There’s been a lot of conversation about Alexis Bellino‘s controversial return to The Real Housewives of Orange County, especially now that she’s engaged to Shannon Beador‘s ex-boyfriend John Janssen. Back when they were filming Season 18, Bellino, at the height of her emotion, made the startling revelation that Janssen had security camera footage of Beador from the night of her DUI arrest. Looking back on the moment, Bellino told DECIDER she “shouldn’t have” brought up the videos on camera.
“The way that the videos were brought up — yes, I wish I hadn’t,” Bellino said. “It was a very knee-jerk reaction. I was emotional and I was kind of — what you don’t see in that scene is I was a little frustrated at the women who are my friends but they were bringing up Shannon a lot and talking about John a lot and asking a lot of questions.”
Bellino explained that the videos were “never meant to be brought into this public forum at all,” but admitted that she “just snapped” when her castmates continued to talk about Beador and Janssen.
“I don’t want to mention them. I’m with the guy all the time, I don’t need to talk about him all day, too,” she said. “But it does make it look like I do because [the other women are] asking me questions and then that’s what you see.”
According to Bellino, both Tamra Judge and Heather Dubrow knew about the footage before she brought it up on the girls trip to Big Bear. However, she “never expected” Katie Ginella to repeat the information to Emily Simpson.
“It was just like a downward spiral,” she added. “It was never supposed to happen in that way.”
The reality star also seemed to shut down Judge’s notion that she would reveal the contents in the video at the Season 18 reunion.
“Those videos are not meant for everyone to see. It would be way too damaging,” she said. “John is the only one who has sole possession of them. I made the mistake to bring them up.”
Bellino, who has received a lot of online flack for her performance this season, also weighed in on Simpson advising her to have a bit more compassion toward Beador in tonight’s episode.
“First of all, Emily just needs to stay in her place a little,” she said. “She gets in everyone else’s business so I wish that she would’ve come in as a friend to me and not as so judgy in that scene that you guys saw.”
Bellino also wanted Simpson to “have some compassion” for her.
“Because like I said in that scene, Shannon’s not the only one hurting in this filming that we’re doing,” she continued. “I have had a lot on my plate. And it’s not easy filming with his ex either.”
The Real Housewives of Orange County airs every Thursday at 9/8c on Bravo. New episodes are available to stream the next day on Peacock.
