Tonight’s Real Housewives of Potomac reunion will bring Candiace Dillard Bassett face to face with the woman who’s continued to accuse her husband of making her feel “uncomfortable” and Bassett told BOSSIP that we can anticipate someone’s fall from grace.
“You create drama where there is none,” said Candiace. “This season you got carried away and you didn’t use your judgment and now your credibility is in the trash and that is what you will have to live with.”
Source: Clifton Prescod / Bravo
During the reunion, the Deep Space songstress will dazzle in a Karen Sabag dress as Andy Cohen recaps all of the wild (and we do mean, wild) claims that surfaced during season 7.
Bravo’s also confirmed that during part three of the reunion, Cohen will grill Robyn Dixon for failing to mention her hubby Juan Dixon’s alleged affair on-camera.
When the news about the Dixons’ developments made headlines, Candiace dubbed the lack of transparency “wack” and said that housewives were ‘burying the lede” while openly spreading lies throughout the season.
Even before news of that drama made headlines, Candiace shared similar thoughts with BOSSIP about this season’s lack of authenticity.
“This season was the antithesis to authenticity,” Candiace told BOSSIP’s Managing Editor Dani Canada. “It was very scripted and fabricated and fake and full of just, “I’m bored and I have nothing else to do and I’m going to get fired if I don’t give you guys a story. So here’s something I just pulled out of my butt.” That’s what it gave, and I responded in kind.”
“I don’t receive fake stuff. So when it was thrown at me, my response was to vacate the premises because I didn’t sign up to be fake. I have a scripted show on ALLBLK TV, it’s called Hush,” she added. “That’s where you do scripted stuff. This space is for us to show our real lives to people who really want to be invested in us as people, not actors.”
Blasting the fakeness of this season is something Candiace will continue to do during the reunion. According to an official description shared by TV Deets, Candiace will accuse her former friend Gizelle Bryant of spreading bold-faced lies tonight.
Candiace Dillard Bassett Will Address Gizelle Bryant During Tonight’s #RHOP Reunion
The lies in question are of course centered around Candiace’s husband Chris Bassett who Gizelle STILL says made her “feel completely uncomfortable” after asking to speak to her privately in her hotel room in 2021.
Source: Bravo / Shannon Finney
According to the housewife, while Bassett never said or did anything inappropriate, she got a “feeling in the pit of her stomach” while they were alone.
In the midst of the fallout from the accusation, Gizelle doubled down and scoffed at Candiace’s assertion that her claims put true sexual assault victims at a disadvantage.
“I get to my room and my glam was gone,” said Gizelle to super producer Carlos King about Bassett. “I immediately felt like I don’t wanna be in this situation. “I have never said this man lured me, I’ve never said he preyed on me, I’ve never said that I was accusing him of sexual assault, even though you know the other side is talking real crazy.
“I said he made me feel uncomfortable and I have that right to feel that way.”
Candiace still isn’t buying the story and told BOSSIP that when Gizelle ignored her point that her “fake” claims weaken those of true assault victims, it was a “lesson in gaslighting.”
“This is someone who has spent her entire career on this show, embellishing and adding hot sauce and salt and garlic powder to stories,” said Candiace. “She’s been rewarded for that and put on a pedestal for that. I think she’s just run unchecked for so long that now she’s in a position where she’s really running out of stuff. Like I said earlier, her bag of tricks is getting light, it’s not a whole lot in there anymore.”
Source: Paul Morigi / Getty
“So now we’ve got to pull from a place that is disingenuous and dangerous,” she added. “I maintain that when you play around with sexual misconduct and sexual assault, both of which she accused my husband of, you are entering into a very dangerous space that does discredit men and women who have credible, valid claims against people who have done things to them that are inappropriate.
If she had come to me or to us with something that she really felt had some weight or that she really felt had a negative effect on her, we would’ve received that.”
She added that she believes the housewife intentionally brought up the allegations on camera as part of a storyline, something many #RHOP viewers also believe.
“If you had called me and said, “I just wanted to let you know that this happened and I really didn’t like the situation,” I would’ve passed the phone to Chris and we would’ve handled it,” said Candiace.
“My issue has always been, don’t tap dance on my intelligence or that of the viewers and make it seem like you didn’t purposely wait to bring this up on camera. That’s what you did, because it’s what you’ve always done. That is your MO, you create drama where there is none. This season you got carried away and you didn’t use your judgment and now your credibility is in the trash and that is what you will have to live with.”
We also asked flat-out if there’s any chance of reconciliation between Candiace and the woman she previously viewed as a big sister.
Candiace said if her former friend fully apologized, then maybe.
Source: Shannon Finney / Getty
She noted that that hasn’t happened and it certainly won’t be happening during the reunion.
“If Gizelle called me and owned everything that she did, everything that she said that was wrong and filled with demagoguery and lies, I would consider not killing her off in my mind,” Candiace told BOSSIP.
“Yes, but she’s not going to do that. I don’t want to give anything away. But…there’s a lot of that happened at the reunion that just says to me, It is unfortunate because it’s a mighty fall from grace and there is no coming back from the things that she has set up for herself.”
On a more somber note, she also ticked off all the things she loved about the woman who was not just her #RHOP costar, but her friend even when the cameras weren’t rolling.
“I really respected Gizelle. She’s always been messy, she’s always been questionable. But I respected her position as someone who would push us forward and kept the dust up,” said Candiace. “Then just privately, she’s been in our home, she’s been around my bonus kids, she’s been around my family. I’ve been around her kids and her family. Grace drove my car and was scratching my rims, when she was learning [how to drive].
“I love her daughters. I love just her… I loved Gizelle as a woman, and I felt like beyond her passion for creating drama on the show, there was a human in there and she was fun to be around.
But she chose her check over a friendship because what else is there to talk about? Her daughters are leaving, she can’t use them for storylines anymore. She doesn’t have a partner to build a life with. We don’t care about her house. What is there to talk about it?”
“It’s a lot of pressure, when you’ve been on this show from the beginning, to consistently give of yourself,” she added. “I think that she got carried away with a story that she just didn’t calculate in her mind was going to go this way. I think she clearly thought it was going to turn out differently than it did. It’s unfortunate for her and no one else.”
Source: Santiago Felipe / Getty
Near the end of the interview, Candiace also reacted to Bravo fans’ belief that Andy Cohen didn’t hold Gizelle accountable during the reunion, a claim that surfaced after the below Watch What Happens Live clip aired.
“I would love to see the final edit, that’s what I’ll say,” Candiace told BOSSIP. “Because often things will look one way and then it’ll be cut down so much for time that it’s like, “Wait, what about that? That wasn’t in there, we missed that part.
So yeah, I would love to see how it’s edited. Because you know have white Karens and then you have Black Karens that want to call up to the people and complain and create issues and drama. Sometimes it works and they are protected.”
Ooop!
Watch our exclusive with Candiace Dillard Bassett below.
The Real Housewives of Potomac Reunion kicks off TONIGHT February 19 at 8 pm on Bravo.