The last time The Real Housewives of Potomac fans saw Monique Samuels, she was showcasing receipts in binder-gate during the Season 5 reunion. Now, she’s back, divorced, and instead of a binder, she’s written a book. Her memoir, Love Letters from Versions of Myself, is a story of self-discovery, transformation and healing, and is available.
Her life looks a lot different now, and she’s spilling what she says is the truth about the facade she put on about her marriage to Chris Samuels, which she says left her feeling depleted and was seemingly emotionally and financially abusive. Her new book details it all and how she freed herself from her past shackles. Blavity’s Shadow and Act spoke with the mother of three about her return to reality television for the landmark 10th season of the show, what’s next for her and more.
So first of all, congrats on your return to reality TV. We’ve seen you on Potomac, we’ve seen you on the Love & Marriage franchise — per your own comments in the past, reality television hasn’t necessarily been good to you. Why did you want to return after all this time, especially given how your last season on RHOP went?
Once I was over the resentment and the bitterness, and I started taking ownership for my own part, I just felt like I needed that closure. I feel like it was a part of my healing journey. Sometimes, in order to move forward, you have to face the very things that you feel as though they tore you down. And you have to recognize that sometimes it’s not so much everybody else, it’s you. And I was willing to go on that journey and to just face myself and to make peace with my past, which I’ve been doing in so many different ways.
Also, I wrote this amazing book and I really wanted the platform to share with people not just how much I’ve grown, but to show them some of the steps that I took. That’s a part of that spiritual awakening process when you’re trying to be better and when you start to love yourself and become more self-aware. I felt that the message was really important to get out, and what better way to tell a story than to show your story? So not only can people read about some of the things I went through, but they can see the difference. And based on the feedback from a lot of people that have watched the show, it’s very clear that I’ve done the work. I’m not perfect, but I’ve definitely come to a different level of awareness within myself and acceptance within myself.
Now, you spoke a little bit about wanting to confront your past. Talk to me a little bit about your goal in coming back and specify what and who you wanted to confront.
Absolutely. So one thing that I have said is that reality TV has been a gift and a curse. I feel like the gift in reality TV is the ability to show you yourself. Not that everything is 100% accurate, obviously. There’s editing and the role that that plays, but whenever I react, that’s my reaction. That’s me. I can’t blame that on anybody else but myself. So a lot of times when you think about reality TV, we focus on how it might make us look bad, but I feel like those moments were allowing me to see myself and what I needed to work on and improve on.
And one thing that I realized was that I was very emotionally out of control. If a person can say something to me and it sets me off, clearly that’s a me issue. One thing reality TV is good for is putting you in a position where you’re going to be triggered. You can’t just stay in solitude and you can’t just stay away from people and say that that is what peace is. That’s not living, that’s not an accurate depiction of what peace and healing looks like. Peace is when you’re able to maintain who you are, even when you’re being poked at or triggered or put into a position where you have to face certain topics that you may not want to face. So that’s what I mean when I say that reality TV has been a gift and a curse and also just being able to confront that part of myself. With the cameras on, with people watching, with the viewers’ feedback and comments, and still maintain the level of peace that I’ve worked on.
When you came back, you were able to make amends with certain cast members, which a lot of viewers were shocked by. You were able to come to a sort of an understanding with Gizelle Bryant, who from the beginning was your nemesis. Why were you able to move forward with her?
We both took accountability for our part. I wish that they would have shown more of that sit-down between her and me.
What did she take accountability for?
She took accountability for just the way that she was coming at me and how a lot of that was built upon whatever issues she was having prior to when I joined the show. So if you remember when I joined the show, I came in as Charisse’s friend. She and Charisse were having a lot of issues with the whole fireman story and what Charisse was going through in her marriage, and there was a lot of animosity between the two of them. So when you come on as a person’s friend and it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s your friend, so you’re against me too.’
