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Shannon Beador doubled down on her claim about her life being better without Tamra Judge after last week’s episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County.
As Tamra, 58, insisted she was always there for Shannon, 61, and alleged that she was a better friend to her castmate than Shannon was to her, Shannon said there was a lot of “walking on eggshells” in their friendship as she accused Tamra of lying about their relationship and said there were times when Tamra refused to return her phone calls.
“I did say [my life was better without Tamra in it]. I’m in a place right now where I think I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and she has not been a part of my life. There was a lot of walking on eggshells in our friendship,” Shannon shared on the September 11 episode of the RHOC: After Show.
According to Shannon, she feels that the accusations Tamra has made against her are actually behaviors that Tamra has exhibited.
“When she would ‘point out’ all these kinds of things that she did for me and criticize me about calling at all hours of the night, trust me, it’s not all accurate,” Shannon noted. “And a lot of the time, when she describes what our friendship was, I feel like I’m in a Twilight Zone. In my eyes, she’s describing how I was towards her. Like, she’ll just say, ‘You’ve never had a better friend than me.’ It’s like, she wouldn’t even return calls.”
While Shannon kept quiet because she didn’t “want to go tit for tat with [her] friend,” she now wishes she’d spoken up.
“I just didn’t say anything. And I regret that today. So, I just feel like I have to be honest,” she explained.
As for Tamra, she recalled the early moments of their friendship as she revealed what frustrated her most about their dynamic.
“Over the 10 years that we had been friends, we had a lot of positive experiences. We had a lot of fun. She was my go-to. I was her go-to. And I think the part that is frustrating to me is, I always felt like I was a much better friend to her. I was always there for her. Whatever she needed, whatever she wanted, I never asked for anything from her,” she alleged.
“[And] she’s a lot to be friends with. She has a way of making you feel sorry for her. It’s ‘poor me’ all the time,” Tamra continued, proceeding to detail a past moment involving Gina Kirschenheiter, 41.
“I remember [Gina] coming to my house and [saying], ‘Can you please take her back? She’s too much to handle,’” she shared.
“She is a lot,” Gina replied.
Looking back, Gina said that when she first joined RHOC in 2013, Tamra opened up to her about her friendship with Shannon, and in response, she encouraged Tamra to bring her issues up to Shannon.
“[You told] me all these feelings about things that were going on between the two of you in your friendship, and I was like, ‘You need to tell her these things,’ and then you never did,” Gina revealed.
“She doesn’t take things very well,” Tamra replied.
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 19 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on Bravo.