He's a lawyer - so he's knows how to perfectly navigate a grilling session. But we still got the tea we came to get from Justin Reese, star of the hit Bravo show "Southern Charm New Orleans". Why do men often do everything with "the love of their life" but give them a ring?
Plus, we've got the exclusive sneak peek at the season finale!
As a personal injury lawyer and sports agent from New Orleans, Justin Reese is a prominent figure in his community and is involved in plenty community endeavors. But what’s really the talk of the town - and reality TV - is his relationship with co-star and girlfriend, nurse Kelsey Nichols,as their drama plays out on the show. So, we caught up with Mr. "I'm waiting for the right time" Reese to do some fact-checking!
Justin and Kelsey have moved in together and have renovated a whole house together (atop). But she remains a girlfriend - for now - and folks have questions (like, is her name on the deed or nah?).
When it came to redesigning his childhood home on the show, which was torn apart from Hurricane Katrina, Justin credited his girlfriend for being a huge inspiration for it all.
“Kelsey and I are both big HGTV fans, so we would watch stuff to get ideas. I never was a fan of Pinterest, she had me making a Pinterest account and the next thing you know I’m saving stuff, it was cool but then it got really overwhelming because it's so much stuff out there and we had a contractor we were working with and a designer- two ladies that were a mother-daughter duo," Justin dished to us. "They were not just interior decorators, they’re designers. They help you pick the hardware floors, the cabinets, the countertops. They made our lives so much easier. They helped streamline the process even more."
However, Justin admitted they went way over the budget during the process.
“Man, I went over $100,000 over budget, 100 grand in cash. That’s a lot! And I’m thinking to myself, we need to move to the next step so how do I do this? I had to pump the brakes a little bit and slow down. I had to cut a lot of things off. I used to spend a lot of money, but I went back to shopping at Macy’s and taking my clothes to the tailors. I started saving thousands of dollars. I had to go on a really strict budget to get comfortable again.”
Come through financial plan! Yet and still, Kelsey clearly wasn't trying to hear it, because she has definitely brought up the question about when they're going to take that next step. Multiple times.
Now, let’s get to the nitty gritty of why you really clicked on this post. We all want - read, NEED - to know: Where the ring at Justin?! *City Girls voice*
“Well you gotta watch how everything plays out this season,” said Reese.
The real question is, why the wait? Why are men seemingly waiting so long to pop the question when they already claim to know who they want to spend the rest of their life with? Justin explains it's not so much the marriage part as to why men are scared to jump the broom, but more of the fear of not being able to provide.
“Well, speaking for the good guys that want to take care of his family and his future wife. Being a provider - I take pride in being able to provide for Kelsey,” Justin said. "It's not that I pay 100 percent on everything, she chips in and she’s a big part of my life. She definitely pulls weight as well. I just feel like as a man, that’s my job."
We gotta say, we love the maturity and honesty.
He also mentioned that with marriage comes more responsibility than a lot of men can handle.
“As men, we put a lot more pressure on ourselves than necessary, but you want to hold it down. That's what it feels like to be a man,” Justin said. "A lot of the responsibilities of getting engaged, planning a wedding...a lot of that falls on us. We’re past being 25 and having our parents pay for it. It's on us."
Speaking of parents (Justin's dad is a prominent Civil District Court judge and his mom is a philanthropist), when it comes to his family and Kelsey getting along, Justin says it's all good on his side.
“My mom [pictured above with Kelsey] loves Kelsey. She’s really taken to Kelsey, and they have their own relationship which is really nice to see. My mom invites her to do philanthropic work, takes her to different organizations to network and build relationships..."
Sweet!
And about all that drama going on between Kelsey and their married co-star Tamica Lee, who seemingly has smoke for Kelsey every time they see each other, we had to ask. Does Tamica have a thang for the kid?
Justin assures it’s nothing like that.
“Tamica is in love with her husband [Barry Lee, both pictured above on far right] and Barry and I have become really good friends over the years, we built our own friendship," said Justin. "He’s like a big brother to me. Tamica is just very possessive and territorial. She always says 'I’m just looking out for you'. She takes it too far. I think she wants to be the alpha cat in the group and all roads and gates have to go back to Tamica.”
Whewww chile. So since we couldn’t get the ring talk out of Reese, we're just gonna have to wait and see what’s gonna go down in the N.O. for the rest of the season.
Here's an exclusive sneak peek at the season 2 finale:
"Southern Charm New Orleans" airs Sundays at 9pm ET/PT on Bravo!
Photos: Instagram