Basketball Wives, VH1's Miami-set train wreck involving NBA-connected ladies, might be coming back for a second season, but one of the cast members won't. Gloria Govan, the painfully boring and unentertainingly drama-free wife of the Orlando Magic's Matt Barnes, will not return for her closeup, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
The behind-the-scenes drama is actually more interesting than anything Gloria brought to the show. She says that executive producer and sorta-star Shaunie O'Neal, ex-wife of Shaq, seriously misled her about the show's premise. Gloria was apparently under the impression that it was to be a classy affair.
Girl, have you ever seen a reality show on VH1? If you didn't know it was going to be an exploitative explosion of drama and stereotypes, that's really on you.
"When we were approached by Shaunie in the very beginning, she told us both that it was going to be about positive women trying to step outside the shadows of their significant others and really try to bring a positive light to the basketball wives, because a majority of us are stereotyped as being uneducated nutcases spending all of our time shopping with thousands of nannies and very chaotic, so we were excited," Govan told Vibe in April.
"I think when we saw the finished product, we were like, 'Wait a minute.' We were trying to buy coffee and someone sold us tea. This is the complete opposite of what we were told the show was going to be about."
Matt Barnes also told Jim Rome that he wasn't pleased with the show.
"After watching the first show, I was just disgusted. I told my team -- you know, because Dwight is involved in that too -- that I wasn't going to be watching that because I know it's going to make me mad and I'm going to watch it at the end of the season. I just think that what they tell you and what is going to happen is two different things. Reality TV is kind of a joke. Everything is scripted. There's nothing reality about reality TV. With that said, I'll kind of leave it alone. But, uh, if you want to have me back on at the end of the season once I won't be able to get fined for what I say, I'll definitely tell you what I think about that."
What did they think was going to happen, seriously? Ten episodes about the ladies doing charity work and discussing literature and foreign affairs in a roundtable format?
It's a VH1 reality show, damn. Cat fights, coochie popping, and drama are the very least you can expect. Honestly, compared to Rock of Love, Basketball Wives was downright refined and classy.
