NeNe Leakes Dismisses Racial Discrimination Lawsuit Against Bravo
Former Real Housewives of Atlanta star NeNe Leakes has dropped her lawsuit against Bravo.
According to docs obtained by People, the 54-year-old "dismisses this action and all claims asserted by Leakes without prejudice."
The document continued, "All Parties consent and stipulate to the foregoing dismissal. No party will seek recovery of costs or attorneys' fees in any submission to this Court." Leakes will be able to resurface the lawsuit if she wishes.
In April, Leakes filed a lawsuit against Bravo, NBCUniversal, production companies True Entertainment and Truly Original, executives from the companies, and Real Housewives of Atlanta executive producer Andy Cohen. She alleged that they allowed a racist and hostile work environment.
According to Radar Online, in court documents, there were details about a cast trip to Spain during the tenth season where the ladies were instructed not to bring family members or husbands, to which the suit claims exceptions were made for the more “favorable” cast members.
“These were the rules, and they were supposed to apply to everyone,” the suit read.
“But, as often happened, a second set of more favorable rules seemed to apply to white Zolciak-Biermann.” Zolciak decided to not attend the trip, which the actress claims led to her being publicly attacked by Zolciak and her daughter, Brielle Zolciak-Bierman, claiming her new home was “roach-infested.”
“Mrs. Leakes, and some of her fellow Black housewives, were outraged by the claim that Mrs. Leakes’ house was “roach” infested – a term that Mrs. Leakes and fellow housewives felt was racially-offensive for its cultural implications for impoverished black women living in the projects,” the court docs stated.
The lawsuit also included emails from the network, claiming Leakes was told it was “bad for business” to call out Zolciak over her alleged racist remarks and instructed her to “take it offline.”
“They now began to hurl accusations of concern against Mrs. Leakes,” the court docs read.
“Among other things, Bravo executives raised concerns about Mrs. Leakes’ social media (i.e., her response to the perceived racially-offensive attack by Zolciak-Biermann and her daughter) and about media reports of a tax lien that Mrs. Leakes had received."
The former Housewives star claims she was hit with an $824k tax lien that was ultimately paid off in full.
“Yet, NBC, Bravo, and True used this issue as a justification for having concern about Mrs. Leakes’ professional future and then as a justification for silencing her during this time period,” read the document.
“In contrast, other, non-Black housewives were allowed to do much worse without consequence or even threat of consequence.” The reality star claims the tax lien attack was “clearly retaliatory” and she had first brought it to the network's attention in 2016.
NeNe Leakes has not released a public statement about dismissing the lawsuit.
