'Married to Medicine' star Dr. Heavenly Kimes explains her unexpected falling out with Dr. Contessa Metcalfe.
"If you make me your storyline, I will be your storyline," Dr. Heavenly Kimes professes to ET over video chat. It's part statement of fact, part threat as she gears up for the return of Married to Medicine on Sunday.
The season premiere heavily focuses on Heavenly's falling out with castmate Dr. Contessa Metcalfe, a feud that "blindsided" Heavenly.
"The last time I spoke to Contessa was two weeks before we started filming," Heavenly recalls. "In fact, she came to my daughter's birthday party. We've got pictures, we're laughing it up. She gives me a kiss. During the filming time, she's texting me, telling me she loves me. I'm her sister. We don't want to argue. But then, watch the show..."
Contessa claims her issue with Heavenly is rooted in Heavenly's behavior online. "Heavenly has talked about us like dogs on her social media channel," Contessa shares in the premiere. "Heavenly has called my marriage 'fake,' not only has [my husband] Scott 'disrespected me,' but that he's abusive. I mean, where do the insults end and where does the friendship begin?"
Those comments Contessa's referencing to come from a livestream Heavenly did on YouTube more than a year ago, in which a fan asked Heavenly if she believed Contessa to be in an abusive marriage. Heavenly replied, "Verbally, emotionally? Yes. I do. I think that it’s very confusing because, you know, you see one thing on Instagram, or you see one thing on the show, but I know… I don’t want to say too much, y’all."
"I really hope that they can work things out," she continued. "We do know that Scott does not always tell the truth, seemingly. I mean, let’s be real. He don’t be telling the truth! Come on now! I can deal with a lot of things, I really can. I really can. As a wife and a mother you deal with a lot of things in your marriage. ... I cannot deal with blatant disrespect. And that’s what I think it is happening here. ... I think that she’s having a hard time."
"If you watch my YouTube, all I did was uplift her," Heavenly explains to ET. "She took a small excerpt and ran with it. They asked me, because Contessa would not speak at the reunion. She didn't say anything. I'm sitting there, beautiful Black woman, educated, well spoken, just got everything going on, she sat aside. It was almost like she was afraid to speak."
Heavenly's talking about the season 8 reunion, at which Quad Webb revealed that Contessa had filed for legal separation from her husband, the first step toward divorce. Quad sharing that news set off Scott, leading to an emotional on-stage confrontation that seemed to seal the couple's fate.
"We cannot act like last year didn't happen," Heavenly says. "She asked Quad to speak for her. Quad spilled all of her tea. They had everything that was going on in her life. She was filing for divorce, all these things happened. Come back to my YouTube, the people asked me, 'Was she being abused?' Physically, no. No. I'm dispelling that rumor. No. Emotionally, verbal, you saw it on TV! So don't make it look like I put it out there. No. It happened."
Once Heavenly caught wind that Contessa was upset with her, she read the situation as misdirected anger. Because Contessa chose to stay with Scott, Heavenly believes Contessa's frustrations with her husband were projected onto their friendship.
"Had she gone forward with the divorce, had she gone forward with the things she said she was going to, she wouldn't have been upset," Heavenly surmises. "The upset part is when she stayed."
"I said, 'Contessa, if you're going to stay can I give you some relationship advice?' I always ask. I asked. She said, 'Yes, Heavenly, help me,'" she recalls. "Now mind you, we're on the phone crying. She's been on the phone for hours telling me. I know all her tea. I have never exposed anything that she has not said on TV at all. I told her, 'Listen. If you're going to stay shut the f**k up, because you're looking ignorant as hell staying with the man. So if you're going to stay with him anyway be quiet. Stop downing him. Uplift him.' And then she took all my damn advice -- didn't even pay me! -- took it, used it, and then got mad at me. I still don't understand what the hell happened."
Contessa's issues with Heavenly quickly bubble over into group drama, with many of the women questioning Heavenly's commitment to the group. They label her spoiled, careless, reckless and claim she treats friends like enemies.
"The person that I probably owe an apology to, for my vlogs, is Toya [Bush-Harris]," Heavenly admits. "But again, I only spoke the truth."
