Forget that one time Kandi Burruss, 42, and Porsha Williams, 37, snooped through NeNe Leakes’ closet on the March 3 episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Kandi is convinced that there’s a much different reason behind NeNe’s beef with the RHOA cast, which drove the 51-year-old Bravo star to unfollow her co-stars’ Instagram accounts after taping the Season 11 reunion on Feb. 7. “Basically, I guess [NeNe’s] just been online posting like crazy about us, which I find funny ’cause she’s always saying how busy she is, but she has so much time to post about us,” the former Xscape member EXCLUSIVELY told HollywoodLife, who also noted that she hasn’t spoken with NeNe since the reunion. But she was warming up to her main point, which was this: NeNe is supposedly “angry” because Kandi and Cynthia Bailey, 52, brought Kenya Moore, 48, to Cynthia’s party, which you’ll see on the Season 11 finale that airs on March 31. Kenya left the show in Season 10, and didn’t invite NeNe to her baby shower in Oct. 2018.
“Cynthia had a party. She wanted Kenya there. I made sure Kenya came. But Cynthia didn’t give Nene a heads up, so Nene is taking it like an attack against her, when at the end of the day, it wasn’t even about her,” Kandi explained to HollywoodLife. “It was just really about the fact that Cynthia wanted Kenya to be there. And I wanted Kenya to be there, and not only just because I felt like she could be there for her friend. But also I felt like it was good that the fans get to see Kenya be happy and pregnant.”
Kandi stressed again that she was never “trying to hurt NeNe,” and only wanted Kenya to get some screen time because the former Miss USA finally found love (husband Marc Daly) and welcomed a baby, daughter Brooklyn, in Nov. 2018. “It was not about [NeNe]. It was just about, I felt like Kenya should be there. I don’t understand why she’s trying to make it an attack against her,” Kandi continued, clearly confused. “It’s not like we want Kenya there and [NeNe] not to be there. We want both of them to be there, if it worked that way. You know what I mean?”
Sure, Kenya and NeNe may have had some spats here and there during Kenya’s six-season run, but Kandi pointed out that there was never a major fallout. “It’s not even like they really had a real issue,” Kandi told us, saying that the two reality show stars only had a “Twitter beef.” NeNe sounded off in multiple tweets in Oct. 2018, right after Kenya gave birth. After a fan asked if the former star on The New Normal was “jealous” of her former co-star, NeNe replied, “What reason do i hav 2 b jealous of her?” Although the small screen star didn’t name drop, fans believed NeNe was referring to Kenya when she also tweeted that some people liked “2 b strategic around the [Season 11] premiere!” A source had EXCLUSIVELY told HollywoodLife before that NeNe thought the new mother was trying “to cry out for attention” by “posting a photo of her daughter” during a RHOA episode. But on Jan. 27, NeNe had said the “door is open” to a reconciliation with Kenya during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.
Kandi insisted that Kenya is the source of this feud, saying NeNe wasn’t that upset when she and Porsha raided her closet. “I know that she really wasn’t even really mad at us. She was mad at the cameraman for going in the closet. When B went into the closet, everybody was laughing. She wasn’t really triggered like that. But when the cameraman started walking to the closet, that’s when she went crazy,” Kandi continued telling HollywoodLife, as NeNe proceeded to rip the cameraman’s shirt. But Kandi still took “ownership” for contributing to the climatic moment on-screen: “So, did I cause the domino effect for the cameraman to want to go in the closet? Yes, I did, so therefore I will own that. But if the cameraman wasn’t there, she wouldn’t even have cared.”
At the end of the day, Kandi’s not taking NeNe’s Instagram unfollow — and this feud overall — too seriously. “Honestly, I don’t even see this as being a big deal. I mean, maybe it’s a bigger deal to her than it is to me, I guess. But yeah, we can get over anything that we’ve already gotten over in the past. This is nothing,” Kandi revealed to HollywoodLife, and also clarified that she could “care less” about NeNe no longer double tapping her Instagram photos. It’s important to note that the actress had also acted as Gregg Leakes’ caretaker while filming. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer in June 2018, and the specific diagnosis was made public later: stage 3 colon cancer. “I’m the closest thing to him, so if he wants to vent or yell or be mean, I’m the person that he’s doing that to. It really has been difficult for me,” NeNe explained on the Jan. 13 episode of RHOA.