Here's Why It Wasn't Friendship at First Sight for LeeAnne Locken and Tiffany Hendra
"She pretty much was on the hate train," the #RHOD charity maven told The Daily Dish.
LeeAnne Locken and Tiffany Hendra give us some serious friendship envy on The Real Housewives of Dallas, but that wasn't always the case. Tiffany wasn't such a fan of LeeAnne's when the two first met about 30 years ago.
"Saying she didn't like me is a gentle statement. She really didn't like me. She pretty much was on the hate train," LeeAnne told The Daily Dish, adding that she thought Tiffany "was adorable" upon their first meeting. "I think it's easy for people to misjudge me. I think that I'm very loud. I'm very in-your-face. I'm very big."
LeeAnne and Tiffany first met back when the Houston-based Neal Hamil Agency sent them both out on a modeling job in Galveston, Texas. "And it was February, and the client wanted us to run on the beach in bikinis for an eyeglass company. And I'm like, 'You're gonna pay me, so I'm gonna do it,' but I was so frozen and irritated, he was like, 'Can we take y'all to lunch?' And I was like, 'Yes, you can take us to the most expensive restaurant, Gaido's, in Galveston, and I'm gonna order everything on the menu,'" LeeAnne explained (clip above). "And [Tiffany] ran back, she was like, 'Don't ever book me with her again. She's horrible!' She literally hated me."
But Tiffany eventually warmed up to LeeAnne as the two kept getting booked for the same modeling gigs. "I think at that point [she] had a different opinion of it." LeeAnne said. "She realized I wasn't doing it to be obnoxious; I was doing it because we deserved a good, warm meal after that."
Since then, the two have been pretty much inseparable. They even both eventually made their way to Dallas together after living and "partying way too hard" in Austin and LeeAnne got offered a print modeling job that came with a big paycheck. "That's when Tiffany and I were like, 'We're never gonna take this seriously. We're never gonna be accountable to ourselves and make real good money until we leave Austin, because it's just too easy for us.' Everybody knew us. We were safe everywhere we went. Everybody knew us. They called up supermodels on the radio," she explained. "We moved to Dallas. We rented a 27-foot U-Haul, threw everything we owned in it. I drove the U-Haul and Tiffany drove her car and trucked on up to Dallas. Got an apartment."
Their friendship was really put to the test when Tiffany decided to move to Los Angeles after living in Dallas for about eight years. "When she left to [go to] L.A., we had gotten in a huge fight. I did not want her to move to L.A. I had already lived in L.A.," LeeAnne said. "But I knew she really wanted to, so we had gotten in a fight. We didn't speak for two years."
LeeAnne couldn't be happier to have Tiffany back in the Lone Star State with her. "I sing every day. I'm like, 'Yay, she's home!'" she said.
The pals have their fare share of tense moments this season of RHOD, too. "I think doing a reality show tests your relationship with anyone you have a relationship with," LeeAnne said. "No one really understands what you're going through when you're shooting the show, when you're watching the show, when you're doing interviews for the show. Yes, I think this has tested our friendship."
But LeeAnne said their bond is strong enough to withstand anything. "Do I think [RHOD] has tested our friendship more than anything else we've weathered over the last 30 years? No," she said. "We're always gonna be in each other's lives. We chose each other before we chose our life mates, so we'll always be friends. We'll always be together."
Get to know LeeAnne, Tiffany, and the rest of the RHOD ladies through the years, below.
