NeNe Leakes is unsure she'd return to Real Housewives in 'friend' role: 'First housewife, and I'm a friend

Real Housewives of Atlanta star NeNe Leakes contended back in her season 2 tagline, "I don't keep up with the Joneses, I am the Joneses."

Five years since Leakes last appeared on the Bravo reality series, with fans still clamoring for her return, she may as well update that line to, "I'm not a friend of the Housewives, I am the Housewives."

Leakes recently expressed openness to the prospect of rejoining RHOA in January, but she's decidedly less enthusiastic about the prospect of joining in a "friend of the cast" capacity.

"I'm not mad at the 'friend' role. I just think, answering your question, if I were to ever step back on that platform and would I be a friend, I really feel like, I don't know that I would be a friend," Leakes said Monday while visiting the Humble Brag podcast, hosted by Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Crystal Kung Minkoff and her old RHOA castmate Cynthia Bailey. Leakes discussed her feelings about a potential Bravo return at length during the episode.

Pressed by Bailey, who currently appears as a "friend" on season 16, Leakes said she "would have to look at it."

"I like the 'friend' role, I like the capacity, I don't have a problem with it at all," she said, "I just would think, NeNe, season 1, the first Housewife, and I'm a friend? I don't know."

Leakes was a member of the original quintet of Real Housewives of Atlanta stars, alongside Kim Zolciak, Sherée Whitfield, Lisa Wu, and DeShawn Snow. RHOA was the third installment in the reality franchise, which has since gone on to spawn several international sequels, hundreds of stars, an entire supplementary podcast industry, and even an annual fan convention.

Following The Real Housewives of Orange County in 2006 and The Real Housewives of New York City in early 2008, RHOA's premiere later that year marked the birth of the franchise and Bravo's first series with a majority Black cast. Leakes immediately stood out as the clear breakaway star.

She would go on to anchor the series for eight seasons (her eighth season, in fact, in a "guest" role), before segueing into other reality series like Celebrity Apprentice, scripted series like The New Normal and Glee, and stage roles in productions like Chicago.

Leakes returned for three seasons of RHOA between 2017 and 2020, announcing in September 2020 that after "an extremely, extremely long, exhausting, tiring, emotional negotiation" she had "made the very hard and difficult decision to not be a part of Real Housewives of Atlanta season 13."

Four seasons later, Leakes still hasn't returned, and her relationship with Bravo and its most public executive, Andy Cohen, have come under considerable strain in the ensuing years.

Following her exit, Leakes accused Cohen of racism and called him a "master manipulator" who, along with Bravo, had been "using me for ratings like they have always done." She then sued Cohen and the network in 2022, alleging racism and a hostile work environment, but dropped the suit four months later. In 2024 she lampooned her own reality star persona in Lifetime's satirical horror film Hunting Housewives, alongside RHOBH's Denise Richards.