From her finances to her marriage and allegedly taking out hits on co-stars, Toya Bush-Harris sounds off on the antics of season 9.
Toya Bush-Harris is making two things clear: her finances are fine and she did not send out a hit on her Married to Medicine co-star, Anila Sajja.
Both topics are hot ones on season 9 of the Bravo hit, alongside attacks on Toya's marriage to her husband, Dr. Eugene Harris. The money talk, Toya says, feels "old" at this point, given that it's been an easy picking point for the group as long as she's been on the show.
"It's the same old target," she laments to ET over video chat. "It's getting old at this point. It's like, nothing has changed. It's kind of funny, honestly, because truly I get better every year. It is really funny. They know that we purchased a home, and it gets better every year, you know? They know we live nice in every home we move into, and they know we are building again. I mean, I think that really and truly they are just haters, a little jealousy there -- and I used to hate using that word, but I think it's just a true fact -- and I hate to say that, because you don't want any jealousy to be amongst your friends."
The women called into question Toya and Eugene's decision to abandon the "dream home" they built last season after less than a year of living there.
"It was a beautiful house, don't get me wrong, and it was in a beautiful neighborhood -- and we still live in the neighborhood," she says. "We are renting until we build in our new neighborhood, which is even more beautiful and even closer to our sons' school district, and it was a beautiful buy. ... It's on a lake, it is on a golf course and it's just literally eight minutes from my sons' school, and when we decided that was the school for them, I was like, 'OK, this is perfect.'"
"It's quieter," she adds. "This neighborhood is turnt! People turn up over here. Did you see them? They want their TV time over here, you know?"
Toya's taking shots at her neighbor, Anila's, friends, after Anila brought them to co-star Quad Webb's holiday party, where some of the women insinuated Toya was having an affair on Eugene.
"The new neighborhood, they're a lot more private, and we need that, you know, being on television," Toya shares. "When we started getting the weird mail, the demonic mail, all of that it was just like, it's time to go, and the great part of it, you know, was that when COVID hit the real estate market changed and we were able to make a really good amount of money. Now, let the new girl tell it. You know, we didn't make what we said. Watch the reunion, because, you know, she brought her receipts!"
Toya's referring to season 9 newcomer Audra Frimpong, a real-estate attorney who claimed to know the ins-and-outs of the Harris' financials and told the group they were in major debt at Quad's holiday party, which turned into a near-physical altercation between the women. Toya promises she gets the facts out to the people at reunion, but Audra wasn't there to see it.
"She was not invited," Toya reveals. "I don't know [why] -- ask Bravo!"
Soon after her incident with Audra, Anila's home was broken into, and questions popped up within the group about whether Toya might've had anything to do with it, seeing as Anila and her friends had just come for Toya's marriage. Plus, at a Halloween party earlier in the season, Anila and her husband showed up dressed as movers to poke fun at the Harris family constantly changing addresses.
"At first, me and Eugene, when they first told us [about the break-in] were like, 'Oh, my god! Is everybody OK? Are the kids OK?'" she recalls. "But then when it switched to, we might be responsible, we were like, what?! Wait! Wait, now we're burglars?! We are now, we're capable of devising the scheme to have your house robbed?"
Toya seems to feel as if this line of thinking came with ulterior motives, another way to attack her marriage and her character.
"Why are you trying so hard to kill this family, to break down this family?" she asks, before pointing out that committing such a crime against a co-star would put her in breach of her contract for the show and likely cause her to be fired, barring her from doing this interview. That said, Toya's played sort-of coy on camera when presented with the idea she'd set up Anila, feeding into speculation that it was a set-up of some kind. She says that's because she finds the whole situation so absurd.
"I was like, OK, this girl is just a liar," she explains. "Maybe she's just a liar and they're like, 'So wait, now you’re saying she’s made it up?' and I said, 'Well you can say whatever you want at this point you know, I don't even care.'"
Toya believes Anila does things for the cameras, comparing her behavior to the "cartoonish" antics of former cast members Mariah Huq and Lisa Nicole Cloud.
"Y'all devise all these stories and schemes just to have something to talk about, you know?" she remarks. "You went from, I'm cheating on my husband to now I'm a burglar?"
But Toya doesn't believe Anila to be the mastermind behind any plots; she holds Quad responsible, pointing to the "two plus two equals four" analogy she pulled out to draw a line to Toya being involved in the home invasion.
"No. 1, Anila's not that bright," she declares. "She's not about to sit there and think, 'Hey, you know let's blame this on Toya,' you know? But Quad immediately was like, 'Let me talk to [Dr. Heavenly Kimes]...' and you know, 'Let's put two and two equals four together...' It was like what?"
"It's sad because it's like, you use these things to make yourself more popular on our show," she continues. "When you really look at what Quad brought to the table this season, it was a couple of scenes, you know? ... The rest was talking about me."
Quad became Anila's shoulder to cry on in the aftermath of her robbery; in one candid conversation, Anila confessed to being upset Toya didn't reach out to her about the incident. It's a complaint that makes Toya laugh.
