Dr. Wendy Osefo Discusses Karen Huger's DUI Drama Ahead of 'RHOP' Premiere (Exclusive)
Dr. Wendy Osefo is back and ready for a fresh start. The Real Housewives of Potomac star has returned for her fifth season on the hit reality series. Teasing shifting dynamics and multiple surprises for fans, the professor and housewife caught up with Parade ahead of Sunday’s season premiere.
After many complaints regarding Season 8 from critics and fans alike, RHOP returns this week with a bit of a shake up. Mainstays Robyn Dixon and Candiace Dillard Bassett, two housewives who definitely took up space in the franchise, have officially left the building. Now, Osefo, Karen Huger, Gizelle Bryant, Ashley Darby and Mia Thornton return alongside some fresh faces, giving Potomac its first true restructuring since it premiered back in 2016.
The result? A fresh and truly exciting season premiere, as the long-standing fractures within the group finally wither away, and these ladies find an organic and refreshing way to come together.
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"I came into this season thinking about the way I wanted to enter this new chapter in my life," Osefo explained to us, reflecting on how her 40th birthday colored her experience in Season 9. "I feel like that energy, that vibe I had for my milestone birthday I just transmitted it into the new season. I came in there with a fresh lens and a fresh look on life."
This season sees many personal milestones for Osefo outside of her birthday as well, including a major decision to take a step back from teaching as a professor. "It was a challenge for me to finally push send and make that decision, but I felt so good once I did it," she said when recalling sending her resignation letter, an emotional moment captured on camera.
The fresh dynamics within the group are truly unexpected, including a blossoming friendship between once-enemies Wendy and Gizelle. For Osefo, she credits the difficulties in the women's lives for bringing them together. "I think because we're all going through things that are, for a lack of a better word, heavy, it's impacting the way you deal with each other."
The season also introduces some new faces into the group, additions that Wendy calls "amazing" as a collective. "They bring to the group things that we have not seen before," she teased when speaking about newbies Stacey Rusch and Keiarna Stewart. "I'm really excited for you guys as viewers to see the newbies."
As for advice she gave to the freshmen ladies, she explained that she told them, "Whatever you say, stand on it. The worst thing is to say something behind closed doors and not own up to it when someone confronts you. That is the worst.'
Perhaps the biggest storyline going into this season is Karen Huger's headline-making DUI and DWI charges. Osefo calls it a "difficult journey" that the Grand Dame has to walk, but that it is "her story to tell in the way in which she wants to tell it."
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"As her friend, I am here to make sure she's ok," she explained. "I am here to support her, to love on her and to be there in any way in which she may need me. I think that when you are a group of friends, the world is going to beat you up eventually and if I'm your friend, I don't need to do that."
As for the most surprising episode of the season, Osefo teased a moment for viewers to keep their eyes out for. "There is a moment and it's in the trailer, where you see a group of us really come together and the women in that group are not who you would expect to come together and band together to say, 'This is wrong,'" she said. "I think that that was actually different and in that moment when it was all over, we looked at each other and said, 'Yeah, this is pretty cool right here!'"
RHOP returns Sunday, Oct. 6, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo, with episodes streaming next day on Peacock.
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