It’s No Vacay! How ‘Real Housewives of Potomac’ Drama Spilled Into ‘Ultimate Girls Trip’ Season 3
After filming a dramatic season of “The Real Housewives of Potomac,” Gizelle Bryant and Candiace Dillard were both looking forward to vacationing in Thailand and meeting other housewives from “The Real Housewives” franchise as part of Peacock’s third “Ultimate Girls Trip.” But wherever these outspoken ‘wives go, drama inevitably follows.
Filming for “Girls Trip” took place in July 2022, two weeks after Season 7 of “Potomac” had wrapped production but before the end-of-season reunion taped.
“This was before I saw the episodes, I had not seen any Season 7,” Dillard told TheWrap in an interview ahead of “Girls Trip’s” premiere on Thursday, March 23. “That’s important,” she emphasized.
“We [Gizelle and I] had gotten to an okay place at the end of Season 7, just based on what I knew,” Dillard continued. “If I had known everything I know now, we would not have been in such a good place. I mean, I obviously have still gone because ‘One lying monkey don’t stop no show,’ as they say. But I definitely would have kept my distance a little bit more.”
What Dillard “knows now” is that Bryant spent much of Season 7 bringing up a one-on-one conversation she had with Dillard’s husband Chris Bassett. Bryant repeatedly stated on the show and in interviews that her private conversation with Bassett — which took place behind a closed door — didn’t make her feel comfortable. Bassett maintains that nothing inappropriate happened.
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Despite having not seen any Season 7 footage before traveling to Thailand, Dillard said something in her gut told her to be cautious around her “Potomac” castmate.
“We were supposed to be traveling together,” Dillard explained. “And I remember feeling nervous that I was going to have to travel with her because while I was trying to move forward, I wasn’t completely comfortable.”
“When you’re traveling with people, you’re kind of codependent. You’re looking out for each other,” Dillard continued. “And I wasn’t in a place to want to be around her that much, or have to look out for her or have her look out for me, because I wasn’t sure that I trusted her.”
With hindsight, Dillard believes her instincts about Bryant were right.
“Fast forward a few months when our show airs, and you see her doing all these different versions of the story talking about Chris and really trying to incriminate him as this ‘predator’ with these buzzwords. And then doing these interviews where she’s doubling down on what she said and changing her story and giving different versions of it — it was all such a cluster bleep. So yeah, I’m glad that I did listen to my instincts.”
When asked, Bryant told TheWrap that she too “was good” with Dillard before arriving in Thailand.
“We were in a good place!” Bryant told TheWrap. “We had put to bed everything that had happened on the season. And we were totally fine with it and moved on. But in typical Candiace fashion, she wanted to bring it back up, she wanted to talk about it again and again. And it was just like, unnecessary, and that didn’t need to happen. But you know, she had her own agenda.”
So who actually brought up the Chris Bassett drama in Thailand? As much as Bryant is known for instigating, it was actually Dillard who brought it up in front of the rest of the “Girls Trip” cast, including “Miami’s” Alexia Nepola and Marysol Patton, “New York’s” Leah McSweeney, “Salt Lake’s” Heather Gay and Whitney Rose, and “Atlanta’s” Porsha Williams.
The drama plays out in the first three episodes of “Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip,” which streams Thursday on Peacock. Watch the trailer below:
