The Real Housewives of Potomac is down a housewife.
Monique Samuels shocked fans Sunday when she announced on Instagram Live that she wouldn’t be returning for the series’ sixth season. This comes as she was in the middle of the season’s front-burner storyline after her physical altercation with Candiace Dillard Bassett. The fight drew lines between the cast members, with Gizelle Bryant, Robyn Dixon and Wendy Osefo siding with Dillard Bassett, Karen Huger remaining mostly neutral and Ashley Darby siding with Samuels. After the final part of the reunion, in which many fans are saying host Andy Cohen was biased and he and fellow castmembers gaslight Samuels, announce she was leaving.
“It was a crazy ride,” she said after the fifth season’s reunion aired on Bravo, she said in. the live.”It’s not easy doing reality TV, and to be quite honest, I’m over it.”
She added her thanks to her fans, but insinuated that the fame infringed on her personal life.
“When you cross certain lines, there’s no going back. For me, my family is that line,” she said. “The opinion of my family and my kids and what they think about anything I do is more valuable to me than anybody’s opinion, so I’m over it. When the hate becomes real, I’m over it.”
The “hate” she alludes to might be rumors that arose during the fifth season, such as the rumor of her husband, former Washington Football Team player Chris Samuels, possibly not being the father of her son Chase. Her family’s safety and protection from gossip is what compelled Samuels to leave the show.
“If my kids were to get older and say they watched everything and they watched the show, what response can I give them? What would satisfy that?” she said. “I wanted to represent real Black love and show people something outside what the stereotype has been on TV. Unfortunately, this season played right into that stereotype…I was working overtime to really check myself because that’s the exact opposite of what I want to display on a TV show, and in real life, most importantly.”
” I’m always going to be a great example and role model for my kids, and you have to know when enough is enough,” she continued. “And enough is enough…I am very much at peace. It’s been a rough year, but this is the happiest I’ve been in my entire life.”
Trey Mangum contributed to this report.
