'RHOC's' Braunwyn Windham-Burke Gets Candid On Exit, Why Andy Cohen's Reaction 'Hurt'

Braunwyn Windham-Burke is opening up about her departure from "Real Housewives of Orange County" days after she announced that she was axed.

Windham-Burke announced on Instagram this week that she had been fired from the Bravo reality show after only two seasons. The mom of seven, 43, admitted that it was the first job she got fired from and that she was still dealing with it.

"It still sucks. I was really looking forward to showing the other side," Windham-Burke told Us Weekly Friday. "You know, I got very raw this last year with sobriety and I think everyone could tell I was struggling and how hard it was."

Windham-Burke joined the cast in 2019. She revealed she was already six months sober when they stopped filming Season 15 and had been looking forward to showing the "light at the end of the tunnel" to fans in the upcoming season of "RHOC."

"Sobriety is fun. Sobriety is beautiful," she explained. "It’s very hard getting sober and that’s all you saw last year was the getting, not the being. I really do wish that people could see, ‘Yes, it takes work. Yes, it’s hard.’ But once you get to the other side, it’s beautiful."

Windham-Burke also touched on Andy Cohen's comments about her following her firing, admitting that she had been hurt by them.

"I haven’t spoken to him. I think that’s what hurt me so much," the mother of seven said. "I was not in the healthiest place at the reunion. I was less than a year sober. I was still struggling a lot. There was a lot of tension with my cast. I knew what I was getting into and it wasn’t hard."

Cohen addressed the network's decision to axe Windham-Burke for Season 16 during an interview on “Heather Dubrow’s World” podcast Wednesday.

"Listening to [Braunwyn] at the reunion made [us] feel like, maybe at this moment in time, being on TV wasn’t the healthiest spot for she and her family," Cohen said. "I think she was dealing with some real stuff with herself, with her marriage, with her children. It was a lot."

Windham-Burke, who came out as gay in December but remains married to Sean Burke, also revealed in a separate interview that she had been "looking forward" to celebrating Pride Month as a gay "Housewife" before the network walked away from her.

"I was at the beach with a friend, and the showrunner said, ‘Hey, are you free?’ … He called and just said, ‘Hey, you know, Bravo is not renewing your contract. They decided to go a different direction,'" she shared on the "Reality Life with Kate Casey" podcast Friday.

"I just sat down on the ground and cried," Windham-Burke added. "I didn’t want to break down in public. But I kind of just sat down behind my car and I just cried."