Amid an awkward divorce from her husband Ralph Pittman, Drew Sidora started off Season 16 of The Real Housewives of Atlanta by being incredibly messy. While Ralph is living in her basement, Drew is hitting the club scene with the co-parent of her one-time friend Porsha Williams, Dennis McKinley. Drew and Dennis claim to have a platonic business relationship, promoting Drew’s music together. But Drew isn’t as innocent as she presents in the series, and the mess she is causing is certainly a bid to keep her storyline interesting on Bravo this season of the reality series.
And it is absolutely working. When Porsha sharply inquired to an off-camera producer if she was allowed to break the fourth wall and read Drew’s text messages out loud? Chills. Porsha and Dennis getting into an on-camera confrontation again, after their disastrous vacation on Porsha’s spin-off series? This is what we want to see. Drew being messy has forced a level of honesty from Porsha about where she is at in her relationship with her ex, when it is clear she wanted to control that narrative without Dennis coming onto her platform to contradict her.
Drew kicked off the season with a stellar revelation, blithely commenting that her soon-to-be ex-husband had been ordered by the court to live in the couple’s basement during their contentious divorce. At the end of last season, Drew made the cringe decision to serenade her husband about their split at the Season 15 reunion, which seemed like the final nail in the coffin for the narrative about their relationship on the series. But the beginning of Season 16 has made clear that Drew understands she will have to bring more than her divorce-drama this season to keep viewers interested.
Drew has committed to her career as a touring pop-diva, but she is using this storyline as a way to get incredibly messy with Porsha, who is arguably the returning Queen of RHOA. Porsha is also in the middle of a divorce after finding out her husband, Simon Guobadia, had several other wives as well as immigration issues. But Porsha isn’t focused on her divorce drama either this season, because Drew has grabbed her full attention.
In a sympathetic scene, Drew explained to her friends that choosing to work with Dennis was simply about supporting her children while she is in the middle of a costly divorce. However, Atlanta is widely known to be filled with aspiring music producers, and Drew has been building connections in the industry for several years at this point. Drew chose Dennis specifically as her music producer, knowing he was Porsha’s ex and that appearing at clubs in Atlanta with him would cause a stir in the press and in the friend group. It seemed like an extremely calculated move on Drew’s part.
Porsha Had to Pivot to Keep Control of the Narrative on ‘RHOA’
For someone whose anger issues have been widely documented on the series, Porsha has clearly been working on maintaining calmness in times of stress. Porsha effortlessly gathered Drew up at Shamea Morton’s lavish birthday party, all while retaining her composure. She then expressed her irritation with Drew pursuing a working relationship with Dennis, claiming to view it as one entry in a seemingly long list of violations she had been experiencing in their friendship.
It was also obvious that Porsha’s main concern was maintaining control of the narrative this season on RHOA. Porsha is polished and ready to show up with her usual bubbly filming persona, and it seemed from their confrontation that she wasn’t ready to face the level of scrutiny in her co-parenting relationship that Drew’s antics have brought. Porsha’s need to control the narrative came across in the scene she filmed with Dennis directly after the confrontation arose with Drew. The way she repeated Drew’s version of events to Dennis, and the way she demanded a level of loyalty from him that he was reluctant to show, proved that Porsha is feeling unsettled, knowing that Drew has plans to involve Dennis in the drama this season. Porsha lecturing Dennis after their playdate with their daughter shows just how far she is willing to go to keep control of the narrative this season, threatening that the choice he makes about filming with Drew will have an impact on his relationship with his daughter. Drew’s messiness isn’t the kind of behavior Porsha wants in a friend, specifically because it forced her to bring back drama with Dennis that she would rather leave in the past.
