On a recent episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Garcelle Beauvais got honest about the status of her relationship with her son Oliver Saunders, who struggled with drug addiction.
“My boys are doing great. My relationship with Oliver right now is really good. We’ve come a long way,” she said during the January 7 episode of the show.
“Oliver was in a really dark place over the years. I had all kinds of emotions, sometimes all in one day — fear, guilt, what did I do wrong?” the TV star shared.
“Especially when I had to practice tough love, and I knew he was homeless, and I knew he was in a bad place, and I couldn’t,” she recalled. “I couldn’t do anything.”
Beauvais, 58, recalled being in her home spending quality time with a girlfriend a few years ago and hearing a noise late at night. After looking outside and turning on the light, she saw it was Oliver, she shared tearfully.
“It was Oliver in the body form, but it wasn’t Oliver the way he acted, the way his eyes looked, the way he was so erratic, and he was trying to get into the pool house,” Beauvais said.
The Jamie Foxx show actress continued, “He was like, ‘Let me in. Let me in.’ And I’m like, ‘Do I call Mike? Mike has the boys. What do I do?'” she continued. “I’m like, maybe, let’s just be quiet. Maybe he’ll go somewhere else, I mean, and this is my son, right, that I’m not opening the door for.”
“I watched him walk away and I didn’t take him in,” Garcelle explained. “I felt 1000 pounds of guilt, not letting him in. This was the tough love that we had to do so that hopefully, that’s the thing that changes things. That’s the thing, if he can’t see his brothers, he can’t see us, he can’t come to the house. And I think for Oliver, it was that.”
Garcelle has two other children, with Oliver being the eldest. Her other children include twins Jax Joseph Nilon, and Jaid Thomas Nilon who she had with her ex-husband CAA agent Michael Nilon in 2007.
Nowadays, Oliver is doing much better and Garcelle couldn’t be happier for her son.
“I am grateful, eternally grateful that he is in a great place. He’s a great dad. He had to do a lot of catching up on life,” she added.
Oliver hasn’t shied away from discussing his challenges with addiction. In 2021, he shared what the turning point was for him during an interview with Confessional Magazine.
“For years, I had been trying to fight it. I had gone to rehab, I had talked to people, therapists, all type of stuff like that,” he said at the time. “Even though I told myself when I felt like I was ready to stop, and I wanted to stop I could, but it was easier said than done. Then I swear, I swear, it was God, and my wife and my son, and it was just one day, none of that stuff mattered.”