Sutton Stracke recently broke down as she discussed Crystal Kung-Minkoff‘s claim regarding her supposed “dark” comment.
Following Wednesday’s airing of part one of the three-part reunion for Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 12, which featured the cast confronting Crystal, who had alluded to potential racism, about what exactly was said, Sutton labeled the claim as “damaging” as her castmates, Garcelle Beauvais and Kyle Richards, took issue with Crystal’s inability to share any specific details.
“There’s nothing else.. I mean, she’s making something up,” Sutton revealed on the October 12 episode of the RHOBH: After Show. “Maybe I’ve used some words that I shouldn’t have used, and I’ve said things that are wrong, but it’s not who I am or how I feel towards people, and I will not let Crystal dictate who I am, and I think my friends know and that’s it.”
“It’s so damaging not only to me, to my daughter, to my sons, and it’s not how my house is,” Sutton continued as she started to cry. “It’s… What she’s done is…”
“It’s horrible,” Garcelle interjected.
According to Sutton, if there was something “dark,” Crystal should “say it so that we can address it.”
“Right,” Garcelle agreed. “That’s what was more dangerous about it is not saying it and letting it loom in the air and everybody’s imagination running wild. I think that was more hurtful than anything.”
While the RHOBH controversy was extremely upsetting to Sutton, who some assumed had uttered something problematic or even racist, she said she keeps going because she knows who she is.
“The only thing I can do is live my life and be the person that I am, and if you know me, you know who I am, and that’s it,” she explained. “I just want to make my children proud, and that’s the most important thing to me in the world.”
In her own segment of the RHOBH: After Show, Kyle said the “dark” comment drama was “extremely frustrating” and accused Crystal of throwing Sutton “under the bus” in an effort to make herself look better after being confronted by Garcelle, who wanted to know what was so “dark.”
“I have talked to Sutton about this, and it’s very upsetting to her because, like Garcelle said, you’re implying something that can make me question [a] friendship, like, was it something racist or not?” Kyle explained. “You don’t do that in this day and age. She did not say that, and that’s a very dangerous thing to throw around.”
Kyle then noted that if Sutton had made a “dark” comment, production would have certainly used the footage for a flashback and went on to say that Crystal started grasping for straws after Sutton’s jacuzzi story (in which her daughter was spending time with several girls of different ethnicities) failed to spark backlash.
As RHOBH fans may recall, Crystal appeared on Watch What Happens Live after Sutton’s story was revealed and told Andy Cohen that her “dark” comment was worse than that.
“That was just her trying to make herself look better to Garcelle,” Kyle noted.
Still, Crystal claimed everyone was there when the comment was said.
“I’m not talking about something that was hearsay. I was talking about something that wasn’t aired that was filmed,” she clarified. “I spent some time with Sutton over the summer, and we really dove deep into that convo, and it was a very tough topic, and I said everything I needed to say to her then, and I made a promise not to talk about it. And she asked me to promise that, and so I stuck with that, despite getting punched in the face over and over again.”
According to Crystal, she “took it” for weeks from her castmates as she attempted to follow through on the apparent promise she made to Sutton.
“That’s just who I am. I just kept taking hit after hit, and I’m still gonna take it. And my friends and family are like, ‘Just say what happened.’ And I’m like, ’This is where I’m at with it, and I don’t need to… I know. I sleep well at night knowing what happened,'” she shared.
Then, after suggesting she could “just [blurt] it out and [say] it,” she added, “If someone says to me, ‘In my family, we talk about multiculturalism,’ that’s not a dark comment. In fact, I embrace that. That’s who I am. So I’m gonna leave that at that. I would embrace a conversation that sounded like that. A conversation that I would not embrace would not sound like that.”
Also, on the RHOBH: After Show, Kyle reacted to Crystal’s suggestion that she doesn’t know what gaslighting is after Crystal accused her of gaslighting for suggesting she was wrong to feel offended by certain things, like Sutton bringing a jacket into her room when she wasn’t dressed, and later accused her of forgetting the events of Garcelle’s birthday party.
“When you’ve told me three times that I was so drunk, I don’t remember, that is gas lighting,” Kyle stated. “You’re trying to make me think I’m nuts and I forgot something. No, that is gaslighting … Maybe when you use these big words, you might want to carry around a little dictionary in your little bag.”
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 12 reunion continues with part two next Wednesday, October 19, at 8/7c on Bravo.