If it seems like this potential drama came out of nowhere, it took Lea by surprise, too. "It's just a silly thing because if you ever watched our show and if you knew me personally, you would know that I'm very sarcastic. I laugh at everybody, I laugh at everything, including myself."
Lea said she sent out the tweet after seeing reports that a hearing was scheduled to take place in July to determine whether Brandi's attorneys' request for "any and all medical records" of Joanna's "from 2000 to the present" would be granted in order to see if Joanna had ever been treated for a certain body odor issue (Brandi had claimed Mohamed Hadid had told her about it while he was having an affair with Joanna). "So I just sent out the tweet about 'send the panties to the jury' because it's hilarious when you think about it," Lea told The Daily Dish. "Well, Joanna emailed me and said, 'Oh my God, you're just hilarious.' Brandi took offense."
Prior to the Twitter spat, Lea said she had considered Brandi a friend since the RHOBH alum has attended her house parties and their sons have had playdates in the past, so she's not exactly sure why things got so heated. "Maybe she's just a fight wanting to happen, maybe she's totally sensitive about it, maybe she had a bad day, I don't know," Lea explained. "But I don't have a bone to pick with her. I don't know her that well. I'm not trying to be ugly about it, but she didn't like what I said, and she ran off about it."
Lea said that Brandi even went so far as to block her on Twitter. "I was gonna tweet her and say, 'Oh come on, have a laugh and a giggle, and then I realized she blocked me on Twitter. I went, 'Oh my God! You're really taking this seriously!' I've never blocked anyone on Twitter! I don't even know how to block someone on Twitter," she said. "And I wouldn't [do that to] anyone because say whatever you want. I can either take it or disregard it. But I'm gonna block you? Oh, come on, really? I just thought it was ridiculous."
Lea told Joanna not to get involved in a court battle with Brandi from the beginning. "I told Joanna, 'I just think she should just drop it. You're bringing more attention to an uncomfortable subject,'" Lea said of the lawsuit Joanna filed against Brandi for slander in 2015. "And you don't want a reputation as a litigious person, and it's certainly not going to help you in the industry, in the business you want to be in called show business or TV or however you want to call it."
When Lea witnessed the start of Brandi and Joanna's feud as it played out on Watch What Happens Live in 2013 and then at the Season 3 RHOM reunion, she said she never expected that "it would become that big of a deal.""So the whole thing is just surreal. I remember I was watching it when Brandi said that, and I remember Mark [Consuelos] fell on the floor. That was like, oh my God, that's what I would've done. I would've fallen on the floor," Lea said of when she first saw Brandi make those comments about Joanna on WWHL. "And it was just a shocking thing. But I think she likes to shock people."
Lea said Brandi's actions have been especially unfair for Mohamed, who she said she is "friendly" with. "You can't be reckless in your friendships, and when you throw people, incredible people, under the bus like that, it's reckless because this guy's not on a show. He's not wanting to be a TV personality. He's running a business, a real estate business. He doesn't need that in his life," she said. "And if you're really friends with somebody, then I don't think you throw them under the bus like that no matter how funny the joke might be."
Source/Photo Credit: Bravo