Tami Roman Dishes on Her ‘Treacherous’ Role In Bounce’s ‘Saints & Sinners’: ‘You Never Know What to Expect’

You may know Tami Roman as a reality TV star but the longtime star of VH1’s “Basketball Wives” is stepping out of that space and into a new one as she gets ready to venture to the fictional town of Cypress, Georgia, and join Bounce’s “Saints & Sinners.”

A fan of the prime time soap, Roman is joining the upcoming fourth season as Felicia. The character promises to shake up the plans Vanessa Bell Calloway’s character Mayor Ella Johnson has for landing a seat in the state senate.

tami roman
Tami Roman stars as Felicia on “Saints & Sinners.” (Photo courtesy of Bounce)

The season comes after the last set of episodes saw Greater Hope church burning asunder and Ella sticking her mom into a mental facility.

“It was time that Cypress had … a little bit of spice with Lady Ella. Who’s just as vindictive, just as manipulative, who’s just as treacherous,” Roman told Atlanta Black Star Tuesday of her character, who will be Mayor Ella’s nemesis. “They needed somebody that could go toe-to-toe with Lady Ella. Felicia is … just as driven as [Lady Ella] is as well. Her company has just entered into the community of Cypress … and she wants to take over that town and do some big things so she’s making alliances … and wants to take the company that should have been her’s from birthright and still play the game of chess versus checkers as it pertains to Lady Ella.”

Roman said she jumped at the chance to work with the cast of “Saints & Sinners,” which sees her reunite with Clifton Powell after the pair played in BET’s “Carl Webber’s The Family Business.” She’s also working for the first time with Calloway, Demetria McKinney, Keith Robinson and Jasmine Burke.

Now, with the addition of Roman’s character, the show promises to keep up with the unexpected and captivating moments viewers have come to expect, Roman shared. Just don’t expect her to reveal what’s going to happen with her role.

“They would kill me if I did reveal my big secret, so I can’t reveal my big secret,” she said. “But ‘Saints & Sinners’ has always been a show that has some unmatched twists and turns within the storylines. People dying, they come back, they weren’t really dead. It really is one of those shows where you never know what to expect.

“The new audience is gonna be pleasantly surprised, the old audience is gonna go, ‘Yes, this is the show I fell in love with,'” Roman added. “And Felicia has some secrets of her own that I think people are gonna be thoroughly entertained by.”

“Saints & Sinners” airs on Sundays at 9 p.m. on Bounce through the summer.

Democracy needs journalism it can trust.

This election season, the stakes are higher than usual — and so is the pressure on newsrooms to soften their coverage, stay quiet, or just disappear. Independent reporting, the kind that answers to readers instead of advertisers or political pressure, matters more in a moment like this, not less.

For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed independent and reader-funded. We have no corporate owner and no shareholders telling us what to cover or how to cover it. That independence is also our biggest vulnerability: nothing protects it except readers choosing to fund it directly.

Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under in a moment like this, it's rarely the independent, reader-funded ones that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Back to top