Of all the changes in Stacey Rusch’s life heading into The Real Housewives of Potomac Season 10, one thing has remained the same: her denial that she paid her now-ex-boyfriend Thomas Anthony “TJ” Jones to be on the show.
While the cast gathered at Gizelle Bryant’s home to discuss Karen Huger prison sentence during the RHOP Season 10 premiere, Ashley Darby brought up some of the Season 9 reunion bombshells that had dropped two months earlier. Not only did Stacey reveal that she and TJ had broken up, but during a backstage call with Eddie Osefo, TJ also alleged that Stacey paid him to film RHOP with her.
“I am sitting here, as I did at the reunion: sitting in my truth,” Stacey told her castmates during a fourth wall-breaking conversation. “Paying him to be on the show is not true.”
Referring to his claim as “devastating,” Stacey said that she had spoken to TJ since filming the Season 9 reunion. “He was remorseful,” she shared. “He wanted to come on TV and say, ‘Oh my god, I lied. This is awful.'”
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Keiarna Stewart, meanwhile, questioned the nature of Stacey and TJ’s relationship nonetheless, but she insisted that they were, indeed, a real couple and that their romance never involved any financial transactions.
“I loved him enough to step out with him when I wasn’t even legally divorced,” she reminded the group, referencing ex-husband, Thiemo Rusch. “I wouldn’t do that to get on this show. I wouldn’t do that for a payday.”
Still, Keiarna mentioned that Stacey had been “trying to get on this show for quite some time,” which she also denied.
“I’ve been on television for years,” the former QVC host pointed out. “And I’m on this show because it was the right time.”
Why the RHOP cast did not believe Stacey Rusch’s denial about TJ Jones
Despite Stacey’s best efforts to convince them, the ladies remained skeptical of her version of events, and they made no secret of their reasons.
For starters, as Ashley explained in a confessional, she didn’t buy that TJ wanted to “issue a retraction for his claim,” because, days earlier, he had posted on Instagram that he was “not lying” about Stacey paying him and, furthermore, was “about to come forward with the receipts.”
“Is the retraction in the room with us?” Ashley asked, rhetorically. “No, because there isn’t one.”
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Keiarna, for her part, went so far as to state that Stacey “lied on national TV,” citing how she “couldn’t even squeeze a tear out” of her eye when she “tried to cry about it.”
Eventually declaring that she may “need to reconsider” her friendships, a “hurt” Stacey ultimately stormed out. Once she was gone, Gizelle spilled more intel that she and Ashley received from an actress who’s “best friends with TJ,” just days earlier during the Essence Black Women in Hollywood luncheon in Los Angeles.
“She came with the receipts, honey,” Gizelle recalled, claiming that she saw “legal documents” that indicated TJ was “suing” Stacey after allegedly agreeing to pay him 50 percent of her RHOP earnings. “What [we’re] not gonna do is you not be accountable for your lies. That’s what [we’re] not doin’.”
How Stacey Rusch responded to Gizelle Bryant and Ashley Darby’s claims about TJ Jones
Two months later, Ashley invited Stacey to go dress shopping ahead of her Second Bloom Ball, and the topic arose again. This time, however, Ashley looped in Stacey on what TJ’s friend claimed to her and Gizelle in L.A.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” Stacey responded, prompting Ashley to throw up her hands in disbelief that Stacey was “gonna maintain” that she was “being truthful” about TJ.Â
“I’m telling you that everything that I have told you has been the truth,” Stacey continued. “But I can’t talk about someone who brought you… Like, it just starts to get ridiculous. Do you wanna know the truth, Ashley? I have forgiven TJ. He has gone on with his life, and I am in a completely new space.”
As Stacey concluded, “I am not going to rehash and go back and forth about an imaginary friend and imaginary documents. … I can’t control anything that anybody says.”
Get a sneak peek at the twists and turns ahead in Stacey’s love life on RHOP Season 10.
