On last night’s Real Housewives Of Atlanta Kenya Moore‘s marriage to Marc Daly officially exploded. Ironically at a charity event to raise up black men through positivity.
The only actual positive thing that happened last night was Eva Marcille‘s baby shower. Cynthia Bailey turned Eva’s friend Natalie’s backyard into a garden of paradise. It was a really lovely sunflower-themed event. Shockingly, everyone got along pretty well. Even Kenya and Nene Leakes!
Ever since Marc went over Kenya’s head to decree that NeNe is welcome in his circle, NeNe now feels she has some sort of trump card over Kenya. Nene has just been waiting for validation that she has extended multiple olive branches which Kenya has ignored. She sent multiple texts before filming started, for instance, but Kenya never responded. Obviously that’s cause NeNe has been on block! So has NeNe ever apologized for calling Kenya a buffalo while she was 9 months pregnant? Not that an insincere apology solves everything, as we will soon see with Tanya Sam and Kenya.
Since NeNe has no other friends on Real Housewives Of Atlanta she calls Wendy Williams, of all people, for advice on how to deal with Kenya. Wendy tells NeNe to continue to be the bigger person. Um, blind leading the blind there!
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Inspired by the positivity of the party Kandi Burruss decides to have Kenya and Tanya sit down to try and work past things before the Black Man Lab fundraiser. Kenya is still being incredibly rude to Tanya. She even mocks her for having a fiancé, not a husband, and being childless. Well, now Kenya’s husband is gone with the wind (and rumor has it to another woman’s bed), and knowing Tanya’s struggles with infertility those types of comments are even more disgusting. This is why no one likes Krayonce: she’s not shady, she’s mean!
Nothing illustrated how many lightyears in terms of class and intelligence Tanya is beyond Kenya than this exchange. Kenya believes that since she issued a shady, completely insincere apology for calling Tanya out of her name thattheir issues should be over. Despite KENYA ambushing Tanya with Cookie Lady and a baseless claim that Paul Judge was cheating!
According to Kenya, this is all irrelevant, and they should come to Marc’s charity event, anyway, just to make Kenya look good. The only reason Kenya apologized in the first place was to cover her lie to Marc that she invited Tanya and Paul, who actually are a power couple on the Atlanta scene! If Marc really wanted them there, he would’ve reached out directly to Paul to explain the concept and why his presence would be appreciated.
Anyway, Tanya explains to Kenya that trotting out Cookie Lady wasn’t an insult against her, it was an insult against Paul, therefore she doesn’t think he’d want to come to an event supporting Kenya. Furthermore, it’s abundantly clear that Kenya seems to think implying that Paul is cheating also implies that Tanya is a subpar woman who can’t satisfy her man, instead of it meaning that Paul is just an asshole. Ironically, Kenya is the one whose actually in this position! I mean in the very next scene Kenya sits down with Cynthia to tell her that a good man doesn’t cheat or lie, so she should really think carefully about trusting Mike Hill given his past. This is all solid advice, but Kenya was just implying to Tanya that a man only cheats because he’s unhappy at home.
In each of these cases, Kenya is projecting. Marc isn’t happy, and looks elsewhere. He treats ‘Ken‘ like a personal assistant. Kenya brags that she planned the entire charity event from arranging the venue, the catering, the party planner, the entertainment, the auction, etc. This is Marc’s ‘debut’ on the Atlanta scene and Kenya wants to present herself as Mrs. Daly, the exalted and respected wife, but Marc expects her to be ‘Ken’ the subservient concubine.
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After doing all this work, the day of the party Marc announces that Kenya was supposed to choose his outfit. So runs around securing a suit that corresponds with her dress, then Marc complains about everything she’s selected and blames her for not being more organized. Kenya took so much time catering to Marc she doesn’t have time to get her own glam done and is late to her own event, which Marc also lectures her about. Kenya is trying way too hard for this wifely image and what she thinks a wife is. It’s super sad that she has spent so much time focusing on letting marriage define her as a woman.
It appears that Marc literally prepared NOTHING for his own event – including reach out to the speakers! He wants Mike Sterling to speak, but didn’t bother to connect with him beforehand. Mike is blindsided upon arrival and pressured into making an impromptu speech about being adopted as a child. Mike was a class-act, whereas Marc’s handling of this was awkward, embarrassing, rude, and unprofessional.
