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Zendaya, Basketball Wives, Shaunie O'Neal And Jackie Christie Visit Hollywood Today Live

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Basketball Wives has returned for its eighth season, and it’s still the same messiness we’re used to, but first, we start on a serious note. Shaunie is preparing for her son, Shareef, to get open heart surgery due to a heart abnormality that could lead to death if not corrected. Surgery is obviously no joke and Shaunie is nervous, but she manages to push through and keep the family going during this time. She does have help from Shaq, whom she says is a good co-parent. It’s also sweet to see her son, Myles, comforting her. In the end. Shareef’s surgery ends up being a success.

Fast forward to a week later. Jackie’s back. Malaysia’s back. Evelyn’s back. Tami is back as a newlywed (she secretly married Reggie and still hasn’t told anyone). CeCe is back and she still has drama with Kristen. Her fiance, Byron, isn’t thrilled with Kristen at the moment either. Byron feels like Kristen two-faced with him and he definitely doesn’t like how Kristen treated CeCe last season. His final verdict that if he never sees or speaks to Kristen again he’d be cool with that. That sucks because Kristen is married to his son (Thomas) and is the mother of his grandchild. He actually wants Thomas to be his best man in his upcoming wedding to CeCe, but how’s that going to work if he doesn’t want his best man’s wife at the wedding?

Next, we find Malaysia and CeCe out and about looking for wedding bands for CeCe. But the point of this scene is really for Malaysia to ask what’s up with her relationship with Kristen. Kristen doesn’t reveal too much, especially not the part about Byron not wanting her at his wedding, but she does mention that she hasn’t spoken to Kirsten since Amsterdam…last year. Malaysia kicks all this yang about how they’re family and need to work it out, but that may not always be the case for people.

Evelyn links with Kristen and Jackie to meet with a shaman in the desert. Evelyn has been dealing with a lot of unexplained pain lately and thinks it’s due to negative energy so she wants a cleanse. Speaking of negative, the conversation drifts toward Kristen telling them she hasn’t been in touch with Byron, and that she found out that he and CeCe got engaged on IG. She’s playing the clueless role but when you find out something like that about someone close to you on social media, obviously there’s a problem.

Let’s fast forward a bit. Jennifer is back too. Kristen is her only friend and meets up with her to see what’s up. Obviously, Jenn hasn’t spoken to anyone, and still won’t take accountability for lying, which is why people are mad at her. But Kristen invites her to Shaunie’s upcoming party though.

Yeah, Shaunie is having a celebratory party for Shareef. Let’s cut to that situation. Everyone shows up in red because that represents the heart, obvi. But let’s cut to the drama. CeCe walks in and walks right past Kristen and her husband. Awkward. Then we find Kristen with Shaunie. Kristen tells Shaunie that she met with Jennifer and that Jenn is confused over why Shaunie is upset with her but Kristen, being the messy carrier pigeon she is, also tells Shaunie that Jenn was talking even more smack about her ex (Shaq, but they’re not saying his name), and how everyone knew that he was sleeping with other people anyway. Obviously, this riles Shaunie up because she doesn’t like Jenn talking about her kids’ father and she feels that Jenn is still being fake. Kristen then drops the bomb that she invited Jenn. Earlier in the episode, Shaunie said she didn’t invite Jenn but she was open to the possibility of her coming for the simple fact that Jenn actually reached out to her about her son’s health, and for that if Jenn wanted to show her son love in person, so be it. However, hearing the news she just heard changed things. Shaunie tells Kristen to tell her “evil” friend not to come. Hold that thought, because you know she’s still gonna come.

Evelyn then tells Kristen what CeCe told her earlier at the party, which is that Byron doesn’t want Kristen to come to their wedding. Kristen can’t have this chat without Malaysia, so she calls Malaysia over for Evelyn to repeat this. Interestingly enough, neither Kristen nor Malaysia actually thinks Byron would ever exclude her, yet we clearly saw him earlier saying that he never wanted to talk to Kristen again. Their communication (or Kristen’s self-perception) is jacked up. Anyway, Malaysia, who thinks Byron would never, wants them all to get together to talk…for the umpteenth time.

Finally, Jenn shows up to the party and she is being fake as expected. Shaunie gets set off just at the site of Jenn and decides to leave (or step out) before she, as she put it loosely, tap into her inner Inglewood and beat that arse.

But somebody is going to throw hands this season. Basketball Wives security isn’t as poppin as Love and Hip-Hop’s  

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‘Basketball Wives’ Recap: Shaunie Fights The Urge To Lay Hands on Jennifer  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com