Word on the street is … Gizelle Bryant and Candiace Dillard’s friendship has seen better days.
Bryant, 52, tells Page Six exclusively that she and Dillard, 35, have yet to move past drama involving the latter’s husband, Chris Bassett, covered on the new season of “The Real Housewives of Potomac.”
“We were in a good place when we finished ‘Potomac,’ so I thought,” she says, adding that the ladies’ subsequent participation in “The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip” Season 3 “didn’t end up well.”
Bryant adds, “And currently today, we’re not in a good place at all.”
In the trailer for “RHOP” Season 7, Ashley Darby tells Robyn Dixon that she received a social media message from Bassett at 2:40 a.m., telling her to meet him at his hotel. Previously, Bryant had made similar allegations against Dillard’s husband.
In another scene, Bryant states, “Many a married man have tried me and I felt like he was trying to see if I was with it. He’s a sneaky link!”
Then, during a confrontation with Dillard, Bryant tells the “Drive Back” singer that Bassett “100 percent” made her feel “uncomfortable.”
Detailing the aftermath to Page Six, Bryant says that she never expected her conversation with Dillard to cause such discord.
“I thought it wasn’t going to affect my friendship with her in any way because it was kind of just, like, girlfriend-to-girlfriend, ‘He was doing the most. I didn’t like it. This is what happened. Talk to your husband,’” she recounts.
“But she’s telling everybody she wants me dead or I’m dead to her or I’m going to die — or something like that, I don’t know.”
Indeed, a “Potomac” preview sees Dillard asserting that Bryant is “dead to [her]” in a discussion with Bassett.
“It’s not cute. You should never be saying that about anybody. I can understand being upset or being in your feelings about something, but I would never say that about anyone. So that’s not cute to me at all,” Bryant says of the remark.
“[They’re] not words that you should put out there as a joke or even if you’re mad at somebody. Like, you should not say that. I have children, for the love of God,” she continues. “I have people that actually love me.”
The mom of three — who shares teenage daughters Grace, Adore and Angel with ex-husband Jamal Bryant — says that she was simply trying to alert Dillard of her spouse’s “poor” calls in judgment.
“I just felt like, ‘Look, we just need to let Candiace know that all this is going down so she can just reel her husband in.’ No big deal,” she says. “But it then it became a whole mountain of nonsense.”
When asked if Bassett’s messages were flirty in nature, Bryant says, “They just should not have happened.”
Meanwhile, Dillard shared her take on the situation during a recent interview on the “Reality With the King” podcast.
“It doesn’t give me pause or make me feel threatened in any kind of way because Chris does not want her 50-year-old p–sy,” she told host Carlos King.
Bryant says she made a concerted effort to keep the peace with Dillard after they fled Maryland for Thailand to film “RHUGT” this summer. But, according to the “Reasonably Shady” podcast co-host, the women only came into more conflict throughout their time in Asia.
“And I blame all of it on her. I’ve been extremely honest with Candiace. With this whole situation, I know that she is extremely temperamental. I know that her emotions are all over the place,” she says.
“So because of that, I was very careful with my words. I didn’t try to make something out of nothing. I was just very direct with her and she just wasn’t at a place to receive it.”
Given the state of her relationship with Dillard, Bryant was grateful to have had one of her Bravo besties, “Real Housewives of Atlanta” alum Porsha Williams, on the trip.
“My girl Porsha was there, so we had a ball,” she says, noting that she also developed close friendships with “Housewives” from “Miami” and “Salt Lake City.”
“Alexia [Echevarria], I had fun with her. She’s serious, but she’s fun. Whitney [Rose] is a total mess, like, the best. Whit-Whit is a lot of fun,” she says.
“And then some of the other ladies, I had to work to get to know them. So it’s kind of like an up-and-down roller coaster to get to know [them] and get to a better place.”
“RHOSLC” star Heather Gay is among the women Bryant didn’t initially connect with. “But now I love Heather,” she teases.
Peacock has yet to announce a premiere date for “The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip” Season 3. “The Real Housewives of Potomac” Season 7 premieres Sunday, Oct. 9, at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo.
