The current ‘Basketball Wives’, Shaunie O’Neal, Evelyn Lozada and Tami Roman are eager to change the face of the franchise to something more positive yet managed to bash their former ‘Wives’ in a new ‘Upscale’ magazine interview. Jennifer Williams and Royce Reed were unceremoniously dismissed after season four of Basketball Wives. Many fans however believed the aforementioned reality stars were not the issue. Check out excerpts of the interview below:
On the negativity of BBW and the consequential loss of advertisers:
“[It] was so difficult to deal with when it was airing and when it was all over with. I remember saying, ‘what the hell just happened? This isn’t us; we’re mothers, we’re businesswomen. We have to be smarter. We have to represent ourselves a lot better.’”—Shaunie O’Neal
“People were connecting my behavior on the show with the incident with Chad. They were like, ‘Well if she acts like that on the show, then I’m sure she acts like that at home.’ I’m a totally different person at home.” —Eveyln Lozada
“I was very depressed last summer. I was dealing with some things that were going on with my mother and everything that was happening with the backlash from the show. I started eating everything under the sun. I blew up to about 190-ish pounds. I’m a tall girl, so I wear it well, but I was bordering between [size] 14 and 16 in my clothes.”—Tami Roman
“By the time we did the [season four] reunion we all agreed enough is enough. We had a group talk and were all definitely on the same page. We heard the messages loud and clear. We knew we had to do better. It was an eye opener.” —Shaunie O’Neal
On the decision to cut Jennifer Williams and Royce Reed from the series:
“It was a chemistry thing. It just became awkward to film or even come up with a conversation. It just wasn’t working for TV.”
—Shaunie O’Neal
“Royce has been a non-motherf—ing factor for the last two seasons, so it just didn’t make sense anymore. And as for Jennifer—Shaunie is [being] nice but I’m going to tell you this—we don’t condone the incident with Jennifer, but we do reality TV. You know something’s bound to happen when you put a bunch of women together and there’s a lot of behind the scenes conversation and gossip going on. So when Jennifer went on this whole anti-show campaign, it was a little tough for us as cast members.”
—Evelyn Lozada
