The ‘Real Housewives of Orange County’ star opens up to ET about why she and her former pal can never be friends again.
Tamra Judge wants her Real Housewives of Orange County co-star, Vicki Gunvalson, to flip her stance on her season 12 tagline.
“It's time to go home,” Tamra scoffs, referencing Vicki’s opening line this year, “I go big or I go home, and I’m not going home.”
ET caught up with Tamra at The Quiet Woman bar and restaurant in Corona Del Mar, California -- the scene of the now-infamous "That's not my plate!" dinner fight between Shannon Beador and Kelly Dodd.
“I think some work needs to be done, think some people need to go,” Tamra says ahead of filming the season 12 reunion. “When you have somebody that's constantly attacking your family and then turning around going, 'I'm the victim, I'm the victim, I just wanna have friends! I just want everyone to get along!' That's when it's hard for me, because if you really wanted to be friends … you probably wouldn't have done all these horrible things that you're doing to me.”
This season, Vicki has been involved in bringing back some old rumors about Tamra’s husband, Eddie, being gay. Tamra confronted Vicki about the rumors on a recent episode, and Vicki couldn’t explain why she keeps repeating them.
“She's been telling that rumor for about four years now,” Tamra shares. “Eddie says, ‘At least she's not calling me a criminal,’ or you know, ‘I don't beat my wife.’ Like, being gay is not illegal!”
Tamra says she believes Vicki is determined to take down the entire cast of the show that was around when Vicki’s relationship with Brooks Ayers imploded, following an alleged cancer scam. That includes Shannon and David Beador, Heather and Terry Dubrow, and Meghan King and Jim Edmonds.
“I think when she got caught in that whole Brooks thing, to make herself look better, she was going to go after everyone’s husbands,” Tamra surmises. “So that’s why she went after David, and she went after Eddie, and she said things about Terry ... and then she was going after Jim and Meghan. She fights like a child.”
The 50-year-old reality star says she’s excited -- and nervous -- to face her frenemy at the season 12 reunion taping.
“I feel like it's gonna be my chance to get everything out there and confront her, and she has nowhere to go,” Tamra explains. “She has nowhere to go, but to sit there and answer the questions, which she'll deflect, deflect. Deny, deny. 'I fabricated,' you know, all these different, crazy stories.”
“If she could just go home, buh-bye, I'd be very happy about that,” she adds. “I don't know what to expect. I don't know what Vicki we're gonna get that day. Are we going to get victim Vicki? 'I'm so sorry, I just repeated a rumor. I'm so sorry, I just wanted everybody to get along. Oh geez.' Or, am I going to get defensive, mean, backstabbing? I don't know.”
Tamra claims that she has forgiven Vicki, but that doesn’t mean she’s interested in rekindling their friendship.
“People are like, 'Why can't you forgive her?’” Tamra says. “I've forgiven her. She needs to, like, forgive herself. Maybe she'll feel better. And then, I just have to move on. I don't want to have people like that in my life.”
“You can have your differences, but when you’re trying to destroy somebody’s life, that’s not good,” she continues. “Nobody can recover from that. Like, you’re trying to destroy my life, start rumors about me, my husband, friends, calling my kids ... how could I ever go, ‘Oh, I just want to be your friend again?’”
“When you cross the line, it’s unforgivable,” she says. “Unforgivable. I want to be around a group of girls that, yeah, maybe we don’t agree on everything, and maybe we might argue about who knows what, but don’t try to destroy somebody’s life. Don’t say the things you say and do the things you do.”
As for when her own time on the show will be up, Tamra says she's not sure.
"Usually around this time, when we’re at the end of the season and it's reunion time, it’s like, OK, I’m done. I’m so done. I don’t want to do this again. And then, you know, we have a break ... and then you’re like, you’re all charged up again."
"It’s like childbirth," she jokes. "Like, you have the child and you’re like, 'I’m never having another child again.' And then later, you're like, 'Oh, but it was so much fun! It was so fun and the pain, it doesn’t last that long.' So, you know, I don’t know. I just take it year by year. I think you know. It’s like a bad marriage. You know when you want to get out ... right now, I'm good."
Tune into The Real Housewives of Orange County every Monday at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo to see what happens between Vicki and Tamra in the coming weeks. Then, check out the video below to hear co-star Meghan King Edmonds’ thoughts on the situation.