The Real Housewives of Potomac‘s Ashley Darby added new intel in the ongoing mystery of whether or not Stacey Rusch actually dated Chris Samuels.
Even though the did-they-or-didn’t-they debate about Stacey and Chris had arisen multiple times throughout RHOP Season 10, Ashley waited until Episode 16 to reveal to Monique Samuels that she had posed the question to her ex-husband directly when they ran into each other at a birthday party.
“I asked him, ‘Are you hooking up with Stacey?'” Ashley recalled, insisting that she “could’ve sworn” she’d already debriefed Monique on her off-camera encounter with Chris. “And he went like this with his little drink.”
That’s when Ashley imitated how Chris had supposedly taken a long sip of his beverage while coyly scanning the room with his eyes, rather than answer her verbally.
RELATED: Chris Samuels Finally Sets the Record Straight on Whether Stacey Rusch Called Him
“That’s what he did,” Ashley claimed, before concluding, “So, Stacey lyin’.” (Stacey, of course, has repeatedly denied being anything more than friends with Monique’s ex.)
Gizelle Bryant, meanwhile, chimed in to accuse Stacey of “lyin’ through her teeth,” before offering her assessment of Chris’ response.
“No means no. No answer means yes,” Gizelle opined in a confessional, before telling Ashley and Monique, “If he didn’t [hook up with Stacey], he would’ve said no.”
Monique, for her part, referred to her ex-husband’s suspicious answer as “messy,” adding, “We’re talking about Chris, though. He knew what he was doing with that. [Stacey] even said to me at dinner, ‘I never dated your ex-husband.’ All of them are liars, you know? That’s what makes it difficult, because, like, nobody’s credible.”
How Ashley Darby’s conversation with Chris Samuels came up on RHOP
Another earlier element to the drama involved Chris somehow finding out the personal stories Monique shared about their marriage’s demise upon reuniting with the ladies. Keiarna Stewart had alleged that Stacey was the culprit, but both Stacey and Chris denied that it was the case.
In the same Episode 16 scene from the Colorado trip, Monique brought up that Stacey also seemed to exonerate herself with the text messages from Chris that she showed her during their meeting in Episode 9. Because Chris had mentioned that he’d heard that his name had “been circulating” within the group, Monique suspected that Chris already had “some type of conversation” with someone else before he reached out to Stacey.
That’s when Ashley admitted that she was the one who tipped off Chris to that fact by asking him if he and Stacey were hooking up at their mutual friend’s aforementioned birthday party.
Ashley Darby theorized about who leaked information to Chris Samuels
Ashley, meanwhile, also brought up Wendy Osefo’s “alternative theory” that involved Angel Massie and her husband Bobby Massie.
Ashley recapped how it was possible that Angel had told her husband what Monique said about him, and it was actually Bobby who leaked the information to Chris. She further pointed out that Bobby and Chris knew each other from their respective pro football careers, but Monique was unsure if the retired NFL athletes were still “cool like that.”
Either way, Ashley said that was how Wendy was “trying to free Stacey” from blame, before further talking through the speculation in a confessional.
“No one else in the group could or would do that to Monique,” Ashley told a producer. “But Angel is a little bit of a question mark, considering the fact that she and Bobby knew of Chris. So, it’s plausible. But considering that I think Angel is all about, like, sisterhood and kumbaya, I don’t foresee her doing that either.”
Ahead of the Season 15 reunion, revisit how Stacey addressed rumors she dated Chris on RHOP.
