Eboni K. Williams was the first-ever Housewife to star on “Real Housewives of New York,” but she says she was surprised by the backlash she received when speaking on issues which impacted her as a Black woman.
“I get emotional just like anybody else. I was really taken aback. I don’t think I quite anticipated how much vitriol there would be around the audacity of me to bring these full aspects of myself and my identity to the show,” Eboni said on this week’s episode of the “Behind the Velvet Rope With David Yontef” podcast.
According to Eboni, it was “really insane” that she was criticized so heavily for her “blackness and [her] Black womanhood.” Eboni says, “If you don’t fit in… by divorcing yourself from your identity and by minimizing things that come natural to you… it’s your fault. And you’ve become toxic in the workplace and you’ve ruined their good time,” she continued.
She says she’s not the only Black Housewife to experience this.
“I think a good example of what I’m talking about is what we just saw [on RHOBH] where Garcelle [Beauvais] [was] really pushed to the brink of [an] emotional breakdown.”
On “Real Housewives of Beverly Hill,” several of the women regularly ganged up on Garcelle, even calling her a “bully” — when all Garcelle does is say how she feels directly to their faces instead of behind their backs.
“It was as if she had to be broken in emotionally [about how] she has felt as a Black woman amongst this room. And I think that’s a tragedy. I think it’s a real sad commentary on how irresponsible most, all of us are as, as, as American people and our ability to sit as adults and sit in full embrace of each other’s identities,” Eboni shared, adding that the cancelation of the reunion was equally as frustrating for her.
“I’ve expressed that to all parties involved. I think many people, at minimum, had unanswered questions around this season,” she said. “And I think [a reunion] would have done a lot of good by way of being able to open up the opportunity to have exchange and dialogue. I think it’s a missed opportunity.”
