Nene Leakes and Cynthia Bailey have shared one of the most problematic friendships out of all the cast members on The Real Housewives of Atlanta over the last couple of years, but it seems that the former best pals are no longer close now that Leakes has decided to walk away from the franchise, claiming she was only offered to star in six episodes of the show’s upcoming 13th series.
This evidently meant that she would be earning less money than the other women, who are believed to have signed on for at least 16 episodes each, which was quite the slap in the face for the 52-year-old, who had been part of RHOA since the show entered its first run back in October 2008. Needless to say, however, with her exit has seen Leakes cut all ties with the so-called cast, including Bailey.
The former supermodel tied the knot with sports broadcaster Mike Hill earlier this month, and while she was joined by a handful of Real Housewives stars — from the past and present — Leakes was noticeably absent from the big day, which appeared to have made it very clear where her friendship with Bailey stood at this point. It’s non-existent.
What Led To Cynthia Bailey and Nene Leakes’ Friendship Falling Apart?
During the taping of the show’s 12th season in 2019, the former Glee star was very vocal when she claimed that Bailey was “sneaky and underhanded,” insisting that the latter hadn’t been a friend she could trust for a long time, which all stemmed over the fact that Bailey had tried to cover up her plot to bring Kenya Moore back on the show without her pal’s knowledge.
At the launch event for her Seagram’s Escapes’ Peach Bellini drink, the 53-year-old was unaware that she was still being recorded when she was heard whispering to Hill, “I’m supposed to act like I didn’t know Kenya was coming.”
She acted surprised when she finally saw Moore walk through the door and make her presence known before telling her co-star Kandi Burruss: “I just want to make sure we was on the same page, setting up how Kenya got here.” Upon realizing her microphone was still recording, she added: I’m mic’d, I’m mic’d , I’m mic’d , I’m mic’d.”
Fans described Bailey’s intentions as “messy,” seeing that she was well aware that Moore and Leakes weren’t on good terms with one another, yet she had no problem inviting both ladies to her event, which was undoubtedly going to lead to an intense shouting match between the two.
Fortunately, there wasn’t much shouting, but that didn’t stop both ladies from throwing a string of insults each other’s way — when it was later shown at the reunion how Bailey knew all along that Moore was going to attend the occasion (since she was the one who invited the former Miss USA pageant), Leakes decided to distance herself from the model, insisting that she clearly had ill intentions of putting two rivals in the same room together.
Following the season 12 reunion, after everything had unfolded in front of the cast, Leakes went on Instagram to let it be known that while she didn’t hate Bailey for what she had done behind her back, she wouldn’t deem the model to be anything more than a co-worker at this point.
“I don’t have no hate in my heart for Cynthia,” she gushed. “We are coworkers from this day forward. I don’t have any reason not to speak to her, I’m happy to not speak to her. I’m happy to speak to her. But anything else further than that, it’s not going to happen. No. We are coworkers.”
Then, in October 2020, when Bailey married Hill in a lavish wedding ceremony held at Governors Towne Club in Acworth, Leakes was said to have been approached to film a one-off special with the cast for the big occasion, but The New Normal actress wouldn’t budge unless she was compensated with a fee of $125,000 to show up.
Well, considering that she didn’t attend the wedding, it’s fair to say that she didn’t receive the money she was hoping to receive from Bravo, whom she had also blasted for trying to push her out of the franchise she claims to have made a successful TV show.
While she’s not necessarily wrong that she played a huge part in the success of Real Housewives of Atlanta, the network appears to have gotten sick and tired of having to deal with Leakes’ not-so-nice attitude, which has consequently seen her leave the show entirely. And she appears to have lost a friendship with Bailey in the process, although we don’t blame her because that was a shady move of hers.