Shereé Whitfield and Marlo Hampton sit down with ET to dish on season 15 of 'The Real Housewives of Atlanta,' airing May 7 on Bravo.
Shereé Whitfield isn't sure why her The Real Housewives of Atlanta co-stars were so concerned about her burgeoning relationship with Love & Marriage: Huntsville star Martell Holt while filming season 15 of the Bravo hit.
"Maybe the nosy b***hes didn't have anything else going on," she laughs, sitting down with ET in Los Angeles, alongside co-star Marlo Hampton.
"Y'all look so good together, they were just so intrigued," Marlo offers. She's seemingly one of the only peach-holders who doesn't carry suspicions about Martell, who's history of infidelity has been a hot topic on his reality show. While Shereé's been seeing Martell for the better half of a year, she won't put a label on their romance.
"Did I ever call him my boyfriend?" she asks when the term comes up. "I am dating."
"I've been through so much in my past, you know, I get this question a lot: are you in love? Or, why don't you put a label on it? I don't-- that's nothing I want to rush," she explains. "He's such a good guy, we're still great friends -- we're still hanging out -- we enjoy each other’s company. When we're together, we laugh like crazy, and that's one of the things I really like about him."
Fans will get to see a lot of Martell from the start of season 15; the premiere ends mid-altercation, with some of the women confronting Martell over suspicions he's two-timing Shereé. Things get especially heated between Martell and Kenya Moore, who claims Martell slid into her DMs.
"I was very surprised that it went from zero to messy, because I thought that typically I try to support all the ladies," Shereé laments. "I mind my own business, but apparently they mind my business, as well."
"I just didn't see that coming, because it seems like everybody was happy [for me]," she continues, "and they would ask about him, and it just went totally to the left."
Shereé describes the scene as an "ambush."
"If we're really friends, you can pull me to the side, you can talk to me outside of this," she notes, "but why wait until we're on camera at this party and say any of this information? Because none of this was coming to me before."
Shereé points out that Kenya could've voiced her concerns at last season's reunion taping, at which Martell called Shereé and the women passed the phone around to say hi to him, before offering, "Well, I don't think anybody would be surprised that Kenya Moore picked another fight."
"I was a little disappointed in her," Shereé admits, "'cause of all the people, she was one of the main ones, every time we talk, 'How's Martell?' You know, 'How's everything going?' Like, it seemed like she was genuinely happy and supportive of me just being happy, you know?"
In the premiere, Kenya cracks a joke in a confessional that Shereé should star in a spinoff series, Watch Me Date These Dumb Dudes, especially after season 14 documented her rocky relationship with Tyrone Gilliams, who stood up Shereé after she traveled all the way to Philadelphia to see him following his release from prison.
"I did see her say that, and she did date a bunch of losers herself," Shereé fires back.
"Oh my god, a bunch of losers!" Marlo chimes in. Say that again, with a big L. Didn't work out. She can come over and do the spinoff with you!"
"We should do it together," she laughs in agreement. That said, Shereé promises she takes her friends' concerns about who she chooses to surround herself with seriously.
"If I have friends and they bring things to me, I'll consider it," she says. "Let me know your source, but don't just bring to me random gossip -- 'cause we've all heard gossip about each other and even our relationships, you know? But that's nothing. Unless I have concrete proof, I'm not going to bring everything that I hear about any of these ladies to them."
"And I will say, it turned out to be some bulls**t," she quips. "I don't start no s**t, but I will finish some s**t."
Kandi Burruss joins Kenya in piling onto Martell, calling him "Mr. Community Property," based off his past dating history.
"Well, from the person who talks about threesomes and doing all this and about husbands, I mean, she would know community property, wouldn't she?" Shereé hits back. It's clear the two women are not in a great place, fractures in their friendship first appearing at the season 14 reunion, where Shereé called out Kandi for using her as "clickbait" on her YouTube channel. Kandi responded by spoofing their reunion conversation about that on Instagram.
"I was really disappointed after we left the reunion," Shereé shares. "I thought Kandi and I were in a good place, and then as soon as we're done, it's like she's doing these spoofs and she's on her show... uh, what's she have? Like a YouTube or something? She's on there talking about me and or my business, and at the end of the day, the all the rules don't apply to everybody, but this season they apply."
Shereé calls her clothing line, She by Shereé, a "work in progress" still. She launched it at the end of season 14 after first developing the concept in season 1. The launch crashed her website, the aftermath of which will play out on season 15.
"All the years I could've said so much -- so much -- about her business, but I never did, because I always felt like family and business, they should be off limits," Shereé adds, copping to ignoring her own rules this time around as Kandi's businesses found themselves in the local headlines, after shootings took place at her restaurants. It does not go over well, per Shereé and Marlo.
"She wants to talk about other people's businesses, but not talk have people talk about hers?" she questions. "It doesn't work like that."
"It's off limits when it comes to Kandi if it's not telling you about what new deal she got, or what new bag she secured," Marlo chimes in. "You can't talk about anything that's on the news! That the whole world sees! It's like, hello! It's on the news."
Shereé's not the only one ruffling Kandi's feathers this year. Newcomer Courtney Rhodes sparks some drama of her own with the GRAMMY winner at the first group event.
"She's not a pushover," Shereé says of her pal. "She's a good, great girl. She's educated, she's beautiful. I think she fits really great with the group. She's fun."
Courtney joins Monyetta Shaw as a "friend of" the group this season; there are also a number of guest stars set to pop up, including longtime star Cynthia Bailey and OGs Kim Zolciak Biermann, DeShawn Snow and Lisa Wu. Shereé orchestrated the mini-season 1 reunion.
"Listen, I still maintain a really good relationship with those ladies, and I just made a phone call," she shares. "I was like, listen when we were at BravoCon, people were asking me ... where are the other ladies? And I feel like people didn't get enough, didn't get to see them enough; I feel like their time was too short, some of them, and so, I made a phone call. I reached out to the producers and I said, 'I think I wanna do something with the OGs,' and they're like, 'If you can make it happen!'"
"They were excited to be back in the mix for sure," she teases. "I'm sure all of them would love to be back in the mix."
There are more people than ever in Shereé's mix these days; her son, Kairo Whitfiled, recently welcomed his first child, a daughter, making Shereé a "glam-ma."
"Oh my god, I tear up when I talk about this," she beams. "I mean, Kairo started on the show maybe when he was eight or 10, so to see him grow and evolve into the man he is and to make me a glam-ma, and just how hands on and just how in love he is with his daughter -- and I was married, you know, I didn't have the type of support Kairo has, or that he's putting into the baby right now. I didn't have that [with] my husband."
"I'm so happy," she gushes. "He's made me so, so proud. She's such a joy to be around, she's such a happy baby."
The Real Housewives of Atlanta airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT starting this Sunday, May 7.
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