Larsa Pippen and Marcus Jordan's romance is front and center on season 6 of Bravo's 'The Real Housewives of Miami.'
Larsa Pippen is doing something she's never done on The Real Housewives of Miami: sharing her relationship.
"I mean, it's been super fun for us," the OG mojito-holder admits of filming with her boyfriend of a year, Marcus Jordan. The only other time she was in a relationship on the show was season 1, when she was married to Scottie Pippen. The NBA legend did not shoot many scenes for the series.
"When I first was asking Marcus, I was like, 'Hey, do you want to film with me? Are you gonna be OK being on camera?'" she recalls. "He said, 'I'll give you three days...' and those three days turned into a whole lot more than three days."
"It's just been fun, we get to do the things we normally do," she continues. "Have dinners, go out, spend time with our friends, and being able to see that, like, evolve on camera? Like, we were dating a year ago and now where we are. It's just super, it's just super fun."
Larsa and Marcus kept their relationship under wraps for as long as they could in the early months of seeing one another, both well aware some unwanted attention would come from their link-up. He's the son of Michael Jordan, Scottie's former teammate turned rival. That fact sparked an onslaught of media coverage about Larsa and Marcus, which painted a narrative that Larsa and Marcus knew each other when he was a kid (he's 17 years her junior). They're adamant that -- and countless other stories about their history -- isn't true. Bringing their romance to TV will, hopefully, set some of the record straight.
"I feel like I'm pretty open," Larsa reflects. "Like, I do show my entire life. Marcus is a huge part of my life, so I feel like we were pretty open. He's the same way. It's not like he is not one of those people that likes to share. He's very open and wants to share, you know what? We are together."
"I've never had a relationship like this, where both of us are on the same page at all times," she continues. "We like the same things."
The pair co-host a podcast aptly named Separation Anxiety. The two spend very little time apart; in fact, Marcus accompanied Larsa to her interview, which took place about three months after Marcus' dad made headlines for telling paparazzi he did not approve of Marcus and Larsa's relationship. On their podcast, Larsa said she was "traumatized" by the moment, which Marcus explained as his dad's attempt at humor. The couple had told ET just days prior that Larsa had the "Michael Jordan stamp of approval."
"I think the extended family's all good," Larsa offers as an update, as rumors swirl she and Marcus are engaged after he told a paparazzo a wedding was "in the works."
"I don't know," Larsa plays coy. "I feel like Marcus is really good at surprises and, I don't know, you'll have to ask him. I'm not sure."
If the question's been popped, fans might have to wait for it to air on TV to see. On top of RHOM, Larsa and Marcus recently returned from Scotland, where they filmed season 2 of Peacock's competition series, The Traitors.
"We had the best time ever," Larsa gushes. "It was such an amazing experience."
Larsa says she'd rather play the mind games of The Traitors over going on a Housewives girls trip. The Miami cast's season 6 vacation to Mexico (planned by Alexia Nepola) turned into a trip "from hell." As previewed in the trailer, a gondola ride soundtracked by a mariachi band turned into a screaming match/cry fest.
"When Alexia invited me, she said, 'Hey, we're gonna go to Mexico City. I have this whole planned trip for us and it's going to be amazing...' and we got there, the gondola, the gondola ride was a ride from hell," Larsa teases. "The water was black. The food was cold. It was just not what I was anticipating. I thought it was going to be like Venice. In my mind, I envisioned it to be like Venice, you know? Just relaxing, cool breeze. It was hot as hell. Full of mosquitos and just not what I assumed what it would be like."
"It was very draining after that day, I'm not gonna lie," she adds. "I definitely needed a break from everybody."
That trip comes at the end of the season, meaning plenty of tension had built up by the time the women hit the apparently black water. As with any season of Housewives, dynamics shift over the course of filming -- but before cameras went up on season 6, Larsa started some shifts of her own. She made a point to reach out to Dr. Nicole Martin and clear the air, after two seasons of being at odds.
