Forget about picking up the pieces and moving on after getting canned, Kelly Dodd is here to flip some tables and kick up some s**t!!!
The former Real Housewives of Orange County star — who was infamously abruptly fired earlier this month along with Braunwyn Windham-Burke and Elizabeth Lyn Vargas — is speaking out about getting pulled off the air after her seemingly endless politically-inclined coronavirus controversies.
And it doesn’t sound like she’s trying to make nice with Bravo, or network exec Andy Cohen, or any of her former co-stars AT ALL!
Related: Kelly Confirms Her Daughter Has COVID-19, Says She Thought The Pandemic Was ‘Over’
The 45-year-old now-former reality TV star sat down with radio host Jeff Lewis for his show on SiriusXM‘s Radio Andy this week to divulge details about getting dinged.
Straight off the top, she admitted to Lewis that she “was blindsided” by the firing after he first confirms it was “not an elective departure.” Sitting alongside her husband, now-ex Fox News reporter Rick Leventhal, Dodd went into detail about that fateful phone call:
“So, one of the owners of Evolution, the production company, they, they’re the ones who pay us. We really deal with Evolution. We really don’t deal with Bravo at all. And, he called me and he said, ‘I would hate to say this..’ And I’m like, ‘oh,’ he’s like, ‘but we are not going to ask you back for next season.’ And I said, ‘why, was it political?’ And he said, ‘no, Bravo wanted to take a different direction than you.’ And I said, ‘okay, well, was my, what was it? Like was it my Q ratings were, were, what was it?”
That’s when things get interesting, at least according to Dodd and Leventhal.
Q ratings are a measure of popularity for people on TV, and the couple claims Dodd’s ratings were through the roof. Love her or hate her, they argue, she made great TV. (To some degree, they’re not wrong!)
Kelly bragged about her social media following and called out “the woke broke people” who criticized her, arguing that her Q ratings alone should have kept her on the air:
“I said to [the production company], I said, ‘uh, well, can you tell me my Q ratings?’ Because listen, this is a business we’re here to sell advertising. This is how we make the money. Right. I mean, pushing the needle. So I said, ‘was it because I, I was a popular enough or what was it?’ And he said, ‘this is the first time ever that Bravo did not share your Q ratings with us. All of you guys.’ Then Rick goes, ‘well, that’s interesting. What does that tell you?’”
At that point, Rick jumped in, saying :
“My theory is that her Q score was, was super high and it didn’t support them taking her off the show. So they didn’t share that information. But that said, it’s their choice to make, you know. And if they don’t want her back, they don’t want her back.”
Very true!
Ultimately, popularity aside, Kelly at least was smart enough to acknowledge that her continued controversies over the past year involving the coronavirus pandemic and her own personal political perspectives definitely didn’t help endear her to producers or TV execs.
Related: Kelly Dodd Is Now Feuding With… Perez Hilton! Uh-Oh!
She lamented that, concluding (below):
“Listen, ultimately I got fired because of myself, I’m the one who got myself fired. I was like Howard Stern with WNBC. I had the executives calling me and Emily [Simpson] is like, ‘who are they?’ And I’m like ‘well, they know me and I know them.’ I was causing them a lot of grief. I was causing them a lot of trouble. And you know, I’m sorry about that. Like, I feel bad.”
Wow!
Here’s a longer clip of that full exchange, BTW:
Well then!
BTW, remember than nasty public feud Dodd had with now-fellow-former co-star Windham-Burke pretty recently? And how it then quickly grew into a second public feud with another Bravo-based reality TV star from Shahs of Sunset?!
Kelly used Jeff Lewis Live as a vehicle to talk about THAT, too.
When the eponymous host asked about Braunwy, Kelly did not hold back one bit in calling her out while also accusing her rival of not truly being an alcoholic:
“[Braunwyn] was probably the worst human being I have ever worked with ever in my whole entire life. Right? Like she came out on Entertainment Tonight, said with no pleasantries, no, well-wishes, her whole storyline was fake. I think being an alcoholic [was fake] and then, you know, she’s bringing out, like, the lesbian, she wanted to be the first person on Bravo to be, you know, she just wanted so much attention on her. She told everybody that it was going to be her show and that she wants her own show and, you know. She was just a fake wacko.”
Whoa!!!
When Lewis asked Dodd to confirm what she was alleging — that she apparently believed Windham-Burke to a fake alcoholic — the momma of one doubled down:
“You know what? I don’t believe anything she has to say, she is a liar. She came on Entertainment Tonight and said that I was a racist, just like Heather Dubrow called me a racist too. Like, look, I’m married to a Jew. Everybody loves to say the racist thing.”
Uhh??
And Rick jumped in at that point again, sharing one of the most-used talking points from his own former TV network:
“They say that’s how liberals win arguments, like calling someone a racist, because how do you say you’re not? How do you prove you’re not a racist?”
Ummmm, OK, can we talk about that ‘Drunk Wives Matter’ controversy, or nah?!
Just saying!!!
Anyway, here’s more from Jeff Lewis Live, with Kelly and Rick talking about Windham-Burke and her current co-parenting-slash-open relationship situation:
So much Kelly Dodd for one day…
What do U think about all her remarks here, Perezcious readers?! Remember, this woman openly claimed COVID was God’s way of “thinning the herd,” among many other things, so it’s not like she’s due for too much sympathy or sensitivity over getting kicked to the curb.
But does she make any good points in this interview?! Or are you over her and more than ready to move on with fresh new storylines on RHOC???
Sound OFF with your takes on all of it down in the comments (below)!
[Image via FayesVision/WENN/Avalon]
The post Kelly Dodd Opens Up About Being 'Blindsided' Over <i>Real Housewives Of Orange County<i> Firing! appeared first on Perez Hilton.