Heavenly's made a number of comments about Toya's financial situation on her YouTube channel, questioning if she has money troubles and looking into why Toya had to sell off her "dream house" so quickly after moving into it. That sort of unfiltered commentary about her co-stars has the ladies believing Heavenly prioritizes clicks and likes over friendship.
"That's not true at all," Heavenly fires back. "I love to speak, and if we're going to do a vlog, maybe I shouldn't s**t where I eat. Maybe that. However, if you put it on TV, the folk going to talk about it! And trust me, I'm not the only one talking. Trust me, if I said something -- I've had this conversation with Jackie [Walters], I've had it with Simone [Whitmore], I've had it with Quad. I've had these conversations. So don't act like I'm just the only one speaking on it. You put it out there for people to speak."
Heavenly points out that it was Scott who first exposed relationship issues to the public, revealing DMs (on camera) he received from women sending him flirty pictures. "If your man had not shown us a text and said, 'Ooh, she looks good...'" she notes. "We wouldn't know. We didn't know about a life coach. Did you have one, you didn't have one?"
"I was so hurt," Heavenly says of being cut off by Contessa. "I really was, because that was my friend. I would've drove up in the U-Haul with her and got all her stuff out. I would've done that. That's the type of friend I am."
"I'm the type of friend that if you ask me a question, I'm going to tell the truth," she adds. "If you don't want the truth, I'm not that girl. I'm not that girl, and you've got to decide whether we can be friends or not, because I don't think I'm going to change. And I do have compassion. I cried with you. I've given you great advice."
Heavenly says Contessa "twisted" her advice and used it against her, which only divides them further. As she tells Jackie in the trailer for the season, she's not sure if the friendship can ever be repaired. That moment seemingly comes after the women attempt to host an intervention for Heavenly's behavior, which Quad labels an "ambush."
"It wasn't about getting through to Heavenly, it was about getting Heavenly," she says.
"It does not go over well," Heavenly teases of the intervention attempt. "Needless to say... you already know that."
Heavenly claims Contessa teamed up with Toya in an attempt to take her down, something she finds ironic, seeing as Contessa wasn't exactly a Toya fan before they started filming season 9.
"I just think that some of the things and the way they were done were snake ways of doing things," she says. "If you watch my whole YouTube video, you could see I did nothing but uplift [Contessa]. Now Toya, I tore her a** up! However, Contessa was on there tearing her a** up with me."
"The only reason she got with Toya was ... that was the only person she could feel like could come against me, because we both had said so much about Toya," she adds.
Heavenly describes the journey she and Contessa go on this season as a "roller coaster."
"I did nothing to that woman that she did not already know I said, that was said on TV," she repeats. "I never exposed anything that was not said on TV, by her mate. So be mad at me or be mad at the person who did it? I just don't know. But I said on my vlog, 'Let me be very careful because I know women, and they will go back to their man and be mad at the woman for answering a question,' and I spoke it into existence. And that's exactly what happened. Now was she really mad? I don't know. I mean, it appeared that way. But if it wasn't it was a hell of a storyline, so I don't know."
While Heavenly's not exactly looking forward to reliving the drama with Contessa (though she notes she can "take a hit" better than any of her co-stars), there are plenty of parts of season 9 she's excited for the audience to see.
"The growth of my family, we show Heavenly Beauty supply," she rattles off, "the growth of all my friendships. Me and Quad, we have little spats, but I love her. She's my sister, and she's a real one. She comes back and talks to me if she has issues with me, like a real woman would. She doesn't then become a snake and try to go to people that are adversaries, people that are against me and try to get them to come all against me. I don't respect things like that. If you have a problem with me, come talk to me and I'll explain it."
There is one person she won't be explaining some behavior to, though: her husband, Dr. Damon (aka "Daddy"). Sneak peeks at the season show Heavenly living her best life with a group of male dancers on the cast trip to Las Vegas.
"Daddy does not know!" she exclaims. "He has not seen that clip. Oh yeah, and if Andy Cohen don't show it to him, he'll never see it, OK? I was having a good time. We were drinking. They made me queen of the night, and I just played along. You know what I'm saying? I only have eyes for one man and one man only -- and I've only been with one man -- and we were just having fun. It was very surface."
Married to Medicine season 9 premieres on Sunday, July 10, at 9:15 p.m. ET/PT after an all-new episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta.
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