Candiace Dillard: What the Jealous Janice is Going On?

BravoTV.com: Describe asking your father for more money and balancing the pressure from Chris at the same time… what kept you most calm during that situation?
Candiace Dillard: Ugh. I hated everything about that money conversation. I DO think my dad should give more – I’m his only daughter and I’m only getting married once. I already had a feeling my dad was going to say no before I even hit “dial” on my phone so I should have just left it alone. I didn’t want to wonder “what if” though, so I just went for it. I stayed calm (although my heart was palpitating during the conversation) by focusing on the wine I was going to drink to calm my nerves after such strenuous activity!

BravoTV.com: Did you agree with the advice Ashley Darby gave you regarding the wedding? 
CD: Ashley’s advice was something I had heard before from other well-meaning friends and family. I do receive what she and others are saying and I’m certainly going to keep it in the back of my mind going forward but I still want flowers coming out of the floor and the ceiling. :)

BravoTV.com: What do you think about the confrontation between everyone at the CBC? 
CD: Everyone was acting like plumb fools at the CBC. Here I am, giving the saints “Political Barbie” in my pink suit whilst we’re supposedly coming together to celebrate black excellence and enterprise. I was shaking my head and receiving the entertainment at the same time. Where is the couth? Who taught you that it was acceptable to air dirty laundry and address grievances in a public space? Robyn Dixon needs to stop listening to that girl Gizelle Bryant before she leads her over a cliff. It doesn’t seem like her nature to be confrontational so why is she continuously trying to do what doesn’t suit her in resolving HER issue? 

BravoTV.com: You seemed surprised that Charrisse was not defending Monique Samuels – what do you think about this? Is Monique using Charrisse? 
CD: It seems that some of us are unclear on the processes of friendship and becoming acquainted with one another. The whole point of bringing new girlfriends into a group of friends or a community is to make them feel welcomed and assimilated to their surroundings. Sure, Charrisse has many contacts; okay, she’s lived in Potomac for 7,000 years; great, she’s well connected and blah, blah, blah. She always needs a cookie for something. As a more established patron of the community, and moreover, an African American woman with status in said community, it is absolutely incumbent upon her to bring new, fresh young Black women into the fold to continue and carry on the legacy of community work and philanthropy. Here you have Monique, a WILLING participant in that endeavor, and you MAD because she’s good at assimilating??? What the Jealous Janice is going on??? 

BravoTV.com: Tell us about this fight with Chris – what is like watching it back now? Has he said anything like that since? 
CD: Girl. First of all, this was a two-day venture. The fight started the whole night before (never go to bed mad, guys!) and carried over into the entire next day! There were so many elements and so many things that were said on both sides that we both regret… all over a misunderstanding about holding a purse. Chris and I both suffer from quick to anger syndrome sometimes and when I returned from the bathroom at the CBC after party (no, I didn’t want to take my purse to the bathroom because I didn’t need it to pee and didn’t want to put it down on any germ-infested surface or play acrobat, trying to balance it on some party of my body while squatting over a hole). Chris’ apparent irritation was my first concern. He proceeded to tell me that he was irritated with the Uber driver and then hastily asked me to hold my purse to which I replied “Why?” Thinking I didn’t want to hold my purse (when I was actually trying to understand why he was annoyed with the driver) he had a name-calling moment about princesses and letting things go to my head knowing full well that I have a sensitivity complex about the perception of my humility and modesty. And I felt in the moment that he was using what he knew to hurt me. So I used what I knew to hurt him back. Mature? No. Human? Yes. I cringe every time I think about what I said to him in those texts (there was a whole back and forth between us) and we have since, obviously worked it out and continue to work on how we speak to each other when we’re angry. It was a very disparaging set of circumstances that we now use to check and balance the way we communicate with each other. Crisis averted! Let the church say amen.