Mugshot Marlo Hampton is all about clearing her goodish name and promoting herself, now that she has the illustrious and reputable platform of Real Housewives of Atlanta. The notorious Marlo, who certainly is the most notorious Housewife to grace the screens of Atlanta, is answering questions about her questionable past and encouraging us to reserve judgement. Yeah to the right!
Marlo wants you to know she isn’t full of excuses and fully embraces her ex-conn ex-life, but she wants to set the story straight and separate reality from reality TV. “There’s much more to Marlo than the 10 minutes” on the show, Marlo warns.
“I was surprised that they were focusing on my arrests,” Marlo admits. “Phaedra [Parks] with her husband and Sheree [Whitfield] has had her mix-up with the law. I was shocked about Kim [Zolciak] and the way she was talking about a Big Poppa when she dated a married man.”
Marlo says the trouble started in college. That was arrest number one. “While I was in college, that’s when I got into altercations and that was a felony charge. I was just mad at the world,” she explains to Sister 2 Sister. Marlo, apparently, attended University of South Florida and earned a BA in Interdisciplinary Science. Shocked? Yeah, me too!
Then, she was arrested and charged for check fraud. “I mis-balanced my check for the books I was buying. It was one check for me just being in college writing a check for one book. They blew that so out of proportion,” Marlo insists. “I wasn’t the best in math.” It’s called a calculator, m’dear!
Unfortunately, things spiraled from there and next thing she knew she had seven mugshots under her (then Forever 21) belt! “It’s important for people to know I was on house arrest. Four of those were probation violations and not new charges,” Marlo clarifies. Marlo claims in one arrest, the accuser actually defended her to the judge! “She had asked the judge to reduce my sentence and we made peace. We’re fine. We’ve talked several times.” I’m assuming she’s referring to her arrest for aggravated assault.
Marlo’s criminal past prevented her from getting a job so she had to hook up with wealthy sugar daddies so she opened her own business, a clothing store. “When I started taping with the show, I closed the store down.”
Marlo cautions viewers, “Don’t go by just what they see,” because there is definitely more to her than meets the eye! That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.
Moving right along, Sheree has a lot to say lately. Is it because she really, really can’t afford to get fired wants to secure a place in Season 5? Taking to her Bravo Blog, she is dishing on the fight with Marlo, the trip to Africa, and the comments about Kim!
According to Sheree, the tension began at the airport. “Upon seeing Marlo, I knew instantly that there would be some drama, because she was not invited by Phaedra, the host. Why was no one informed that she would be coming on the trip? I knew she felt the need to do something to get attention!”
Sheree claims the dinner party invite debacle occurred when her friend Kevin called last-minute and asked her to include Cynthia in the invitation. “I didn’t think to invite Cynthia [Bailey], because I was sure she wouldn’t attend without NeNe [Leakes], and I certainly wasn’t going to invite Nene. We had not spoken since the argument a few months ago and after the disrespectful way she acted at Kim’s friend’s house in Miami last year, it just wasn’t happening.”
“As we are getting ready for dinner, my friend Kevin calls, who also knows Cynthia and NeNe, and asks me to invite Cynthia to the dinner. Well I did,” Sheree recalls.
And Sheree is accusing Cynthia of pulling a “Taylor Armstrong” and saying things to Marlo behind her back to re-instigate the situation! “Cynthia, Cynthia, Cynthia…messy. I’m not quite sure what the problem was.”
“For Marlo to run over and go from 0 to 60 all because I did not invite her, the person who no one knew was coming (not even the host) and that came with NeNe (the person I don’t speak to), to a party! Really?! Why would she want to go? Why would I want her to go? Why is she so angry? Why is she using hateful, derogatory words? Why would she choose to use that word to describe my friends? I’m not a judgmental person by any means. I love all kinds of people, regardless of their sexual preference.”
And about all of Marlo’s accusations, Sheree wants you to know she has standards. Are we considering Bob Whitfield “standards” now? “I refuse at this day and time to sell myself short. I like what I like, and I can tell you for certain that sleeping with senior citizens just for bags, shoes, or money definitely isn’t it!”
Now onto that infamous safari ride, where it may or may not have been implied that Kim is racist, uninterested in international travel and too self-absorbed to bother with underprivileged children or dealing with NeNe in a foreign country. “The safari ride with Phaedra, Cynthia, and Kandi [Burruss] got really interesting,” Sheree recounts.
“Was it just me or were there ONLY black babies/children there?;” Sheree wonders, referring to the orphanage. “To me, making those statements and agreeing with Cynthia on that sentiment was basically insulting Kim and implying she could possibly be racist. It seemed to me like she was throwing her friend Kim under the bus. I don’t understand why Kandi can’t seem to grasp that. Who wants to possibly have to defend their character to millions of people about something someone said, especially if it could possibly be untrue? It’s not fun!”
“I chose to mention what was said in the jeep not while Kandi wasn’t present but while she sat next to me, because I didn’t feel like that was right. If she really felt that way, then she should tell her and allow her to respond.”
Sheree admits she mis-communicated what was actually said, and Kandi did not make the comment about Kim holding black babies. “Again, I stand corrected, Kandi did not say the black baby thing.”
“Believe me, if it were the other way around or if it were any of my other close friends and I witnessed someone they think is their friend talking badly about them, I would do the absolute same.”
As for some of the good moments of the trip, Sheree says she loved the safari and enjoyed her time at Kevin’s dinner party. “Overall, my African experience was simply amazing and very educational,” she concludes. “The most touching part of this entire experience was going to the orphanage and the village to give away some much needed goods.”
HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR OPINION OF MARLO AFTER HEARING HER SIDE OF THE STORY? WILL MARLO BE BACK NEXT SEASON? WAS SHEREE WRONG TO START DRAMA BY TELLING KIM WHAT WAS SAID ON SAFARI?