Choo Choo! Will the Phaedra Parks Shade Train Roll Back Into Station on Real Housewives of Atlanta?

How do you describe a woman like Phaedra Parks? On television, before being ousted from the Real Housewives of Atlanta, she was both a preacher’s kid and the nastiest sex maniac of the bunch. She was a lawyer, but would gladly libel her castmates with felonious accusations of sex dungeons, druggings, and attempted rape. A self-professed mother before anything, she would gladly look Kenya Moore in the eye and remind her that “she spends her weekends peddling through sperm banks, looking through catalogs,” searching for a donor who “needed 10 dollars to get him a medium-sized pizza, so he ejaculated in a cup so you could have a kid.” Phaedra Parks is a woman of contradictions. As am I, hearing the news she might come crashing through next season of Real Housewives of Atlanta.

Sources tell LoveBScott that Parks is vying for a return as a “Friend of the Wives,” a slot usually reserved for Bravo’s B-Team. It’d be a demotion from her prior role as the franchise’s progenitor of most plotlines and feuds, but isn’t she jobless right now? It’d certainly be an upgrade from posting Marianne Williamson quotes on Instagram:

As LoveBScott points out, Parks’s long exodus from the franchise is due, largely, to Kandi Burruss’s refusal to work or film with her. Can you blame her? It’s hard to ignore the glaring rape accusations Parks deployed against Burruss during her final season. Burruss even told People in 2019 that, as far as she’s concerned, Parks is “canceled.”

“I just find it very sad that she has no remorse for what she did. She didn’t see anything wrong with that. I feel like if anybody did what she did to me to her sons in the future, she would have a totally different outlook on the situation. I just think she should just rethink it. If she doesn’t that’s cool. She’s canceled in my book anyway,”

Despite the phenomenal shade exhibition during RHOA’s Zoom reunion, the franchise has undoubtedly floundered since her exit in 2017. Storylines have plummeted off the cliff of watchability, with NeNe Leakes and Kenya Moore bickering about something no one remembers, while extras like Eva Marcille and Tanya Sam fade into the background completely.

The years in which Park starred on the franchise were among the most memorable time in reality television history. Unquestionably! But the ethics of engaging with Phaedra on television is not a moral quandary I will solve today, or possibly ever. So I’ll stick to what can be known. NeNe is on the brink of exiting Real Housewives of Atlanta, possibly forever. The franchise will not survive without her. She’s also campaigned heavily for Parks’s return, going so far as to crash Andy Cohen’s baby shower with her. I’m not a scientist, but this math equation is the easiest I’ve ever solved!