'The Real Housewives of Atlanta's Porsha Williams is back in the Bravo-verse on season 3 of 'The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip.'
Porsha Williams (now Porsha Guobadia) may have turned in her peach, but she picked up a first-class ticket to Thailand for season 3 The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip.
"I was like, you know what? Let's go for a different experience with Housewives," the Real Housewives of Atlanta alum tells ET over video chat. She left that show in 2021, after its 13th season, her ninth as a castmate. Porsha replaced The Real Housewives of New York City's Tinsley Mortimer on the trip, switching up the planned dynamic of pairs of co-stars. Stars from The Real Housewives of Potomac, Salt Lake City and Miami all arrived as duos -- Candiace Dillard Bassett and Gizelle Bryant, Whitney Rose and Heather Gay, and Alexia Nepola and Marysol Patton -- while Porsha flew solo, along with Tinsley's would-be partner in crime, RHONY's Leah McSweeney.
"I'm not trying to give anything away, but Leah was a disappointment for me," Porsha confesses. "She and I were the only ones who kind of traveled together when we traveled there. ... She and I were cool. I was like, this girl is from New York, you know? People talking about her like she's boring. She's this, she's that... but when I met her, I was like, she's just laid back, you know? I was like, OK, I'm ready to get to know her and make her have fun. But once we got there, she was a freaking snooze fest! Judgmental, like, I mean-- just uninterested to get to know anybody."
"It just was not what I expected," Porsha confesses. "Now what I incurred with her off-camera, so on camera, she became someone different for me."
Porsha didn't want to feel that type of way about anyone on the trip, noting she planned to "have the type of experience where I really got to know these girls."
"My energy wasn't to come on and read or get read," she explains. "Really, if you was going to read me, you was going to be talking to the wall. That just wasn't my energy. I traveled two days to be there, and I definitely wasn't coming there to do that."
Still, she found herself in for some surprises. Along with Leah, came Candiace.
"She didn't surprise me, 'cause she was who she was, but I ended up kind of having this roller coaster situation with was Candiace," Porsha teases, making a dramatic wave motion with her hand. "We definitely had this going on."
The two have history, after Porsha voiced her support of Monique Samuels in the wake of a headline-making physical altercation between Monique and Candiace on season 5 of RHOP.
"You know, we hit things head on," Porsha notes. "I for one wanted to go ahead and deal with the elephant in the room and we did just that."
Then, Candiace pulled out another elephant -- and not the real kind the ladies visit at a sanctuary on the show. Instead, Candiace poked at the origins of Porsha's relationship with her now-husband, Simon Guobadia. Simon was previously married to Falynn Pina, a woman introduced to RHOA fans on season 13 as Porsha's "friend." Their marriage came to its end around the time season 13 finished airing; soon after, Porsha and Simon confirmed their romance.
"Someone's got to do it," Porsha cracks. "Somebody's got to do it, and if I go down the cast of Marysol, Alexia and Whitney and the Salt Lake girls, they are not going to do it. They are not going to do it. If anybody would do it, it would have been little Candee."
Porsha wasn't thrown off by Candiace's questioning, though, answering all her asks and clearing up confusion. Candiace wound up attending Porsha and Simon's November nuptials. The two will soon celebrate four months of marriage.
"It's been beautiful to see him operate as my husband," Porsha gushes. "There's a sense of oneness that's there, you know? It's just, he feels much more comfortable. It's just how he moves. It is beautiful. He's a husband. ... It's a different sparkle in his eye and the love just gets better and better and better."
Filming RHUGT is seemingly the longest stretch of time Porsha's spent away from Simon since they first started dating. Thankfully, she had Gizelle there as her go-to girlfriend. The two co-hosted Bravo's Chat Room during the pandemic and, as Porsha puts it, played "therapist" for their co-stars over the course of the trip.
"Gizelle and I was kind of on a team!" she quips. "We was making them work for it, honey. I like the way you deal with an issue, and you move on. I think when it just lingers too much is when people start feeling attacked. It just gets a little dark, stuff like that."
That didn't stop Gizelle from briefly turning on Porsha, though. Later this season, something of Gizelle's goes missing and the RHOP star turns the whole house into suspects.
"And I'm her friend!" Porsha proclaims in disbelief. "I really woke up with a cold sweat thinking like, did I do it? What the hell? Like, it was serious. I hope that they were able to capture how dramatic and heavy this was for the whole group."
At the start of the trip, Candiace offered a warning to the ladies not to trust Gizelle, given their sordid history on their show.
"At the end of the day, I don't think you should just give anybody your trust," Porsha reflects. "I've been doing this 10 years, and you know, I've trusted people too much. I've been too loyal to a fault. I just think that, at the end of the day, let everybody get to know people for themselves. So, the warning part? No, but I don't think anybody should trust anybody off the bat."
Porsha had to reacquaint herself with the unspoken rules of Housewives after taking some time away from the franchise.
"This was a totally different experience for me," she reflects. "I feel like I was really able to just be myself."
"I enjoyed speaking through the fourth wall, and not-- and just being free with the conversation," she adds. "A lot of the times the best moments for Housewives, to, me was off camera. So, this, to me, was like, all the off-camera on camera. So, when I think about Housewives of Atlanta, it just makes me wish that that energy could be over there. Like, back to the fun. Back to the you know organic relationships."
Porsha chose to exit the series when she turned 40, calling it a "retirement" at the time. Season 13 was a tough one, filmed during the pandemic and at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement. Some petty drama over alleged hook-ups with a well-endowed bachelorette party stripper only made the decision easier.
"I never said I left because it was bad," Porsha clarifies. "Housewives had some beautiful moments; I understood there's also the drama, and all those beautiful moments, as well. I think I just enjoy other grown women, other bosses. I enjoy other grown women with strong personalities. I enjoy relating to other women. So, that part right there is probably the parts that I do like about it."
As RHOA ramped up production on season 15, its second without Porsha, rumors swirled online that she would return. Even cast member Drew Sidora seemed convinced her former fellow 'Wife would make a comeback, telling ET at BravoCon, "I am sending her every blog, so keep posting, 'cause I am ringing it up! I am like, 'What's up? What's this? You coming?' And so I think seeing her on Ultimate Girls Trip, I think and feel like she may be coming closer to being back with us. I really do and I am praying."
"She's not lying!" Porsha laughs. "Any little thing, she's like, 'Girl, do you have something to tell me?' I'm like, 'No, I don't!'"
Picking up her peach isn't front of mind for Porsha right now, but she's also not saying the door is closed.
"Never say never," she offers. "I would definitely go into prayer, I definitely would probably do some fasting and some praying to make sure that it would be the right thing for me, that I’m ready and that I'm able to show up as who I am right at this moment. That would be the most beautiful situation for me, for me to feel comfortable enough to show up as who I am now and that actually be shown, that would be great."
The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Thailand is now streaming on Peacock. The first three episodes are available to watch, with new drops coming every Thursday.
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