Kandi Burruss says she does not like Tamar Braxton and is done pretending otherwise. Days after Tamar told The Morning Hustle she has no beef with Kandi or anybody else, Kandi got on camera and said it plainly, one word at a time, so nobody would need it repeated. She does not like that b**ch.
Video:
Her full run was blunter than the headline. Kandi called Tamar a fake ass b**ch, said she is going to pay her dust, and said flatly that the two of them do not mess with each other. She also said Tamar gives a very false representation of what is actually going on between them and accused her of constantly trying to gaslight people about it. This came on July 29, days after Tamar’s radio interview.If you have been following this from the outside, the whole thing reignited over a photo. On Sunday, July 5, both women were on stage at the Black Women in Music ceremony during Essence Fest in New Orleans, part of a lineup that included Brandy, Monica, Missy Elliott, Tyrese, Sherri Shepherd, Anthony Anderson and Mona Scott-Young. Missy was receiving the Essence Icon Award. Tamar came in at the last minute, hugged Kandi, then reached across Monica to grab Kandi’s hand and say hello.
Kandi did not play along. The video went everywhere within hours, mostly because her face did all the talking. Monica’s reaction became its own subplot when viewers noticed she looked down and never quite made eye contact either. Then Kandi posted photos from the night that did not include Tamar, and the internet decided that was the confirmation it needed.
Tamar addressed it first, on TikTok Live, walking through the video with fans. She said congratulating people is just home training and being cordial, that she did not think it was fake or weird, and that she knew she had not said anything wrong. She did allow that the whole thing was awkward. When The Morning Hustle host Lore’l asked her about the mean girl chatter weeks later, Tamar said she has no beef with anybody.
That is the part that got Kandi. Her position is that Tamar knows exactly what the situation is, so walking up to her in front of cameras and then telling a radio show everything is fine is a performance. Kandi has also said she is not sure why Tamar came on stage at all, since she was not being honored that night. And she made the point that she is somehow being cast as the villain in a story where she was the one minding her business, saying she is supposed to be the mean girl, yeah right.
Kandi also described another run in at a party, saying Tamar called her a bitch while walking past. That one comes from Kandi’s own account and Tamar has not responded to it.
None of this started at Essence Fest. The two of them go back to 2017 and the Great Xscape Tour, and things have been sideways ever since. A few years ago a video resurfaced of Tamar going in on Old Lady Gang, Kandi’s restaurant, saying the food had a reputation for being nasty. When ET asked Kandi if she would invite Tamar out to eat, she said she is not playing games with clowns and is not fixing to be in the circus, never again.
The heaviest chapter came in late 2022. Tamar posted that she had been threatened by a Housewife and her man, and by March 2023 she confirmed on Watch What Happens Live that she meant Kandi and Todd Tucker. She said it really happened, that she was not lying and not looking for attention, and that it was not cute. Kandi and Todd both pushed back publicly. Kandi acknowledged that she and Tamar had words backstage with about thirty people walking past, but said the line Tamar took as a threat was actually Todd telling Kandi to calm down. Todd backed that up himself.
Nobody has ever settled which version is true, which is a big part of why this keeps flaring up. Every time one of them speaks, the other one hears a rewrite of history. Tamar’s fiancé JR has weighed in over the years too, and Kandi has consistently denied that anything happened.
So here is where it sits. Tamar’s position is that there is nothing between them and never really was. Kandi’s position is that there is very much something, that she has no interest in performing peace for a camera, and that she would rather ignore Tamar than fake a smile beside her. Tamar has not responded to the latest round.
For a beef nine years deep with no reconciliation in sight, a hand reach at a group photo turned out to be enough to restart the entire thing.
