that production told them not to contact each other in the couple days before the reunion filmed, but LeeAnne still had 4 months between filming ending and the episodes airing, plus weeks in between the episodes airing and the reunion filming. Yet she never did. LeeAnne felt that blanket dismissive apology at the finale party was sufficient.
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LeeAnne still doesn’t truly identify her behaviors as wrong, she only feels upset that she was caught. We all saw her mumbling “not affected” as she left the finale party.
Finally one of the bigger issues is that none of the other women confronted LeeAnne about her comments, and they probably weren’t planning to tell Kary until production informed them it would air. Stephanie and Kameron both expressed regret for this, but is that enough? Kameron claims she was planning to tell Kary all along, but both Stephanie and Brandi deny that. Apparently, the cast found out right before the finale party that the racist comments would be included in the show and that is coincidentally the day Kameron informed Kary about what was being said! Hmmmmm…
The only person off the hook here are D’Andra, who had no idea LeeAnne was saying these things. Brandi insists she had no idea either, and to be fair, when they were in the Thai markets and LeeAnne was sniping about “talking Mexican” so Kary could understand Brandi immediately told her to knock it off. D’Andra is 100% certain LeeAnne not only knew what she was saying in the moments, but also that the prevalence of these comments indicates she’s racist. Kameron still believes LeeAnne is just a human being who said some horrible things.
The reunion ends with LeeAnne in tears apologizing to Kary, and Kary receiving it, but not accepting it. Andy closes the reunion by asking each woman to list one thing they feel sorry for. Everyone says what you would expect. Then Andy hands out monogrammed stuffed baby elephants to each of the ladies. Which was a nice touch.
Well, it’s clear that just like with Real Housewives Of Orange County, this cast needs a shakeup. I actually enjoy the dynamic of the other women and would love to see how it plays out minus LeeAnne. I’d also love to see a ‘high-society’ friend of Kameron’s join the show.
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The rumor is that LeeAnne has already been given her walking papers. There’s also been some chatter that Brandi’s role may be reduced after an old video surfaced (prevalently shared by LeeAnne’s wedding planner) of her reportedly mocking Asian people. After viewing the video myself vs witnessing the way LeeAnne behaved this season, I don’t think it’s at all the same. Although Brandi definitely needs some sensitivity training. I also don’t know if LeeAnne is racist, but she certainly crossed the line into deplorable and unsavory, and I don’t think it’s fair to reward such behavior with a Real Housewives contract. Andy’s attitude towards her seems to indicate that he agrees and is ready to get off the carnival circuit. What do you think?
TELL US – SHOULD LEEANNE RETURN NEXT SEASON?
[Photo Credits: Bravo]