"I feel like Nicole and I really never had issues," Larsa says, though they've fought over many digs over the years, from Nicole not wanting Larsa in her home before getting to know her, to Larsa making comments about Nicole's son being born out of wedlock and a rumor Nicole "slept around" at the hospital at which she works.
"I think like we both like each other," Larsa asserts. "We both like hanging out with each other, and I think it was basically other circumstances that contributed to us not really being friends in the very beginning."
Larsa says she and Nicole are in a "really good place," going so far as to label them a "dynamic duo." She's not on the same page as Guerdy Abraira, however. Larsa kicks off season 6 by confronting the wedding planner over a comment she made at a live podcast show, calling Larsa the "fakest" of all Housewives.
"I never, ever had any type of situation with her," Larsa explains. "If anything, I've been the most supportive of her. I've always been there for her. Anything she's inviting me to, I always come, so I don't even know. I just want to know where it was coming from. It was literally just, like, a question I wanted to ask her. I really had no intention of arguing with her. I just kinda wanted to know where it was coming from."
Larsa says, to this day, she hasn't been able to get a clear answer out of Guerdy, who goes on to call Larsa a "pathological liar" later in the season.
"I think she's definitely going through a lot and I think I'm probably the person that she's, like, punishing, because there's no one else that she can like let loose on," Larsa surmises. At the beginning of filming, Guerdy learned she had breast cancer. The season documents her journey to fight the disease.
"I'm not giving it back to her," Larsa confesses. "When you're going through a lot, I feel like you don't make the right decisions sometimes, when you're clouded, and your judgment, and you're not feeling well."
Larsa says she gave Guerdy a "pass for this season" because her behavior seemed out of character; she joined the other women in rallying around their co-star in her time of need.
"We argue, but at the end of the day, we all care about each other," she says. "We love each other. We want to see each other win, you know, and feel good."
As for other group dynamics, Larsa names Julia Lemigova as the pot stirrer of the circle and Lisa Hochstein the most changed (for the better) since last year. She's in a new relationship with entrepreneur Jody Glidden after splitting from her husband, Dr. Lenny Hochstein. Their divorce drama continues to play out in season 6.
"Lisa and I both started dating our guys about the same time," Larsa notes. "So it was basically like she would call me and say, 'Oh my god, should I ask him for this?' Or we kinda were going through the same thing, so it definitely made it way more enjoyable for both of us to be able to, like, bounce ideas off each other and just enjoy the moment."
Larsa calls season 6 a season of "evolution."
"We're all in such different places in our lives," she says. "Where I am today is not where I was a year ago, or two years ago, and I just feel like being on this journey with us, and kind of seeing our highs and lows, is pretty fun for everyone."
Larsa has no plans to change that, either. Fan speculation spiraled into conspiracy theory territory after Larsa popped up at a dinner hosted by former The Real Housewives of New York City star Bethenny Frankel, who's launched what she calls a "reality reckoning" war against the world of unscripted TV.
"For me, I've only had a positive experience being on Bravo and being a part of the franchise," she says. "I've never had anything negative to say about the franchise. If I did, I would say it, you know? I'm the kind of person where, if I wasn't happy I'd call [Housewives boss Andy Cohen] and be like, 'Andy, I'm not happy about this!' Like, 'Let's fix it.'"
Larsa wound up at the dinner because both her and Bethenny's podcasts are produced through the same network. "I wanted to go and support iHeart," she explains.
That said, she would entertain the idea of exiting Housewives (some day) for a spinoff centered on her life with Marcus and her kids: Scotty, Jr., 22, Preston, 21, Justin, 18, and Sophia, 14.
"We have so much content," she admits. "My 18-year-old now is being recruited by all these schools, and we have all these family meetings to decide where Justin should go, and Scotty's playing basketball. Marcus is working on [his store] Trophy Room. We're all busy, and I feel like it's great because we come together at the end of the day and we talk about all of our highs and lows and, you know, what we want to accomplish."
The Real Housewives of Miami airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo. Episodes stream the next day on Peacock.
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