Subscribe
Hellobeautiful Featured Video
CLOSE
Tanisha Thomas

Source: Zeus / Zeus Networks

“I ain’t getting sleep ‘cause of y’all. Y’all not gonna get no sleep ‘cause of me.”

If you’re a true Bad Girls Club fan, like myself, you read the above quote in the exact tone and cadence that Tanisha Thomas sang it in while she banged pots and pans on season two of the popular show that placed a select group of women in one house to watch mayhem unfold. Unfortunately, after 17 seasons, BGC was taken off the air and left fans with a void. Now, Zeus is introducing a reboot to the famed Oxygen franchise by the name of Baddies, which brings some of our favorite original bad girls, including OGs Tanisha Thomas and Natalie Nunn, and one newcomer to Atlanta.

“It was great to be back. You’ve never seen us in this light. You’ve never seen Natalie and me in this light. It’s a big return for me. It was my first time as talent on camera and as an executive producer. I had no idea how I would do, but I loved it. I really believe that I rose to the occasion and I look forward to producing more shows in the future.,” Thomas told HelloBeautiful. 

Nearly 15 years later since the world first met Thomas, she has welcomed a new son into the world, got engaged, and explored new avenues of entrepreneurship. Now, in the Baddies reboot, we get to see Tanisha, Natalie, and other bad girls including Seven Craft and Judi Jai in a new lens that we’ve never seen before. She continued, “There are a lot of moments that I’m proud of. There are a lot of moments where I pop off. I didn’t need to, I’ve grown a lot, but I’m still that shit. I’m still that New York girl. It’s very straight shooters with us.”

We caught up with the original bad girl herself about Baddies, inner beauty, her weight loss journey, and how Bad Girls Club disrupted reality television forever.

On her decision to join the Bad Girls Club reboot:

It was crazy. Natalie hit me up one night for us to come back together. I reluctantly agreed after declining for so many years. Shortly after that, we began to go at it and not see eye to eye. We clashed, as bad girls do sometimes. The next thing you know, I’m out of the project and Natalie was trying to continue on with the project. At the very last minute – literally 12 days and everything’s locked in – I get a call from the head of the network and he’s like, “This is our final offer, Tanisha and we’re going to give you the producer credit.”

I was like, ‘All of this and I’m an executive producer and I don’t have to live in a house. Okay, all right.’ I already knew I was going to do it, but I was like, ‘Let me get back to you.’ Of course, being a new mother, I’m like, okay, I got to secure my son, because I’ve never left. I have gone under lockdown with COVID. I was a germaphobe before COVID, but literally, you would’ve thought I was on America’s Most Wanted top three because that’s how in hiding I went. I was on lockdown and I took COVID very seriously. I was like, “Oh my God. I don’t know if we could film. I don’t know if this safe.” Everyone was tested and clear beforehand, so that gave me a little sense of relief.

Tanisha Thomas

Source: Zeus / Zeus Networks

On her evolution as a woman since her season of Bad Girls Club:

This whole process happened so fast. Our success, my success, happened so rapidly. I still, a decade later at times, take it in. The biggest thing about me over the last 10 years [is] how incredibly self-aware I’ve become. Even though I might mess up, which I do a few times on a show, I now have the amazing ability to reflect back, whether that’s at the end of the day, the end of the week, or after I’ve calmed down, identify where I went wrong and correct it or apologize for it or move differently. That’s the most beautiful thing as humans. You have another opportunity to fix what happened yesterday. As long as you’re still breathing, it’s never too late. It’s never too late, as long as there’s still life in you. I never really understood that until now.

On her weight loss journey and major challenges she encountered: 

It’s been a journey and it’s still going on. At my heaviest, I was 300 pounds. I made the decision to take more control of my health after a very abusive, toxic relationship I was in. I was a mess, silently too, for a while. Once I got out of that relationship, I made the conscious effort to try. I got down to 168 pounds at my smallest. Then I started to yo-yo once after I had my baby. That’s how it goes where you lose all the weight and here come the guys, like, ‘Woo, I ain’t seen you before!’ Not that they weren’t bothering me before, but just the demand, is like, oh my gosh. 

On the importance of inner beauty:

Tanisha Thomas

Source: Zeus / Zeus Networks

There’s all this emphasis on the outside, even for me. I know on the exterior it’s like I’m super confident, but I have those days where I would say, ‘I look extra plump today. My skin is not doing what I want it to do. My hair is not doing what I want it to do.’ This is a marathon you’re going to go through with your body, not a race. It’s supposed to last us for a lifetime. When you think about it, she does so much for us and goes through so much. I think I started to realize I’m not even thanking God for being healthy. I’m not even thanking God for my two legs. I’m not even thanking God for my eyesight. Lord, thank you. I can hear. I have hands. I have fingers. Thank you, God. 

On her thoughts regarding body enhancements:

In terms of enhancing, I think ain’t nothing wrong with that. Whatever is going to help you feel better, in moderation. We don’t need too much. We already perfect.  We don’t need that much. I think there’s too much emphasis on the outside, not on the inside. You can fix all that. Are we going to be all right? Are we going to heal what’s inside? What’s the point? I get a lot of praise for the outside, but I’m like, ‘Guys, the real work is here.’ The most beautiful part to me about me is my heart. I’m a work in progress and I fall short, like we all do, but nothing to me is more beautiful than a woman who’s beautiful on the inside. That beauty just radiates on the outside as well. That, to me, is the full package. The outside is the icing, not the whole cake.

If going under the knife or doing these procedures makes you really happy, for real, then by all means. But are you doing it for you, for real? You really want that, or do you think that’s what everybody else wants? That’s where I’m at. I got to remind myself because I get stuck too. I feel it too. Sometimes I do photoshoots and everything’s a size eight, nine, or 10. Currently, I’m in between a 12 and a 14. A lot of times my options are still limited, even though I lost the weight, but then I have to remind myself, I’m beautiful. I’m me. I’m here. I’m unique. This set and this shoot is going get whatever I show up with and I’m going to slay it with whatever I show up with because I’m a queen, period.

On how Bad Girls Club changed the landscape of reality television: 

We are simply reality TV history. We are iconic. It’s classic. The pots and pans moments. The “I run LA” moments. The voodoo doll moments. Everyone knows the mattress in the pool moment. All of those moments, and then some. I think Bad Girls Club has really redefined what it means to live out loud and own your true self. I think we’re not bad in the sense of being like bad, bad, but I think it’s more about owning who you are. It’s like, ‘Yeah, I messed up. Yeah, I pissed her off. Yeah, I threw her pool in the bed yesterday, and I was wrong for that. I messed up. Guess what I’m going to do? I’m going to take the mattress out and give her my mattress because I messed up.’ I’m human and it’s all good. Now, we rock and we play checkers. We smoke your hookah. It’s a great day. 

Watch Baddies this Saturday on Zeus!

RELATED STORIES:

DreamDoll Dishes On Her Sexy Style And Learning How To Love Her New Self

Congrats! Tanisha Thomas Has A Baby

Couples We Love: Natalie Nunn & Jacob Payne Are The Definition Of Sexy Love

The grand return of the Melanin Awards amplifies and honors the finest Black-owned beauty brands with honest reviews, and discusses the evolution of beauty in Hip-Hop culture.