'RHOA' Newcomer Wasn't Afraid to Butt Heads with NeNe Leakes: 'There Is a Huge Piece of Me That Doesn't Take Crap'

Tanya Sam said the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person on her first season on "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," leaving her vulnerable to the wrath of an OG.

NeNe Leakes was the one who introduced Tanya to the group after the two met at Swagg Boutique (NeNe's clothing store), so fans were shocked when NeNe unexpectedly unloaded on Tanya during a recent episode. Tanya was shocked, too.

"I was just upset to have been yelled at like that," Tanya told TooFab. "And I just don't know how it went to 100 so quickly when I was just trying to express my feelings about her comments."

The outburst came shortly after the ladies read their fortunes outside a temple during their trip to Tokyo for Eva Marcille's bachelorette party. Tanya's fortune said something about marriage being in her future. When Marlo Hampton saw it, she showed it to NeNe and said, "Look, bitch! Paul gonna marry her."

"You may marry somebody else," NeNe replied. At the time, Tanya ignored the comment, but when the topic of her relationship with Paul (who she calls her husband even though they're not legally married) came up again at lunch, NeNe erupted.

"I don't care if y'all married or not! I'm not into it," she said loudly. "So please don't think I'm questioning you about your marriage. I want you to be happy, but I do not care. I've been married over 20-something years. I am very serious about love, okay?"

When Tanya asked NeNe why she'd wish for her to marry someone else when she's clearly happy with her "life partner," NeNe shouted, "I'm not wishing a motherf--king thing! I don't give a f--k!"

It was intense, leaving Tanya in tears, and she told us watching it back was almost as difficult as having to go through it firsthand.

"Believe it or not -- because I know the show is about confrontation -- I'm pretty non-confrontational," she said. "But there is a huge piece of me that doesn't take crap. Some stuff I just let roll off my back, but then the stuff that is super important to me, I'm just not gonna let it be shoved under the rug. And this was one of those things."

"I wanted her to understand that if the shoe were on the other foot and her friend was saying, 'I don't give a shit about stuff in your life' -- that to me was pretty shocking because I care a lot about what's happening in my friends' lives," she added. "I care about anything that's important to my friends. So I was pretty shocked that that was the answer to my comment."

Tanya said she forgave NeNe and that the two were able to completely mend things before leaving Tokyo. Tanya's "husband," however, has had a harder time moving forward.

"Your man never wants to see you hurt, especially Paul," she explained. "We're protective of each other. So if I call him crying, being like, 'This is what happened,' he's short of firing up a private jet and being like, 'I'm coming to Tokyo right now.' He was mad. Even when he watched the show, he was still angry. He was like, 'You're crying after this huge argument!' He was a little fired up about that."

When asked if Paul and NeNe had smoothed things over, Tanya said, "I feel like, yeah, they have. They've interacted and stuff, but you know, he probably has a longer memory than I do."

We also had to ask Tanya about what it was like being on that bus ride from hell, which took place immediately following NeNe's explosion. On the bus ride from the restaurant back to the ladies' hotel, Eva and Marlo had a full-blown screamfest and took turns taking hilarious and below-the-belt jabs at one another.

"First of all, it was such a long bus ride," Tanya said with a laugh. "I had just come off this super intense conversation with NeNe, so I was very emotional. Then we get on this bus, and the traffic in Tokyo -- it was rush hour, so it took a long time. So Marlo and Eva are going at it for what felt like forever. I was half-laughing, half-crying. I was just kind of like, 'What is going on in my world right now?!' It was actually really funny to watch that."

"And then at the same time, I remember calling the hotel intensely, being like, 'I need a massage in my room in exactly 35 minutes,'" she continued. "And so I had a massage therapist in my room like five minutes after we got there. I remember lying face down on the bed, having these delightful hands beating into my back, and I was like, 'Okay, I found my zen now. I'm all good.'"

Regarding her relationship with the other Housewives, Tanya said she's closest with Eva, Porsha Williams and newbie Shamari DeVoe.

"I love them," she gushed. "We all hung out on New Years together, and the nice thing about that -- especially with Porsha and Eva -- is that our men have a bromance. It's so great. It makes things so easy."

"The Real Housewives of Atlanta" airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on Bravo.

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