cast shakeup on The Real Housewives of Atlanta. The 54-year-old reality star appears on Thursday’s episode of The Wendy Williams Show and makes a joke about potentially not returning to the Bravo series.
The comment happens right after Wendy welcomes Cynthia to the stage, telling the reality star, “We’re going to light New York on fire!”
“You’re paying, right?” Cynthia, who’s on the show to raise awareness for breast cancer screenings, replies. “Word on the street is I may be out of a job, so I’m going to need you to pay if we’re gonna go to dinner.”
Later during the conversation, Wendy mentions the casting change rumors, and tells Cynthia that she thinks it should be her who gets fired.
“There’s nothing more exciting that you can give to us. I don’t want to see you fight. I don’t want to see you get divorced. Like, I think that it’s time,” Wendy explains. “The only thing then is what will you do for a paycheck? But I was thinking, ‘This is still a model, just like Christie Brinkley!’ You can model.”
“I love The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” Cynthia says in response. “This platform has been amazing. I have an amazing relationship with the network. Bravo has been good to me.”
“Here’s the thing,” she continues, “nobody really wants to be fired. I mean, my first job was Taco Bell. I wouldn’t want to be fired from there. I would want the option to leave if I wanted to go. God’s will, not my will, will be done. I have had an amazing run. It’s been 11 amazing years as a consistent peach-holder.”
As for who should get the boot if it’s not Cynthia, the reality star says, “The person who wants me to be fired all the time, who actually isn’t even on the show anymore. Her name rhymes with ‘meany.'”
That comment likely refers to NeNe Leakes, who left the show last year. Cynthia additionally pointed to the former Housewife as the person who should never return to the franchise.
Bravo does not comment on casting, but a source tells ET that Cynthia “is not sure where these firing rumors came from” and notes that, though they “pop up every year,” Cynthia has remained on the show for 11 seasons.
Some fans have pointed out that Cynthia removed the show’s hashtag from her Instagram bio, but ET’s source says it hasn’t been there for a long time.
The source adds that it would be “weird” to let go of Cynthia ahead of season 14, seeing as she’ll appear in the Real Housewives vacation mash-up series, which is set to premiere on Peacock.
When ET spoke with Cynthia’s RHOA castmate, Kandi Burruss, earlier this month, she said that she plans to stay on Housewives for as long as Bravo wants to follow her, after fans started questioning whether or not she’d survive the rumored shakeup.
“I am open to show my reality, and I hope that people want to see people do great things and it doesn’t have to always be craziness, or drama, you know what I mean?” she said. “So, I plan to continue to do great things, that’s my goal in life. I have so many dreams — and so many things that I want to do — and if Bravo wants to continue to capture that, then I’m all for it.
