Kathy Hilton is finally acknowledging her super awkward moment from Watch What Happens Live this week. If you somehow missed it, Andy Cohen challenged the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills friend to a game of “Will Kathy Know Them?” Pictures of celebrities flashed on the screen, and Kathy tried her hardest to name them. When Lizzo’s face appeared on the screen, Kathy guessed “Precious,” seemingly confusing Lizzo, the world-famous pop star with Gabourey Sidibe’s titular character from the 2009 Oscar-nominated film.
The clip from WWHL quickly went viral, and the comments were overwhelmingly not on Kathy’s side. While a few people found humor in the blunder, most viewers found the moment to be offputting and problematic — especially considering the rumors that have been floating around for months about Kathy using a slur during an RHOBH cast trip to Aspen.
As the backlash intensified, Kathy took to the Queens of Bravo Instagram account to share her side of the story, blaming it on her bad vision. She commented, “My vision is awful, the screen was so far away that I couldn’t even recognize Justin Timberlake or Melissa Etheridge.”
In Kathy’s defense, we know her vision isn’t the best — she famously mistook Garcelle Beauvais for her own sister Kyle Richards. But still, many fans aren’t satisfied with the apology. As E! News reported, one fan remarked, “Not knowing who somebody is or not recognizing them is one thing. Calling them Precious is just a blatantly racist microaggression.”
Gabby Sidibe nor Lizzo have commented on the viral moment, but several anonymous sources close to Kathy have come to her defense with their own explanations. One source told E! that Kathy “feels terrible” about the mixup, and instead of blaming it on her impaired vision, they blamed it on bad nerves.
“She gets a little nervous when she is on live TV,” the source said. “Kathy is a very sensitive person and would never intentionally hurt anyone’s feelings.”
Meanwhile, another source doubled down on the fact that Kathy just genuinely doesn’t know who anyone is. They said, “Kathy would never want to offend anyone at all. She doesn’t know who anyone is.”
So, the reason for Kathy’s blunder has been narrowed down to either lousy vision, nerves, a blatant microaggression, or just a wealthy woman who doesn’t know who anyone is. Perhaps, it’s a combination of a few of these things.
TELL US – WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT KATHY HILTON’S BLUNDER ON WWHL? DO YOU BELIEVE HER EXPLANATION BLAMING IT ON HER POOR VISION?
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
