Tamra Judge Chokes up While Discussing Her "Volatile Relationship" with Simon Barney at BravoCon 2019

Tamra Judge has always been an open book when it comes to her challenging relationship with Simon Barney, whom she divorced in 2011. However, the longtime Real Housewives of Orange County cast member shared a rare display of emotion while speaking about her ex-husband at BravoCon on Sunday, November 17.

Tamra opened up about watching her relationship with Simon on the show during the RHOC: The Juice Is Worth the Squeeze panel moderated by Amy Phillips, the host of Radio Andy's Reality Checked. "Yeah, that was difficult," Tamra shared. "It definitely helped me find my independence. I mean, we were gonna eventually break up. We just had a very volatile relationship. We fought a lot, we loved a lot."

She then praised Simon for being "an amazing dad" before choking up with tears in her eyes.

When asked why she was getting so emotional, Tamra said, as her voice cracked, "It's hard."

RHOC fans watched Tamra and Simon's often tumultuous relationship play out on the show in her first seasons, including the time she told her then-husband that she wanted a divorce in Season 5. Simon filed for divorce from Tamra in 2010 after 12 years of marriage. 

Co-parenting has also not been the easiest for Tamra and Simon to navigate with eldest daughter Sidney Barney choosing to live with her father, son Spencer Barney staying with Tamra and her husband, Eddie Judge, whom she married in 2013, and youngest child Sophia Barney splitting her time between both of her parents' households.

Even though Simon hasn't appeared on RHOC in quite some time, Tamra said during the panel that he receives backlash from fans as if he were still on the show, which she wishes wasn't the case. "I think the hardest thing is is that we go through these breakups, we remain on the show, they keep doing these constant flashbacks, and our exes get so much s--t, get made fun of," she said during the panel. "They're off the show now. It just makes me feel bad."

Tamra similarly got emotional during an interview with ET in June in which she confirmed that she and Simon have "actually been getting along very well."

"It’s been a long time coming but, you know, I’ve always wanted this. I've always wanted to co-parent and now we're actually doing it," she said. "I think we're at a point in our lives where we're just like, you know what? We're both happy, we went through this, it was hard but let’s make the best of it. So, we've moved on."

See more from the RHOC panel, which also featured reveals from Shannon Storms Beador, Kelly Dodd, Gina Kirschenheiter, Emily Simpson, and Braunwyn Windham-Burke, above.