Why NeNe Leakes Reluctantly Said No to The Traitors, Where She Stands on RHOA Return

But, that’s not to say there wasn’t some truth to the rumors. On the latest episode of the Housewife-led podcast Humble Brag with Crystal Kung Minkoff and Cynthia Bailey, the reality legend said she was asked and she was “really excited about doing it.”

Unfortunately, life had other plans. “I couldn’t do Traitors because my son is in the hospital, and he’s still in the hospital,” she explained to the listeners. “My son’s been in the hospital since May”

NeNe’s son Brentt suffered a stroke and congestive heart failure in 2022, as detailed by Us Weekly. In July 2024, Brentt received a heart transplant and began a long road to recovery, which he shared with his own followers on Instagram.

Three months after the surgery, Brentt posted that he “had to relearn how to walk and communicate.” Now, NeNe says that his body “started rejecting” his transplanted heart, which landed him back in the hospital to “stop the rejection.”

However, she did share that there are positive signs of progress for Brentt, with the 26-year-old now having “turned a curve,” though he still “has a little while longer to recover.”

Initially, NeNe said that she thought the production dates for The Traitors might work with her son’s recovery, but she was still worried. “My fear was committing and then having to go back to them and say, I can’t do it. So that was never going to work,” she shared. “Brentt was very sick. It was no way I could have committed to it.”

All of that meant that NeNe wasn’t in a position to leave the country and spend however long it takes to try and suss out all those pesky “traitors” — or be one herself (which would be incredible!). If she was on the short list for Season 4, though, we suspect that invitation will still be there when she is ready and available.

And it sounds like she is, as she added that if Brentt had been where he’s at now at that time, she’d have gone. “We can FaceTime. He’s talking. He wasn’t walking at the time,” she said. “Now he’s walking, he’s talking.”

Had she made it, NeNe might have been able to team up with several other Housewives as the final cast includes five of them: Porsha Williams (Atlanta), Caroline Stanbury (Dubai), Candiace Dillard Bassett (Potomac), Lisa Rinna (Beverly Hills), and Dorinda Medley (New York City)

Elsewhere in the podcast, NeNe was also asked about possibly returning to the reality franchise that made her into a household name. In January, she’d expressed the possibility of being open to a RHOA return, but it doesn’t seem like she loves the idea of doing it as a “friend.”

“I’m not mad at the ‘friend’ role,” she told Bailey and Minkoff, “I just think, if I were to ever step back on that platform and would I be a friend, I really feel like, I don’t know that I would be a friend.”

Bailey, though, is currently appearing as just that on Season 16, and so she pressed her friend about the idea. NeNe said she “would have to look at it,” expressing mixed feelings about the idea.

“I like the ‘friend’ role, I like the capacity, I don’t have a problem with it at all,” she admitted. So the problem, then? “I just would think, NeNe, season 1, the first Housewife, and I’m a friend? I don’t know.”

NeNe was among the first five women to launch the third Real Housewives show, and the first to feature predominantly Black leads. Thanks to her fiery and larger-than-life personality, she quickly became the breakout star.

After a temporary hiatus following her “guest” appearances in Season 8, NeNe returned full-time for Seasons 10 through 12, before again making her exit — and this time for good … or at least, so far.

She did sue Bravo and Cohen alleging both racism and a hostile work environment, calling Cohen a “master manipulator” and accusing the network of using her “for ratings like they have always done,” per Entertainment Weekly. Four months later, though, she dropped the suit.

Based on her comments in January, it seems like things may have thawed even more if she’s expressed a willingness to even talk about returning to RHOA.

None of the OG stars of RHOA are still among the cast in Season 16, but there are still plenty of women that NeNe starred alongside in her years with the franchise, including Bailey, Phaedra Parks, Kenya Moore, and Porsha Williams.

Whether its as part of the Real Housewives franchise in Atlanta or in Scotland among The Traitors or any other myriad opportunities, wherever NeNe Leakes goes, her legions of fans will follow because they know she brings it every single time.