Jenni Pulos Says She Will Keep Loving Goddaughter Monroe 'From Afar' After Rift with Jeff Lewis
Jenni Pulos has nothing but love for her goddaughter, Monroe, despite a fiery falling out with the little girl’s dad, Jeff Lewis.
During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live’s after show with Andy Cohen, Pulos received a phone-in fan question asking how she planned to maintain her role as godmother to Lewis’ nearly two-year-old daughter, after the former friends and longtime Flipping Out costars ended their relationship. Pulos explained that despite her rift with Lewis, she planned to continue loving Monroe, even if from a distance.
“I will always pray for her,” Pulos, 45, said. “I was raised Greek Orthodox, so prayer I believe is important in all aspects. I don’t feel as though I will never love her, it’s just for now, it’s from afar.”
The mom of two (she shares daughters Alianna, 5, and Georgia, 17 months, with husband Jonathan Nassos) admitted that the entire situation was “difficult,” not only because of her relationship with Lewis’ child, but because of her close ties to his entire family.
RELATED: From Godparents to Parting Ways: Inside Jeff Lewis and Jenni Pulos’ Volatile Friendship
“The whole thing is wild and completely unexpected,” Pulos said. “I have loved him like a brother and I always will. I wish him and [Monroe] the best and their family and his father. They’ve been a big part of my life for a long time.”
Lewis asked his former friend to be Monroe’s godmother during the season 10 finale of Flipping Out in 2017.
“Jenni’s one of my closest friends,” Lewis, 48, said in the episode. “She’s also very religious, so I think she will take the job very seriously.”
The Flipping Out star spoke out about her exit from Lewis’ company, Jeff Lewis Design, for the first time in a recent issue of PEOPLE, making it clear she had been fired.
“I didn’t decide,” she said. “He decided he was going to terminate me from his business and so then in turn, the decision was made. I always saw myself seeing the show through.”
WATCH THIS: Flipping Out’s Jenni Pulos Says Her Friendship with Jeff Lewis Is ‘Over’: ‘I Have to Move On’
While Lewis declined to comment to PEOPLE for the story, in a heated segment on his Sirius XM radio show, Jeff Lewis Live!, the house flipper hit back, accusing her of lying about the circumstances surrounding her departure from his company in May.
Lewis has previously alleged that Pulos had filed complaints with Bravo and show executives calling him out for victimization and abuse, and then later for wrongful termination. Pulos vehemently denied these claims to PEOPLE, saying “Citing wrongful termination claim, wrong. Citing abuse claim, wrong. Citing victimization claim, wrong.”
“We see things very differently,” she added. “I believed I had been an asset to his business and he believed differently, I imagine.”
Though he seemingly walked back some details of the alleged filing, noting she may not have gone to Human Resources with a lawyer, he claims that a Bravo executive had dinner with him and, separately, with Jenni, and that “my show-runner was on the phone for four hours talking to multiple executives going frame by frame to make sure there was no abuse that was being alleged.”
In September, PEOPLE broke the news that the friends of nearly 20 years, who’ve appeared on the show together for 11 seasons, had parted ways after an explosive fight, which was reportedly caught on video and will appear in the series’ current season.
RELATED: From Jenni Pulos to Zoila Chavez, Everyone Jeff Lewis Has Parted Ways With on Flipping Out.
Recently, Lewis has been at the center of another controversy involving a lawsuit filed by Alexandra Trent, the surrogate who carried Monroe. Trent claims that her labor and delivery was filmed without her permission, among other issues. Both issues have left the fate of Lewis’s show up in the air. His contract had not been renewed by an October 15th deadline, he said, but noted that doesn’t mean Flipping Out is definitely canceled.
Reps for Bravo confirmed to PEOPLE that “nothing official has been determined” regarding Flipping Out. They had no comment on the status of Lewis’s contract.
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