EXCLUSIVE'The Real Housewives Of Miami' Fan Favorite Alexia Echevarria Opens Up About Family, Her Grand Return To Reality TV & What To Expect For The Highly Anticipated Reunion
Alexia Echevarria is back and better than ever!
The Real Housewives of Miami star sat down with OK! to discuss how her life has been since opening her home again to reality TV cameras for the Peacock reboot.
"Well, I had forgotten how difficult it is to actually be back on camera," Echevarria explains after the original series ended in 2013. "At the same time, it felt very natural because even though it's been eight years, it's kind of something that you learn and you never forget."
The Alexia + Frankie´s Beauty Bar owner — who always knew the Bravo series would come back for another season — reveals that sharing her life with viewers has helped her grow into her own: "I think at this point in my life, it [the show] really helped me be so open and now, I want to share it all and feel it all."
Echevarria, who tied the knot with Todd Nepola in December "just the two of them" in St. Barths, has never shied away from revealing everything about her life on screen.
During a recent episode of the show's fourth season, the mother-of-two — who shares sons Peter Rosello and Frankie Rosello with ex Peter Rosello Sr. — allowed cameras to capture a family rift between her eldest son and her new husband over the best way to take care of her youngest child. (Rosello suffered brain injuries after being involved in a traumatic car accident in August of 2011.)
Although the rift was "hard" on the family to put out there, Echevarria knew the audience would connect to her family's struggles. "What we really got from that scene was the fact that this end, this is really about Frankie," the Cuban tv star explains. "So it brought us together as a family to say, you know what? We need to take action."
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"We saw ourselves and we're like, wow! We sometimes do need to see something like that to kind of wake you up," she continues about her new blended family. "So I feel like this scene was very hard for us as a family, but it was also very good because we got through it."
For the talented businesswoman, allowing audiences see her family struggles puts any disputes with her fellow housewives into persepctive. "I know I'm going to have to talk a lot about my personal story and my personal life, which is always a lot more difficult than fighting with one of the girls," Echiverria — who also revealed during the season that her late husband Herman Echevarria was gay — shares.
"I think that once I get past that, which to me obviously is the most difficult, it's not so difficult because I've shared it already, but it makes me emotional."
The seasoned television star — who starred in the show's orginal run on Bravo in seasons 1-3 — is now gearing up for the highly anticapted reunion but after already having three specials under belt, she is ready for whatever her fellow housewives throw at her.
"I'm not worried about anything at all because I'm this type of person that I can get my point across without slapping somebody, you know?" Echevarria jokes.
"Also that's the beauty of friendship. You get to stay where you get to say, and then at the end you hug it out or you don't." She adds, "Then you can move forward like everything in life. I'm hoping that we will come out of the reunion where we get to share everything, move forward and have a great season five!"
