Before Nene Leakes surprised The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th cast at an Atlanta drag brunch, she opened up to a producer about how she was really feeling about her official return to Bravo.
How to Watch
The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th airs on Sundays at 9 p.m. EST. Episodes stream next day on Peacock.
From the driver’s seat of her vehicle, Nene revealed that her nerves had majorly kicked in prior to filming Episode 4 of RHUGT. “My stomach was kind of hurting a little bit, kind of, you know, like, nervous hurt,” she admitted, before covertly entering the venue through a backdoor. “I don’t know how they are, you know. I just hope they’re nice to me.”
When the producer followed up by asking what would happen if the ladies were not nice to her, she joked that they could expect a classic Nene read.
How the RHUGT: Roaring 20th cast reacted to Nene Leakes’ surprise appearance
Nene’s former The Real Housewives of Atlanta castmate Porsha Williams was the only one who knew Nene would be joining them at the drag brunch, since she had helped orchestrate the surprise. Needless to say, the RHUGT cast lost their minds and immediately rushed the stage to hug their old friend and remind her how much they had missed her.
“I’m so emotional because it just feels like you’re long-lost family and you’re back together again, like a really big reunion of sorts,” Luann de Lesseps remarked in a confessional. “I was so happy to see her. We just get along like a house on fire.”
An excited Vicki Gunvalson, meanwhile, noted that she’s known and loved Nene for 18 years, while Teresa Giudice added in a producer interview, “I’m so happy Nene’s here. And, I don’t know, I feel like we have, like, this sisterhood, like no competition or anything like that. We always, like, respected each other.”
RELATED: Nene Leakes Reveals Where She Stands Today With Kyle, Vicki, Porsha, and More
Perhaps no one was more thrilled than Kyle Richards, who gushed in a confessional, “Nene was the first Housewife of any of the franchises that I became friends with. Nene and I have had lunches, dinners, we’ve gossiped, shared private things with each other. We just always had each other’s back. I’ve missed her.”
Though Gizelle Bryant, for her part, shared in the revelry, she still had some drama to discuss with the RHOA alum. “I have always given Nene her flowers, but she has said some things about me,” Gizelle told a producer, before detailing how she’d caught wind of a comment Nene made about her to Karen Huger. However, the two quickly squashed their beef after Nene insisted that she was just “talking s–t” with Karen and there were “no hard feelings.”
Why Nene Leakes got emotional filming RHUGT: Roaring 20th
During the drag brunch, Nene reiterated to the ladies that she was “nervous” to make her Bravo comeback. Luann went on to share her observation that Nene appeared to be “all choked up” when she took the stage, prompting Porsha to ask the reason behind her reaction.
As Nene shared with the group, “just being back” in the mix and realizing how much she missed all of the ladies had ultimately made her feel overcome with emotion.
Because Nene, who was a RHOA cast member on Seasons 1-7 and 10-12, had not been in the Housewives universe for roughly six years, Kyle also asked her to further unpack her feelings about being out of the mix for a bit, in general.
RELATED: Everything to Know About Nene Leakes Amid RHUGT: Roaring 20th & Her Bravo Return
“In the beginning I was happy to be gone, honestly, ’cause it was just a heavy time,” Nene shared. “At first, you feel a little bit like, ‘I mean, they’re shooting without me? Like, how the hell does that go?’ … You feel really weird. In a weird, way, we’re like all sisters, right? I’m still very connected to these girls. But, at first, it does take some time to set in.”
As for what Nene has been up to since RHOA Season 12, she vaguely joked that she’s had “all kinds of s–t” going on in her life. She went on to remind the ladies that her husband Gregg Leakes died in 2021 after a cancer battle. A bit later, Nene introduced the ladies to her current boyfriend Nyonisela Sioh, whom she said that she’d been “dating about four years, off and on.”
As you await the continuation of the Atlanta leg of the journey, don’t miss details on every Housewife appearing on RHUGT: Roaring 20th.
