Garcelle Beauvais and her son have had a rough relationship over the years, and they recently opened up about it on television for everyone to see.
During the latest episode of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” Beauvais got extremely honest about the trials she and her son Oliver Saunders have gone through over the years while she was hosting a dinner at her newly renovated beach house.
She shared, “My boys are doing great. My relationship with Oliver right now is really good. We’ve come a long way. Oliver was in a really dark place over the years” referring to her oldest son struggling with a drug addiction over the years.
Beauvais continued, “I had all kinds of emotions, sometimes all in one day: fear, guilt, what did I do wrong? Especially when I had to practice tough love, and I knew he was homeless, and I knew he was in a bad place, and I couldn’t do anything.”
The “Jamie Foxx Show” actress later shared a specific moment where she understood the gravity of what her son was going through, recalling when she was spending time with a friend and her son randomly came to her home.
Although her 32-year-old son was in a vulnerable state, Beauvais had to exact some tough love, saying, “I looked outside, I turned on the light and I saw it was Oliver. It was Oliver in body form, but it wasn’t Oliver the way he acted, the way his eyes looked, the way he was so erratic and he was trying to get into the pool house.”
She later added, “He was like, ‘Let me in. Let me in.’ And I’m like, ‘Do I call Mike [Beauvais’ ex-husband]? Mike has the boys. What do I do? I’m like, maybe, let’s just be quiet. Maybe he’ll go somewhere else, I mean, and this is my son, right, that I’m not opening the door for. I watched him walk away and I didn’t take him in.”
This isn’t the first time Beauvais spoke about her oldest son’s addiction on the show. In a 2020 episode, she was extremely honest about how she hasn’t been a perfect parent and revealed that her oldest son has been dealing with addiction since he was in the fifth grade.
Thankfully, Saunders is doing much better now and has been sober for years; he credited his wife Samantha Saunders in a 2021 interview: “Even though I told myself when I felt like I was ready to stop, and I wanted to stop I could, but it was easier said than done. Then I swear, I swear, it was God, and my wife and my son, and it was just one day, none of that stuff mattered.”
