RHOBH Star Garcelle Beauvais Says Reality TV Is 'Hardest Job I've Ever Done'

Television By TooFab Staff |
Warner Bros. Television

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Garcelle Beauvais is getting real about how really hard it is to work in reality television, telling Jennifer Hudson on Tuesday that this is the "hardest job [she's] ever done."

Sure you've heard about the backbreaking physical demands put on miners, and the long hours and emotional traumas endured within the medical industry. Those are some famously brutal jobs. But Garcelle Beauvais wants you to consider reality TV in that discussion.

While chatting on Tuesday's episode of The Jennifer Hudson Show, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star told the EGOT winner -- who knows a thing or two about working in a variety of industries -- that the Bravo show was the "hardest job [she's] ever done."

Trying to justify her stance to Hudson, Beauvais explained that actors get to "hide behind a character," while reality stars don't have that luxury, "it's all you."

"It's you, it's your family, it's your house," she emphasized. So sometimes ... somebody can dig something up or say something that gets under your skin and it hurts."

Beauvais has been part of RHOBH since 2020. Her big break as an actress came in the 1990s with back-to-back starring roles on Fox's Models Inc. and The WB's The Jamie Foxx Show. She has stayed active in television and film while fulfilling her reality TV obligations.

One thing that hasn't allowed much time for, though, is a romantic life -- though Beauvais admits that reality angle creeps up as a challenge there, too. "That's tricky because not everybody wants to be on a reality show."

Nevertheless, even though the former model, talk show co-host, podcast host, author, and actress feels that reality TV is the "hardest job," she doesn't seem ready at all to step away anytime soon.

"The best part [of the job] is we have a lot of fun," she told Hudson. "When we’re not being catty and shading each other, it’s really fun. And the ridiculousness of how we dress, where we go ... I mean, ball gowns to lunch if you want to. So it’s fun."

Another part of the challenge for Beauvais could be that she sometimes feels like she has to stand up for Black women and Black people against her own castmates. Just last weeks, she was schooling Dorit Kemsley about three words you don't say to a Black woman: "aggressive," "attack," and "angry."

She tried to explain to Dorit that because of centuries of systemic racism and bias, certain words hit certain targets differently. "So, the other night, the word attack just hit me in the wrong place," Beauvais said after Kemsley said she had attacked her after she called out Sutton Stracke for her behavior at the Magic Mike show during the group's trip to Las Vegas earlier in the season.

She said the exchange was fine as she's not opposed to some healthy back-and-forth. It was the word choice. "There are certain words, when you point them at me, it has a complete different impact," she told Kemsley. "You have to know who you're dealing with."

The conversation ... did not go particularly well for quite a while. You can check out the full back-and-forth, as well as some context dating back years, in the story below. And see how things have settled, at least for now.