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Tamra Judge admitted to fearing Shannon Beador would get a DUI for years before her September 2023 hit-and-run arrest as she discussed the demise of their friendship during an interview last week.
As she also shaded Shannon’s newfound closeness to Jennifer Pedranti, 47, and commented on Shannon’s issues with Alexis Bellino, 47, the 56-year-old Real Housewives of Orange County star reflected on her confrontation with Ryan Boyajian, 47, addressed the potential addition of Teddi Mellencamp, 43, to the cast, revealed what she told her daughter Sophia, 18, before she began filming for season 18, and more.
“The DUI did not break up our friendship. I was very supportive of Shannon for months after her DUI,” Tamra began during a July 11 interview with Decider. “If you go back to BravoCon, she did an interview and said that [Vicki Gunvalson] and I were the people who supported her the most. I was truly worried for years that something like this was going to happen to her. I thought it would be a huge wake up call to her, and she would finally stop drinking. But that did not happen.”
While Shannon has suggested that Tamra abandoned their friendship after her arrest, Tamra made it clear that their current estrangement is “because of Shannon.”
“She did something that I can’t really give away. It eventually led me to quit Tres Amigas and cut her out of my life. I had to do it for my own peace of mind. I had to make myself a priority and not let her overly dramatic neurotic behavior affect me anymore,” Tamra explained. “I didn’t want to enable that behavior as well.”
As for Shannon’s claim that she was “finding out who [her] true friends [were]” amid season 18, Tamra shaded her castmate’s “lies.”
“Don’t insinuate I wasn’t your true friend. I was the one that was there for you for 10 years, even after you’d stopped talking to me for 2 years, when you had no use for me,” she stated.
While Shannon has struck up a friendship with Jennifer after her falling out with Tamra, Tamra believes she did so only because she needed an ally on the show.
“I’m not so sure that it’s authentic. I think that when you have gone through all your friends, you have to have some kind of an ally on the show,” she reasoned.
And while Shannon claimed to have issues with Alexis due to her ex-husband Jim Bellino‘s $1 million defamation lawsuit against the two of them, Tamra pointed out that Alexis “wasn’t a part of the lawsuit” before signaling Alexis’ relationship with Shannon’s ex-boyfriend, John Janssen, 60.
“She wants to keep blaming Alexis for her losing $300,000. That’s absolutely not the truth. We all know why she has a problem with Alexis,” Tamra noted. “[Alexis is] going to get a lot of crap this season because everyone’s going to be like, ‘Oh, poor Shannon. She stole Shannon’s man.’ That’s not the way it went down.”
In addition to Alexis’ return, RHOC season 18 also saw the addition of Katie Ginella.
“[She’s] very sweet. Very beautiful. Very well put together. A little fancy. A little fancy. Maybe that’s why her and Fancy Pants [Heather Dubrow] don’t get along so well,” Tamra said of her newest co-star.
Although she and Heather have had their own issues throughout their runs on the show, Tamra suggested that any drama they had amid season 17 was due to Shannon’s involvement.
“I had been hearing from a certain cast member that Heather had been saying things about me behind my back. That ended up not being true,” she revealed.
Looking ahead to her heated encounter with Ryan, who was tied to a recent $16 million MLB gambling scandal earlier this year, Tamra said that while she wants Jennifer “to be happy,” she also wants her castmate to “open her eyes.”
“By the way, we had no idea how bad it was,” she added. “We didn’t know that he was completely involved in it. We knew that somebody close to him was being investigated.”
“On the day of filming that dinner, I never wanted to bring up those three letters, the FBI, because I didn’t have all the information,” she continued. “[But] I might’ve had a few too many drinks that day because I was so nervous. And it just kind of all came out. [But] I was not wrong.”
According to Tamra, she was set off by Jennifer and Ryan after learning they had been speaking ill of her behind her back.
“Jen and I made up at the reunion last year and everything was fine. Then, I went to Scotland. While I was gone, Jen and Ryan got on social media and did podcasts talking badly about me. They talked about my son, they talked about my husband, they talked about my life, my businesses, all that stuff. That’s what I was so upset about,” she explained.
As for the possibility of Teddi joining the show, Tamra pointed out that her pocast co-host “got along with everybody” during her season 18 cameo.
“She knows a lot of the girls. She has a house in Orange County. It would be great to see Teddi on the show someday for real,” she admitted.
Also during the interview, Tamra spoke of Sophia’s return to filming after previously being kept off the show by her father, Simon Barney.
“I told her, ‘This is your choice if you want to do this.’ I never pressured her at all,” Tamra revealed. “She decided to start filming and was pretty nervous the first five times or so that the cameras were on. I kept checking in with her to make sure she was okay and wanted to keep going. Towards the end of the season, she starts opening up more and it’s wonderful.”
The Real Housewives Of Orange County season 18 airs Thursdays at 9/8c on Bravo.