NeNe Leakes dishes details about what led to her discrimination lawsuit against Bravo
Leakes told TMZ she has been blacklisted since filing the lawsuit, which aims "to stop discrimination against Black women."
The Real Housewives of Atlanta alumna NeNe Leakes was stopped at the airport in Los Angeles by TMZ, and she shared some details about her lawsuit against Bravo.
Leakes told the outlet she has been blacklisted since filing the lawsuit, which she said aims to end discrimination at the network.
“If you haven’t worked in more than three years when all of a sudden you’re working and sought-after, then suddenly you’re not working, it’s being blacklisted,” Leakes contended. “I haven’t caused any problems on any sets. Everybody I’ve ever worked with, I’ve had a good work relationship with except for this group of people.”
Leakes said she’d previously been silenced by the network. “I felt it was the right time a couple years ago, a few years ago,” she told TMZ of her decision to file the lawsuit last month. “But I was constantly being retaliated against, being blacklisted, not able to work, being silenced. It was difficult to do.”
“The goals are to stop discrimination against Black women,” Leakes maintained. “That’s just the goal. Nobody wants to go to work everyday as a Black woman with blonde hair and the head of the corporation call you a white woman. So, stop discrimination.”
“A white man shouldn’t say to a Black woman, ‘You’re a white woman because you’re wearing your hair blonde,’ as if it belongs to a certain ethnic group of people,” she added. “It’s more than that.”
She also discounted claims that she’s angling for a new show.
“We’re talking about discrimination, we’re not talking about a show,” she said. “It has nothing to do with having a temper tantrum and wanting a show. I never wanted my own show. I mean, I had many opportunities to have one — I did — that’s not it. It’s discrimination, that’s what it is.”
According to People, her lawsuit names the Bravo network, RHOA executive producer Andy Cohen, NBCUniversal and RHOA production companies True Entertainment and Truly Original as defendants, specifying that “NBC, Bravo and True foster a corporate and workplace culture in which racially-insensitive and inappropriate behavior is tolerated — if not, encouraged.”
The suit alleges that former RHOA star Kim Zolciak-Biermann made “racially offensive and stereotypical” comments and used the N-word, yet Bravo executives “did not terminate their relationship with Zolciak-Biermann, nor take any other meaningful action to put an end to her racially-offensive behavior,” and the result was Zolciak-Biermann getting her own spinoff, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
In addition, the suit claims that Leakes was sidelined after being a vocal supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“As the Black Lives Matter movement swept our nation, Mrs. Leakes — Bravo’s historically most successful Black female talent — should have been embraced by NBC, Bravo, and True,” it states. “Instead, NBC, Bravo, and True forced her out of the ‘house she built,’ denying her a regular role.”
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