Former Real Housewives of Atlanta star NeNe Leakes has filed a lawsuit against Andy Cohen, the production team and the companies behind the hit reality show, claiming they fostered and tolerated a racist and hostile work environment.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Leakes filed the lawsuit in federal court in Atlanta on Wednesday. However, the reality star complained to executives about years of racist remarks from another housewife Zolciak-Biermann, but only the 54-year-old suffered the consequences.
In the lawsuit, NBC Universal, BRAVO, production companies True Entertainment and Truly Original, executives from the companies, and Housewives executive producer Andy Cohen are named defendants. Surprisingly, Zolciak-Biermann’s name was not mentioned in the legal filings.
“NBC, Bravo and True foster a corporate and workplace culture in which racially insensitive and inappropriate behavior is tolerated — if not, encouraged,” the suit read.
Leakes, whose legal name is Linnethia Monique Leakes, has been part of the Housewives franchise for seven seasons between 2008 to 2020.
In the first season of the show, which aired in 2008, the cast was planning to attend a barbeque when housewife Zolciak-Biermann said, “I don’t want to sit around with NeNe and eat chicken.'”
The 43-year-old’s comments “perpetuated an offensive stereotype about African-Americans,” the suit said.
The suit says in 2012, during the fifth season, Zolciak-Biermann made “racially offensive and stereotypical” comments regarding housewife Kandi Burgess’ new home, calling the neighborhood “ghetto.”
That same year, the suit alleges that Zolciak-Biermann allegedly used the N-word to refer to Leakes and the other housewives after arguing with them.
After Leakes addressed the issue to the show’s executives, they “did not terminate their relationship with Zolciak-Biermann, nor take any other meaningful action to put an end to her racially-offensive behavior.”
Instead, they seemingly promoted her by giving the former cast member her own spinoff show.
“From the day the series began filming, NeNe was the target of systemic racism from co-star Kim Zolciak-Biermann, which was tolerated by Bravo executive producer Andy Cohen and other executives,” Leakes’ lawyer David deRubertis said in a statement.
In an email, Joe Habachy, another attorney on Leakes’ legal team, said that “not a day goes by that NeNe doesn’t wake up with an onslaught of overwhelming emotions as a direct result of these unfortunate and avoidable occurrences.”
The suit alleges that her complaints of racism forced Leakes off the show in 2020 ahead of the 13th season.
Leakes was fired from the show in 2020, around the time when people were raising social awareness with the Black Lives Matter movement.
“As the Black Lives Matter movement swept our nation, Mrs. Leakes — Bravo’s historically most successful Black female talent — should have been embraced by NBC, Bravo, and True,” the suit says. “Instead, NBC, Bravo, and True forced her out of the ‘house she built,’ denying her a regular role.”
The lawsuit further speculated that the defendants violated federal employment and anti-discrimination law, and Leakes is looking for monetary damages.