"What was I supposed to say? 'I'm sorry, girl?'" she chuckles. "I know last week you were trying to end my marriage. I know just last week you brought girls from the neighborhood to spread this lie about my marriage. ... Are you guys alright? Nothing makes sense in that girl's mind! And you know what's funny? Here's some real tea: a week ago, she text me, 'Can we go out for coffee and talk?' About what?!"
That coffee date reach-out came after the cast taped their reunion in New York City. Toya turned down the invitation.
"Last year, I put in 100 percent with Anila, trying to be her friend," she says. "I had no clue she was trying to help my marriage to come to a complete end, you know? I was like, what are you doing? And all because she wants to be on television, and I'm like, that is so the wrong way to go, girl. I just think Anila needs to mature, in the in her real life and in television world."
Adding to the robbery saga is "friend of" the group Kari Wells, who hasn't jumped in much on-camera this year, but was vocal on Twitter about the break-in and added fuel to the speculation Toya was somehow involved.
"Here's the real deal: Kari all season has been -- the real tea -- her and [Dr. Simone Whitmore] never got along all season," Toya claims. "She wanted me to have her back with Simone, I would not. Because Kari was attacking Simone, and I would not get involved because she was wrong! She has been angry ever since."
That footage is on the cutting room floor, unlike Heavenly's rant against Toya as she stormed out of a group gathering that aired last week, at which the women pelted Toya with questions about Anila's robbery and her alleged infidelity. As Heavenly ran off, she blurted out that her husband, Dr. Damon Kimes' "dick big."
"It's like the new 'yo momma,'" Toya says of Heavenly constantly bringing up her spouse's endowment to end arguments. "Your mother just passed away, what are you doing talking about somebody's penis? Help me help her. The girl needs help, we did decide at the reunion that she needs help, and I did offer my pastor's wife, because she is amazing."
Offering access to her spiritual advisor is a bit of an olive branch from Toya to Heavenly, seeing as the season kicked off with an intervention partially planned by Toya to force Heavenly to confront mean things she says about the other women on her YouTube channel.
"We're seeing if we can get her to a place where her 'sorrys' really do mean something," Toya shares. She's also hoping to see some change from Quad after the all-cast sit-down.
"At the reunion, you'll have to definitely pay close attention, because I I wanted Quad to understand that our history goes nine years back and for her it's always been an, if you did something to her, she had to retaliate in such a mean way," she adds, "and what we were trying to get her to understand is that, no, she does things to people. And It's not always based on what they've done to her. Sometimes it's just in her head."
Toya calls Quad a "very sensitive creature," and says the ball is in her court when it comes to their future friendship. Toya says she's put in as much work as she can at this point.
"If she even thinks that you're attacking her, she attacks at a hundred, and it is very hurtful," she says, "and I think once you see the reunion, you'll see that she's attacked people like myself, my husband, and it's unwarranted and it has just spiraled out of control, for nine years. It has got to stop. If she wants any relationship with me going forward."
Overall, Toya says the reunion helped her "healing journey" with these women, which Simone summed up in a confessional on the latest episode: "Toya has a really big heart and she is a loyal friend, and I think that she's disappointed that she isn't seeing that back from these ladies."
"You know, I've never wanted to look at this show as work," she shares. "I was friends with everybody initially. [Dr. Jackie Walters] was my OBGYN, now Simone is, you know? Heavenly, we were always friends from the beginning. Our husbands used to work together then, Mariah and I, you know we were friends first, and so there was always friendships before the show. So, it was never work for me, you know? The 'work' came second."
"Even now it's like, you get a little teary eyed because it's I don't want to look at this show as work," she continues, tearing up. "I want genuine relationships, but I want genuine relationships that aren't trying to hurt my family. I don't want to have to hurt my friends. I don't want to hurt their families -- and we can still have drama! We're going to argue because we are all so different."
From Toya's perspective, the other women look down on her and treat her as just a doctor's wife. She wants them to see her as more than that, especially as she launches her own business, a wine club, and pursues a career of her own. She's bringing samples to BravoCon.
"I've always been trying to evolve," she notes. "I want the ladies to respect me where I am, and not always trying to break me down, or belittle, you know? Or think that I'm 'under them' just because of where they are in their lives. And so, us going forward, [we] need to just develop a different level of respect for each other."
Before reunion, though, there's a little more season 9 to watch, which will focus on the annual couples retreat.
"It was so fulfilling," Toya teases, promising this is their most productive group trip in the show's history. It seemingly helped set the tone for Toya and Eugene moving forward, after feeling some growing pains in their relationship.
"This season has been a whirlwind," she admits, "but it has been a great season overall. It wasn't as bad as last season. Last season, I wanted to just throw the whole TV in the pool! But I think this season hasn't been as hurtful as some of the things the ladies have said. I was able to just kind of laugh at it, and think and look at them like they were crazy people. I'm OK with it."
Married to Medicine airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.
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