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Kiki Monique is reflecting on the communication she had with Katie Ginella in regard to what went down between Gretchen Rossi and Tamra Judge amid their “naked wasted” encounter on The Real Housewives of Orange County season four.
After being brought up on the show, the podcaster recalled her lunch date with Katie, 41, admitting that after learning of Gretchen’s supposed accusations, she contacted two journalists in an effort to find out if she was truly roofied and hospitalized.
“I had no interest in doing anything with that information, but when January was announced and it was announced that Gretchen was coming to the [RHOC], that is where I did get concerned because now I had a piece of information, which, I’m sorry, if these allegations are true, that’s illegal,” Kiki began on the September 2 episode of Reality with The King.
According to Kiki, she immediately wanted to get to the bottom of the rumor because she felt it should “be exposed” if true, and also because Bravo fans had just come off a “really dark” season of The Real Housewives of New York City, which saw Brynn Whitfield, 39, being accused of weaponizing her past sexual assault in an effort to villainize her castmate, Ubah Hassan, 42.
“I couldn’t think of any other reason they were talking about this at this dinner in October, unless they were thinking that this might be a storyline in the upcoming season, and I said, ‘This is just not something that I think the viewers have the appetite,'” she explained. “‘So I feel like I either need to find out if this story’s true or not, and just put an end to it, and if it’s not true, we can dead it. Or, if there is truth to the story, we need to find out because this is illegal or it’s defamatory.'”
Following her meeting with Katie, Kiki met with the first of two reporters.
“I said, ‘Can you help me?’ Because again, I’m independent … They have more resources than me and access than I do. I don’t want this attached to me, and I also just want to find out if we can find out if there’s any truth to the story. That reporter, despite what was out there, never repeated my name, comfortably came back to me that the story was not true, and so I was like, ‘That’s fine. I’m comfortable with the story not being true, and I don’t really know what to do with it from here, other than hope it doesn’t come out in the next season,’” she shared.
As for the other journalist, Kiki couldn’t share much as their discussion was off-the-record. But she did say that Katie’s name was brought up.
“I can say part of it was him trying to understand my thoughts on her and trusting her and that sort of thing, and I said, ‘I really do like her. We’ve had a great rapport … But I will say that was a weird story,'” she revealed.
While Kiki expected that conversation to remain private, she ultimately learned, via a text from Katie, that the journalist had shared the information with Tamra.
“I get a text from Katie that says, ‘Are you around to film today at 5?’ And I just did a question mark. And then she wrote, ‘Your name was brought up on camera.’ And I did an exclamation point. And I said, ‘Who and what?’ And she said, ‘Tamra. It was about Tamra,’” Kiki detailed. “At that point, I knew that it had to be something regarding this because I had just told this other person. So I texted. He admitted he had told Tamra.”
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 19 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on Bravo.