Porsha Williams has had quite the fill of juicy drama in Atlanta, but after a cross-country trip with some of Bravo’s most legendary Housewives, this Georgia peach is coming home with thicker skin and a much harder-to-bruise attitude.
The Real Housewives of Atlanta star, 45, exclusively told Us how filming The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th taught her that a little shade doesn’t have to leave a bitter taste, especially when surrounded by women who know how to hold their own.
“What I took from doing the show with them is the confidence that each lady had because these are the best of the best from each city,” Williams told Us, referring to costars Gizelle Bryant, Teresa Giudice, Luann de Lesseps and Kyle Richards. “ I took their confidence and I took them being unbothered with me back to Atlanta.”
Although Williams is notorious for squashing digs with her signature line, “Who said that?”, fans watched her decades-long friendship with Shamea Morton sour during season 16 of RHOA after Morton, 44, became a full-time member of the franchise.
Ahead of season 17, Williams said she had hoped for a fresh start, previously sharing with Us in April that she wanted to put prior conflicts aside and welcome new friendships. “I just wanted a clean slate, and I wanted to have a good time. I wanted to be open to new friendships… and have this season feel like a breath of fresh air,” she said at the time.
That hope was tested when tensions continued to boil over into season 17 during a cast trip to Scotland, where the two officially declared their friendship was over after a heated dinner exchange—a rift that remained unresolved at the reunion.
Rather than promising a drama-free future, Williams said she’s trying to draw a line between playful disses and personal attacks, with a new focus on fostering sisterhood rather than fueling conflict.
“I’m also taking from Ultimate Girls Trip a lighter tone for the season,” Williams told Us.” I’m trying to set that in everything that I do. It’s not always about going below the belt and, like, ruining somebody’s life or career. So I’m bringing back fun shade.”
With hopes of taking a fuzzier approach to navigating on-screen battles in season 18, Williams says her standards were set long before she ever held a peach, and she’s equally intentional about what she hopes to pass down to her 7-year-old daughter, Pilar Jhena McKinley.
“[The] No. 1 thing for me as a mom and being a mom to a beautiful child like Pilar is to make sure that she feels good about what she does,” Williams said. “I let her speak life into herself, which helps her build her own confidence in anything that she does. So it’s not just someone telling her that she’s great, or someone telling her she’s had high standards, she knows it for herself.”
During Charmin’s Wider Sheet Immersive NYC Experience, where the reality TV star partnered with Charmin Ultra Strong to celebrate the brand’s newest innovation, she recalled how her mother, Diane Williams (Ms. Diane), instilled high expectations in her from an early age — right down to toilet paper.
“I think I was born with high standards, and then I just started raising them above and above and above,” she told Us. “I don’t think I’ve ever really had low standards.”
The mother of one also credits her younger sister, Lauren Williams, with how she raises her own daughter, revealing that watching how they encouraged their own children helped develop her understanding of self-worth.
“In my world of reality TV, often people feel like, ‘oh, it’s what you tell me I am’, no, it’s not. It’s what I say I am,” Williams told Us. “It’s how I say I feel about me, and so my life lessons, my little sister, my mom, they helped me parent very well for Pilar.”