So she came in with this perception of me being against her right out the gate. And then with her coming at me, I’m not understanding why, because I didn’t know all the backstory, I didn’t know all the history. So different things like that were issues when it came to the whole social media wars that we were going through. When it came to even the fight [with Candiace Dillard Bassett and me], we talked about the fight and how I told her I felt as though she was only jumping on Candiace’s bandwagon because she wanted me off the show. And she actually apologized for coming at me that way. She said, obviously, she didn’t want to be in a position where she’s on a show with somebody that has that capability of just getting into an altercation.
But we went there, we talked about everything from the four homes all the way up into the issues that I even stirred up with her when she was dating Sherman. I mean, we got down to the bottom of it and it was freeing for both of us and we both decided we cleared the air and we both have an understanding of what each other was thinking in those moments.
There were times where I thought she was trying to get me off the show, she thought I was trying to get her off the show. There was a lot of stuff that was happening on camera and off camera, and we were able to come to peace with that and apologize for our parts and move on. And that’s what we decided to do.
You’ve spoken about the situation between you and Candiace. There are a lot of complexities to that relationship, and to the viewers, a lot of viewers feel like the relationship’s downfall wasn’t necessarily your fault in terms of the two of you. A lot of people believe that a lot of your co-stars seemingly instigated a lot of things between the two of you. Considering you have been able to make peace with others who have hurt you, even though there wasn’t a physical altercation between you and the others, do you think with your healing journey, if Candiace is open, would true reconciliation be possible?
So there is a lot that you all didn’t get to see on and off camera that was a part of our issues. I don’t think that it was necessarily the cast members that tore apart Candiace and me. It was literally me and her. We had an understanding off camera. We were to look out for each other and we were to give notice if there’s some heat coming our way. I was doing that for her, but in return, she wasn’t doing that for me. She allowed me to walk into spaces unknowing what’s about to happen, and she knew. So when I finally decided that I’m not going to do that for her anymore, then it became an issue.
The first time I did that was at the sit-down that we had for Ashley after she had her baby, and we were trying to get her out of the house and Gizelle and I hosted a dinner for her. And that was the first time where I did not give Candiace a heads up that there was going to be some heat coming for her. And that was because she never gave it to me. So that was actually the beginning of me just looking at her kind of sideways.
And then with the whole situation that happened at Andy’s baby shower [the alleged plot to introduce a paternity scandal with Monique and her now ex-husband Chris], after the baby shower and this whole sit-down and this whole plot. Not at one point was I made aware of all of this heat coming to me, even off camera while we’re not filming. The person that told me about that sit-down wasn’t even there. It was Karen that came and told me. So it’s like those kinds of things that you would expect the person to show up for you, and they didn’t.
I felt as though her and I were building something even off camera, and it just seemed like it was all self-serving for her. So when it came to Gizelle and me — I know a lot of people said, ‘How can you mend things with Gizelle but not with Candiace?’ It’s because Gizelle is Gizelle… on camera, off camera, I know where she stands, she knows where I stand. If it was something that I didn’t like about her, she knew it. If it was something she didn’t like about me, I knew it. But to have someone that is putting on the mask as if they’re your friend and they’re looking out for you, and then to find out the opposite is crazy. So those are some of the things that kind of built up.
I’ve made peace with the whole situation when it comes to Candiace. I apologized to her at the reunion. That was my first time seeing her after the fight had happened, and I genuinely apologized to her. I told her that all of what she received from me was not meant for her. It was a lot of other things that were building inside of me. And I told her she didn’t deserve all of that. So I’ve made peace. Just because you’re able to let a situation go and make peace with it doesn’t mean that reconciliation is necessary.
I don’t wish to reconcile on a level of friendship with her because I just realized that we’re just two people that I don’t think we’ll ever see eye to eye when it comes to certain things. And I’m fine with that. I’m okay if I walk past her in the room. I can have a conversation, but when it comes to creating a friendship that is one that you nurture, I’m not doing that. Even with Gizelle, people acting like me and her are besties. We’re not besties, we’re cordial. We are able to get along in the same space. That’s where I am with everybody. It doesn’t mean that we have to sit and chit-chat on the phone and hang out all the time. That’s not what that means. It’s just a level of maturity that one would hope to get to, and that’s where I am. I’m fine with people and I’m also fine with them not being in my personal space.
