Not looking back. Former Real Housewives of Dallas star LeeAnne Locken has no regrets about her time on the show — even if she felt she was “set up to fail” on numerous occasions.
“I was set up to fail every year and the thing that the producers and Bravo never got about me is that I truly live the life of a Phoenix, which means if I get to the end of my rope and I see no hope, scorched earth is my only policy left because I know I’m gonna rise and that’s how I’ve always been,” LeeAnne, 55, exclusively revealed on the Wednesday, August 3, episode of Us Weekly’s “Getting Real with the Housewives” podcast. “So here I am rising and soaring again and being happy and I am not struggling.”
The former Bravo star came under fire in November 2019 after she made racially insensitive comments about her costar Kary Brittingham on several episodes of RHOD. She even referred to Kary as a “chirpy Mexican.”
“I honestly never thought twice about it because the first thing that I think people don’t understand was that I was mimicking what she was saying to me,” LeeAnne explained to Us. “These are not the words coming from my mind or my heart. These are words that came out of her mouth that I mimicked back and so that was hard for me.”
She added that the two sat down since the show and Kary “understood” where she was coming from.
In February 2020, LeeAnne announced that she was leaving the series and in August 2021 RHOD was canceled after five seasons. LeeAnne believes “one hundred percent” that the show would still be in production if she was part of the cast.
“You could look at it and see the numbers. I mean, the highest-rated episode of season 4 was not the reunion, people turned off the reunion. The highest watched episode of season 4 was my wedding,” LeeAnne claimed to Us. “People want a love story. I just think in today’s times, petty fighting and bickering over bulls—t is just not what people want to see. People want to see an authentic journey of victory and that’s, that’s what I tried to provide.”
The former Housewife would love to return to the franchise if possible since she was “not who I was portrayed to be,” but for now she is focusing on hosting Origen Vodka Presents: The Hamptons Interactive Brunch on Saturday, August 6 in Sag Harbor, NY.
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“Coming out of COVID I think a lot of people lost their way a bit about how to engage with one another, how to communicate. and so the blogger lunch is us just getting together as a group of influencers in our community and sort of expressing what works, what doesn’t work, meeting a few other people and other celebrities,” LeeAnne explained. “It’s a chance for those of us who are still getting that high engagement to express to others how we’re doing it, what’s working, so that they can go back into their community and make a good, positive difference.”