Even worse when Marc arrives – late, himself – instead of greeting CHill, he ignores them to run around hugging other people. Even though Mike is the co-host, who flew out from LA specifically to support this! Cynthia is shocked and offended. Marc’s arrogance, combined with everything Kenya has told her about him – including the red flags she wish she’d heeded when they first met – has made Cynthia realize that Marc is not a good guy. He certainly doesn’t care about Kenya! It’s evidenced when Marc doesn’t mention his wife at all in his opening speech, or recognize all her hard work organizing this event. In fact he barely acknowledge her presence all evening.
And for all Kenya’s preening about being ‘Mrs. Daly,’ the disorganization of this event perfectly parallels how fractured their own marriage is. Marc messed with the seating chart without informing her, thus ruining Kenya’s carefully shaded plans to put all the people she doesn’t like at a table in the back. (Also it looked like a child had written out the place cards.) This creates chaos and irritation during arrivals, as the greeters have a completely different list of where to direct people that doesn’t correspond with the actual place cards.
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The timing for is also a mess. Either people arrived super late, or they had a very tight timeline for the venue rental, or they just didn’t pad in enough cocktail hour, because it appeared people were sitting down to dinner moments after they walked in, which meant guests were still strolling in after the speeches began.
Kenya’s dream of being a Jr. League queen are not panning out, and obviously she has never organized a philanthropy gala of this magnitude. She should’ve consulted one of the Real Housewives Of Dallas or Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills for advice. Instead she is listening to Marc, who tells her she can’t get up from the table until she cleans her plate. Clearly he’s never attended an event where the hostess is needed to oversee the details. Was Patrica Altschul not available for consultation here? She’s only one state away!
Tanya did not even tell Paul about the event, and instead she just came as Porsha Williams‘ third wheel. Even though Shamea Morton wasn’t able to attend, Kenya still wouldn’t let Tanya sit at Shamea’s empty assigned seat, next to Porsha, and instead moved her all the way to the corner, on her own. Luckily Tanya is an adult and a pro, so she can handle herself with dignity – slights and all. Porsha is shocked by the way Kenya is continually targeting Tanya, but I’m not. Kenya is 100% jealous. She knows Paul never messed around Stale Cookie Crumbles – she just wanted to knock Tanya down with that accusation.
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Kenya displayed even worse hostess behavior when Marlo Hampton arrived with her nephews, whom she brought because they are exactly the young men who could benefit from mentorship from other successful black men. Yes, ABSOLUTELY Marlo should’ve informed Kenya in advance that she was bringing additional guests, but these things always happen at large-scale events and instead of handing it with dignity, Kenya hisses that Marlo’s seats are in the back, then sits down to resume her dinner. It is Cynthia, Eva and Porsha who see Marlo leaving and escort her to her seats at a table directly behind them.
Kenya is furious that Marlo didn’t pay for the 2 extra tickets, and didn’t even pay the $250 for her own (BECUSE BRAVO DID – duh). She’s even more irritated that she has to move seats to accommodate the two boys whom she should be welcoming! Marc, meanwhile, is thrilled that Marlo brought her nephews. Marlo and Kenya may clean up well, but they are still Housewives not housewives. Which means class is a thing they failed at school, not an attitude, so they both try to drag Marc into their petty squabble. Marlo tries to imply to him that Kenya had no seat prepared for her, and he ignores her. Then as Kenya is bitching about it to Kandi, Marc interjects that it doesn’t matter.
In the middle of all this NeNe arrives, late, just before Gregg has to speak, and Marc is far more attentive to her than he is to Kenya! Which of course NeNe loves.
As the event winds down, so too does the simmering facade of Ken and Marc’s marriage. Marc is overheard telling a reporter – or a bravo cameraman? – that he hates being married. He then storms off to the back to meet someone else’s wife and screams that the cameras are invasive. He wants them shut down NOW! Marc swears that this is the last time he’ll appear on film. Did something happen that we missed? Because it sure seems like we aren’t getting the full story of what lead to Marc’s meltdown?
As Marc disappears, Kenya stays put; awaiting his instructions. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem that he ever returns because we learn that the very next day the couple each put out their own statement announcing their divorce.
Next week all the ladies head to Greece, where Kenya turns to Kandi and Cynthia for support and expects the other women to respect her privacy.
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TELL US – WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED BETWEEN MARC AND KENYA? IS KENYA BEING UNFAIR TO TANYA?
[Photo Credits: Bravo]