Now, I want to touch on another relationship with a cast member on the show. You spoke about accepting people for who they are, and a lot of people have an issue with your relationship with Ashley because people think that Ashley is messy, and there were some revelations this season that came out on the Colorado trip that even had you shocked. What do you have to say to people who don’t feel like you have a genuine friendship with her?
Me and Ashley have our own unique friendship. I don’t think that all friendships are the same. We look out for each other, we check on each other. She called me the other day out of the blue just to check on me because she hadn’t heard from me and I hadn’t been on social media. I’m able to share certain things with Ashley because we’ve gone through some of the same situations, so that’s where our friendship lies and that’s where it’s always been.
One thing about Ashley and me is that we’ve done things to hurt each other in the past, but we have both taken accountability for our actions and offered apologies that were genuine. So I don’t really necessarily care about what other people think my relationship with her should be because people don’t know all the details. They only know what they get on TV, and that’s it. And that’s not a lot, and oftentimes you’re not getting the full picture.
One thing about Ashley is she is very supportive. People don’t see that because not everything that we do is on camera. We don’t have to show up and just perform. So I see her genuine deeds and her genuine actions outside of the show, and even when I wasn’t a part of the show, she was still that person for me and I was still that person for her. It doesn’t mean that we know all the details of everything that’s going on in life. Anything that was going on with the show, she already knew I was so far away from it, I didn’t care to know. That’s just how it is. Not everybody’s going to understand everything.
I want to get into your life now because your life is much different from when we last saw you and you’ve been open about your past marital issues. You have this new book. What gave you the courage to do so, because as you mentioned, you were very protective of the image and of your vows and all of those things. Where do you and your ex stand today? And what are you hoping that readers get from this book?
The reason why I shared and the reason why I’ve been so open is because when people saw me in that defensive mode — there’s a difference between being protective and being defensive, and when I look back on it, I was being defensive, and it was almost because it was me not wanting people to see everything. I wanted people to see what I wanted them to see. And I knew that everything wasn’t great, but my goal was to show people something different when it came to a Black household and a Black marriage on TV, but not realizing that I wasn’t being honest, and honesty is actually what should have been shown.
I didn’t do that the first time around. I wasn’t aware enough to even know some of the things that I was covering or hiding or the illusion I was trying to protect. So when I decided to write this book, which started as a journal, I really wanted to let people see that you’re not alone. There are so many marriages out there that could have been the same way as what they saw my marriage to be. They could be better, they could be worse. But at the end of the day, if you don’t love yourself and you allow yourself to be in a situation where you’re constantly being forced to deplete yourself, that’s not good. It’s not good for you.
It’s not good for your children. If you have children who are watching — we think that putting this mask on is what other people will focus on, even our children, and no, they can see past the mask. They know exactly what time it is, and if you don’t put those issues in check, you’re going to force them to grow up and do the same things you’re doing, which is what I did. So much of this starts in childhood and we don’t realize it until we get older, hopefully, when we wake up and we notice it. So I wrote my book so that people could see that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, and that’s okay.
And once you make peace with what your reality is, that’s all that matters. Nobody else has to understand that. Nobody else has to know what’s going on, but you need to not suffer in silence, and you need to make peace with whatever you need to make peace with so that you can love yourself properly. And after you love yourself properly, you’re able to have better relationships and friendships and workships. So that was my reason.
As far as where I stand right now, I feel really good about where I am in my life. I’m focused on myself, I’m focused on my children. That’s all I want to really focus on right now. That’s it. I want to focus on the relationships that I have that are really good and not put so much energy into what’s not going right. I’m still learning, I’m still growing, I’m still evolving. It’s a process that never ends, and even with me coming back to reality TV this season, it’s taught me a lot. So I want to keep learning, I want to keep growing, and I’m going to keep sharing.
Part 3 of the RHOP reunion airs this Sunday.
The post ‘RHOP’s Monique Samuels On Forgiving Gizelle Vs. Candiace And Telling Her Marriage Truth appeared first on Blavity.
