Former ‘Basketball Wives LA’ Star Slams ‘Basketball Wives’, Producers and Cast

Tanya Young, appeared in only a couple of episodes on ‘Basketball Wives LA’, has something to say about the negative attention Basketball Wives and the stars of the show have been receiving.

In an article written for The Daily Beast Tanya shares her thoughts on appearing in Basketball Wives LA and why she thinks Basketball Wives Miami is getting so much heat.

Tanya sits idle as Laura Govan and Malaysia Pargo fight

“Working on Basketball Wives was sheer hell” she writes, calling the fight in Season 1 of BBW LA between Laura Govan and Malaysia Pargo a “surreal moment”. “I sat motionless as the women fought over my head and producers worked to break up the melee. However, the cameramen never lost sight of their target: the fight.” Tanya says the fight was exactly what the producers wanted, footage that would be used in teasers and it would be “ratings gold”.

Tanya knows her no-drama approach is what led producers to ax her from the show, “Shed Media decided that a ‘sophisticated’ (their words not mine) woman like me didn’t fit into the new and evolving storylines (‘storylines’ in the same sentence with Basketball Wives sounds comical).”

In face, Tanya says “producers purposely planted seeds of discord between the women, and told outright lies, hoping that conflict and drama would ensue.”

She then moved on to Basketball Wives Miami, which she says “features more women who have never been married to an NBA player than current or ex-wives, and like Basketball Wives LA, was created to entertain its audience with drama, drama, and more drama.” She’s definitely right when it comes to drama.

Tanya says BBW is extreme and dangerous to the health of its stars, pointing to the recent heart attack Tami Roman suffered. She writes “marital relationships have deteriorated; and long-term friendships have morphed into childish rivalries.”

She then points her attention to the show’s producers and cast:

The show has been produced to look like an embarrassing, demeaning, degrading, violent, and outright ignorant display of our worst selves. This type of deplorable behavior didn’t begin in Season 4 of Basketball Wives Miami. In fact, there was fighting in Season 1. Roman, who now blames VH1 and Shed Media for the purposeful negative depiction of women of color, once told Sister2Sister magazine that she “fights on TV to feed her family.”

Tanya thinks if there were different producers in charge the show’s direction would be different, writing if there were “at least one African-American woman producer…there would be a heightened level of awareness and sensitivity to the images of black women they are broadcasting.”

Nonetheless, Tanya isn’t blaming producers or editing for the women’s actions; “The women must take responsibility for their actions and the resulting consequences.”

How do you feel about Tanya’s comments, do you share her feelings?