For all the hoopla surrounding Porsha Williams’ admission that she had multiple encounters with disgraced R&B icon R. Kelly, few are talking about her experience of being homeless while filming The Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Williams found herself homeless after her first season on the Bravo reality show. She was in the process of divorcing her husband, former NFL quarterback Kordell Stewart, and was welcomed into her mother’s home as she got back on her feet.
“What cameras didn’t capture, thankfully, was that soon after I had moved back in, my mother was evicted from her own home,” Williams writes in the book. “She was trying to fight the eviction in court, but she couldn’t stop it. They showed up at my mother’s house anyway and started carrying her belongings out onto the front lawn for all the neighbors to see.”
Her mother’s displacement ended up affecting everyone who lived with her at the time, including Williams, her maternal grandmother, and step-grandfather. It didn’t help that Williams’ fame was rising from the show.
“People were already stopping me in the streets, in the grocery store, taking pictures of me without my permission, and honking their horns,” Williams adds. “I guess my mother didn’t want my name being dragged through the blogs any more than it already was thanks to Kordell. She didn’t want anyone to know that we were now homeless. It was our little secret.”
Williams eventually resorted to asking friends for help to no avail. She calls the experience one of her “lowest points in life,” although it provided the best circumstances for bonding with her family and growing her faith. As people began to turn their backs on her, she took it as a life lesson learned.
“It was a good reminder for me that you really can’t depend on anybody except yourself,” Williams resolves.
In order to get by, Williams took her first RHOA check and used it to rent two hotel rooms for herself and family members to share. Their items went into a storage unit.
In spite of this major life changing situation, Williams opted to continue filming with the production company Truly Original. At the time, Truly Original and Bravo had no idea that Williams was living in a hotel.
“Truly Original still wanted to film. That became tricky. We couldn’t tell them, ‘No, you can’t film in my mom’s house anymore,'” Williams said. “So we improvised, telling them we’d film at an open-air restaurant or something like that. Anytime they asked to come over and film, we had an excuse.”
Luckily, Williams received a five-figure check from Bravo and that helped her move into a home in a gated community in Duluth, Georgia. Who would’ve thought that all those scenes of Porsha Williams’ early days on the Bravo reality show she was going through so much, including homelessness?
And while there are several people experiencing severe cases of lack and homelessness, Williams’ story is not to be discounted. In fact, it further drives the point that not everything is as it seems, and sometimes people are faking it until they make it. Either way, it’s another reason to be inspired. If Williams can make it through, so can you.
The Pursuit of Porsha: How I Grew Into My Power and Purpose is currently available to purchase at Amazon.com and major literature outlets.
