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Real Housewives of Atlanta star Porsha Williams sat down with Carlos King for a new tell-all interview.
During their conversation, she addressed a range of topics, including Kenya Moore‘s departure from the show, her failed marriage to Kordell Stewart, and why she initially left Housewives before coming back to the show.
When asked by Carlos if Kenya leaving the show made her nervous she’d have to carry it on her own, Porsha said on the Reality with The King podcast, “No. It didn’t. And not because Kenya didn’t have impact. Because when I came back to the show after taking off for three years, I was excited to be in the same space as Kenya again. You know what I mean? And I didn’t know what the hell that was gonna look like.”
Porsha noted she didn’t know if Kenya would be “riding” her about her marriage or her divorce.
“And I didn’t know if we were gonna be making up or be grown women and try to build a friendship,” she continued. “But I knew that she was gonna hold a great space for me as another leader in the pack. And even though this is an ensemble cast and people now think, you know, I like being the head person in charge – no. I love a strong cast… I don’t need to be the queen of nothing. We [are] all queens as far as I’m concerned, because that means I can work a little less.”
Porsha did admit Kenya leaving hurt her, though, as she felt like they were able to “meet each other in a different space.”
“I feel like my time away and her time away – when we came back this time, we wanted to get to know each other on a different space,” she elaborated. “It was more like I respect you, you respect me, damn b*tch I missed you… forget the drama, let’s see if we can get to know each other because we’re the last ones standing. And so when she left, it wasn’t so much as dang, how am I gonna hold this down. It was you gotta step up to the plate and do what you gotta do.”
Porsha also explained that she was going through a divorce at the time and “wasn’t really in the space to step up.”
At another point in the conversation, she touched on her marriage to Kordell and what went wrong.
“I just think in that marriage, it wasn’t really a fault of his. And it wasn’t really a fault of mine,” she said. ” Sometimes when two people get married, they can have an intention to have a particular life. But your upbringing also plays a part.”
While she explained she was “born to be a wife,” Porsha insisted her mom had “empowered” her and she forgot about “that part” during her marriage.
“When I met Kordell, I had my own childcare centers… And I was very successful… When he met me again, the pinnacle and the identity to me was to be a wife,” she stated. ” But while you are agreeing to be the wife, which I became the housewife, I let go of all my businesses, I let my penthouse go. What was deep in me that my mother had instilled was an entrepreneurial spirit. Being a woman who can empower herself… And I forgot about that part.
“So within that marriage, although I had agreed to be this cute little housewife, that burning desire to have something for myself it had to come out. And I just was growing… that just wasn’t the marriage to grow in.”
Porsha added it wasn’t Kordell’s fault and it wasn’t hers.
“Sometimes a marriage is not yours to grow in with that person,” she elaborated. “And that one just wasn’t growable, so we both had to leave.”
Porsha also touched on the first time she departed RHOA in 2021.
“For the record, I left Housewives for that break when I was around 40,” she shared. “I had planned for that financially, mentally, everything. I knew I was going to give myself that time to step away.”
While Kenya has been off the show since June 2024, Porsha remains a main cast member.