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When Real Housewives of Orange County alum Alexis Bellino, 49, returned to the show in Season 18 after not having been on it since season eight, she caused quite a stir.
The controversy she brought to the table was that she was dating star Shannon Beador’s ex John Janssen.
Once back on the show, many fans assumed she had been friends with Shannon and considered her dating John a faux pas.
In a new interview on Rachel Uchitel’s Miss Understood podcast, Alexis finally addressed if she ever had a relationship with Shannon prior to coming back on RHOC.
“No,” Alexis began. “I had never formally met Shannon except when she was a little tipsy right before when she got Housewives and she came… [and] kind of introduced herself. And I did not even know at that time that she was going to be a Housewife and none of it had registered. And we find out a year later that she got it, and then I never talked to her, never saw her, never filmed a show with her, really.”
“We had the TV show, and we were both OC Housewives,” Alexis continued on people assuming she and Shannon had mutual friends. “So they thought… So it’s actually the year I got let go, in 2008. 2009 was the year she started because that’s what everybody thinks, is because they were so close of me leaving and her… me exiting and her coming on, that we actually overlap, but we never did.”
She noted people kept telling her to “give it time” and that people would “see the truth of how it all unfolded.”
“It does just take time, to be honest,” she added. “I mean, you know that, being in the public eye. It just, sometimes misconceptions are there, and then… people go, ‘Oh, okay. I don’t believe that anymore. Now I get it.’”
During the interview, Alexis also addressed her being fired years ago after season eight.
“Season seven I quit, and then they asked me back, begged me back, wanted me back, whatever, talked me into it,” she shared. “And then, so Season eight, I’m thinking, ‘Oh, okay. I’ll stay. Okay, this wasn’t so bad.’ And then they fired me!”
As for her mindset going into the show from day one, Alexis insisted she did not think she was going to be famous, as the show “wasn’t as big of a hit.”
“I think around Season four or three, maybe three when Tamra got on, is when it really started to kind of take off,” she elaborated. “But I didn’t really think, ‘Oh, I’m going to be famous. Oh, now my life’s going to change.’ I didn’t take it that far. I just thought, ‘Yeah, this is kind of something fun and, you know, and I knew I would probably start something on the side, just because why are you not going to try when you have the platform to do it?’ I was very naive. I think, looking back, and I was only 33.”
