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Lala Kent doesn’t think that Nia Booko was genuine in her efforts to put together a meal train for Brittany Cartwright following her mommy makeover on Wednesday’s episode of The Valley.
As she shaded Nia, 36, for making moves to look the part in public, and Janet Caperna suggested she wasn’t a true friend to Brittany, 37, Brittany admitted to feeling that Nia’s behavior seemed “performative” as Nia shaded her castmates for not giving her more grace after she welcomed her fourth child.
“Nia sent a link to the meal train. It did not work because it wasn’t set up,” Lala recalled on the June 10 episode of The Valley: After Show. “[But] it’s not even about the meal train not working … it’s that everything seems to be something that is for the public. You made a big to-do about it, and then when it didn’t work, you just didn’t care. And then you didn’t reach out to Brittany at all, but you sent her a comment, public place.”
Although Lala acknowledged that Nia had her hands full with four kids and a husband, Danny Booko, 42, who “seems very difficult,” she pointed out that Brittany wasn’t looking for a “grand gesture.” Instead, she simply wanted a check-in from her friend.
And Brittany agreed, saying that while it was a wonderful gesture, “I didn’t need the meal train.”
Lala went on to suspect that it was Nia’s pageant history that led to her being disingenuous.
“Everything is about the public’s perception cuz I do think that she is a really great person, and I think her heart is always in the right place. I just, I think she unintentionally misses the mark because of the world she’s been in for so long,” she stated.
Meanwhile, Janet said that if Nia were a real friend of Brittany’s, she would’ve reached out quicker.
“If somebody means something to you as a friend, how do you know that they’re having surgery where they’re like having their stomach cut open all the way, and you don’t reach out in eight days? It takes two minutes to send a text message,” she said, as Brittany suggested a “Hey, how are you feeling today?” would have been nice.
“That’s the only reason that we’re like, it seems like it’s performative,” Brittany explained.
Elsewhere, Zack Wickham didn’t think a text was necessary.
“It’s not like it’s a surgery for, like, cancer. It’s a surgery that’s elective,” he noted.
“[But] people die from tummy tucks all the time,” Jasmine Goode, 38, replied.
Looking back on the drama surrounding her meal train link, Nia said she didn’t realize that there was a problem until she heard from Lacy Nicole, 36, a week later.
“My intention was there. It’s not like I was like, ‘Let me send them a bad meal train.’ That’s not my heart,” she insisted.
As for her failure to reach out to Brittany, Nia said she was “terrible at texting.”
“It feels a little bit overwhelming. I want to give thoughtful and intentional messages and responses to people in text messages. And so sometimes it feels overwhelming to do like a whole text, but if I’m scrolling mindlessly after I put my kids to bed and I see something of a friend … and I still didn’t take the time to send a whole intentional message that I want to, but I can do something really quick. It just feels like less pressure,” she explained.
Nia then suggested that her fellow moms should give her more grace.
“Anybody that’s had a baby that’s texting back three weeks later, and they’re like, ‘I’m so sorry,’ I’m like, ‘Please. We are both moms. Don’t say sorry. Because I know you could’ve pulled up your phone, and then your kid jumped off the back of the house, and then the baby rolled over, and you saw it for the first time, and then someone was hungry. And then all the sudden it’s two weeks later, and you’re like, “Shoot. I never got back to that text message,”‘” she reasoned. “I just feel like moms should get it, especially Lala. She’s got two kids. She also has a live-in mom, brother, and childcare, and all the things, but like, she, I would imagine, would get it a little bit more so when people are coming at me so hard, I’m like, ‘Have you not been three, four months postpartum yourself? Were you an excellent communicator when you wanted to be but didn’t always have the capacity?’”
The Valley season three airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on Bravo.