Like a phoenix rising from the ashes (in head-to-toe designer, body tea, mind you), Porsha Williams has returned to The Real Housewives of Atlanta to bring the looks, the drama, and, of course, the party. Porsha falls into the precious category of Housewives (alongside Phaedra, Dorinda, and Candiace, all of whom also happen to be Traitors alums) who may not technically be OGs, but have changed the course of reality TV herstory from the moment they appeared on their franchise anyway.
After taking some time away from professionally holding a peach, Porsha, Porsha, Porsha, came back in full frick-and-frack force, giving viewers a front-row seat to watch her renew friendships old and new on screen. “Did I?” Porsha teased when we spoke about her latest ventures from RHOA relationships to making margs (the latter she’s fine-tuned thanks to a partnership with Altos Tequila). As a Housewives historian, I needed to know Porsha Williams’ RHOA updates after season 16.
Q&A With Porsha Williams: Talking RHOA, Traitors & Tequila
Edited for clarity
Betches: I know that you have an exciting new tequila project. So what’s your go-to tequila cocktail?
Porsha: So I’ve been drinking tequila now for a couple of years. And I’ve really gotten into margaritas. My favorite margarita would have to be Peach Please, like a peach margarita. I curated a kit with Altos and some bartenders. You have everything you need to make my Peach Please margarita, and it is amazing.
That’s what I love about Altos. It’s actually really good to drink by itself, and it’s the perfect mixer for a margarita.
Let’s say you’re having a fun night, and maybe you have one too many tequila shots. Which current Real Housewives of Atlanta Wife are you calling to come pick you up?
First, let’s say Uber because nine times out of ten, I’d probably be drinking with one of the Housewives. I don’t know if I trust any of us, I think I’m gonna order an Uber for both of us.
Who’s in the Uber with you?
Phaedra’s in the Uber with me. And I don’t know, whoever I’m friendly with at the time. I can’t tell you. It depends.
Depends on the day?
It depends on which day of the week.
Period. Also on the tequila front, is there anyone in your phone worth drunk texting?
No, actually, I don’t. But what I do is just send weird memes. When you’re sending memes [normally], it’s like, “This meme for this person. They would find this funny. This person would find that funny.” But when it’s in the middle of the night, if I’m drunk texting after drinking some Altos, they’re going to be completely inappropriate memes. Very inappropriate memes at that time of night.
We need to get some of those memes up on the Altos account, ASAP.
I don’t know if we can [laughter]… Instagram after dark turns into something else.
If there’s any Real Housewives of Atlanta legacy cast member that you could bring back to the show, it’s a hundred percent up to you, you don’t have to run it by Andy — who are you bringing back?
NeNe. I don’t know if I would regret that answer [laughter]. But I just think that it would be fun. I think that it’d be a great time to bring her back. Makes sense to me.
There’s this well-known thing that sometimes, Housewives and marriages don’t mix. So when we see divorces on Housewives, we’re like, “Yeah, that happens.” But do you think that the same thing goes for friendship breakups on the show?
I think anything that ends with a “ship” — any relationship, friendship, or partnership — whatever it is, it’s going to go through it on Housewives. That just is what it is. It’s going to be tested, and then the strongest will survive.
It’s kind of like Love Island, a little bit.
I wish it were like Love Island! I’m new to watching Love Island, and I’m like, “Am I too old for Love Island?”
No, you should go on it immediately. You would be fantastic on it. I’m putting it out there to the Universe and Peacock.
I would totally do Love Island if we didn’t have social media. Because can you imagine me as a grown woman kissing the whole cast just to see whose tongue I like the most? That’s a lot. Don’t put it out there, girl. I don’t want to get canceled.
There were some positive moments with Shamea this season. Did you have a favorite moment filming with her? Even if we didn’t get to see it on screen.
I enjoy all the girls on the show. That’s the thing. A lot of our fun moments are caught on the show, of course, but a lot of them don’t because a lot of the time they’re following a story. So you’ll miss some of the genuine moments where we’re just kicking it and acting silly. Honestly, with every single girl on the cast, I have had a chance to have a good time with them, whether it was on camera or not.
We saw a lot of shot o’clock in Grenada. Who has the worst hangover in the group after a long night?
Nobody because we know how to handle it, for real. I mean, Britt can’t take a lot of shots because she’s a super, super lightweight. But everybody else, you see us, we wake up in the morning, eat, and are ready to go.
It’s been so amazing to see Pilar all grown up after all these years. She’s so adorable. Does she get to watch the [RHOA]?
Well, she’s six, so she wants to watch Bluey. So I can’t compete with Bluey. She literally could care less. Now, I tell you what she will watch: Traitors. She’s a big, big fan of Traitors. But she could care less when I’ve even shown her, “That’s mommy,” [on RHOA]. She’s like, “Yeah, you wore that already.”
Which housewife that you worked with on Traitors surprised you the most?
Dang, it’s crazy because it’s such a great cast and these Housewives across the board are literally exactly how they are on their show, in person. But I’ll have to say Candiace threw a curveball that was unexpected during Traitors. And I was like, “Wow, okay.” Yeah, you’ll see. But I was surprised.
This might be total fan fiction, but I have seen a little bit on Twitter, people perhaps fantasizing that you might make a love connection in The Castle.
With who? Who’s in there?
We have a former Love Island alum that people thought you might look cute with.
Noooo. I don’t like him right now. He’s got this persona from Love Island: “I’m a snake charmer.” And he’s all serious. I like people who make me laugh. Down-to-earth, fun people. He is very, very handsome. I did not take my eyes off of him for many reasons, but I am not into him like that. I like guys who can make me laugh.
So, do you think Rob took himself the most seriously in the castle? Because there are some high-ranking stars in there, you included.
Yes. I can confirm they all took it very seriously. It is a game, but they did not take it as a game at all. It’s like, “You see the camera? It’s not real!”
We’ve seen some emotional scenes on Traitors. Did it feel really heightened in the moment?
I mean, you can tell yourself that it is, again, a game and that nobody’s actually going to get murdered. But the next day, when people don’t show up, it’s like, “Oh my God, and who did this?” And you do build a connection with people pretty early on. So it’s weird how fast you get sucked into the world there.
Traitors and Housewives icon Phaedra Parks got a big reaction from the internet for her reunion outfit. What did you think about that?
I was surprised. Phaedra used to be very southern Belle. But she has in the past couple years made a very serious fashion turn. She wears blonde hair, she dresses out there, she’s very stylish now. So when I saw her, for me it felt on trend for who she is now. But I think people just were like, “No, we want to see you come in here with a gown and all that.”
When she walked in, I was like, “Oh, she ready for war.” So I loved her outfit. We both came in prepared to stand on a line, 10 toes down, and we shall not be moved. I came in as the Warrior Princess, and she came in as the Warrior Queen with her headpiece and earrings. I was surprised that people didn’t like it, honestly.
