We can never forget the audacity of Cousin Faith (Gina Ravera) in Soul Food.. Known for her troubles, Faith is taken in by her cousin Teri (Vanessa Williams) who offers her some solace and peace with the hopes that she’ll make a fresh start. Instead, she bonds with Teri’s husband Miles, seduces him and then gets her back blown out up against a window. Much to viewers’ delight (and horror), Teri wields a butcher knife at her cousin during her sister and brother-in-laws 11th wedding anniversary party. It’s a side chick scene no one could ever forget.
Everyone loves Sanaa Lathan and all of her onscreen characters, unless of course they’ve seen her in The Family That Preys. She plays smart-mouthed corporate climber Andrea who shows open disdain for her mother’s lowly lifestyle and her husband’s middle class ambition, She truly believes that her married, White boss, William, will leave his wife to play house with her, but has karma has other plans. By the end of the film, she’s lost her man and her money.
She’s the side chick we love to hate, and whose closet we love even more. Scandal’s Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is a badass boss but her achilles heel is the love she shares for the very married President of the United States, Fitzgerald Grant. Her complicated character makes her one of the messiest and most fascinating ones on TV. Fans are secretly still wishing she and Fitz can still live make jam in Vermont together by series end.
Fans wait with baited breath week after week for Angela (Lela Loren) on Starz’ hit series POWER to die. Known as the first and lifelong love to the show’s main man, James “Ghost” St. Patrick, Angie is a AUSA agent whose secret, home-wrecking relationship with Jamie constantly sends Twitter timelines into full panic mode. Sadly, fans take their hate for Loren’s character a little too far and the star has revealed that her onscreen persona has garnered real-life death threats and hate mail.
Savannah (Whitney Houston) was without a doubt one of the two more problematic favorites in Waiting to Exhale. No matter how hard she tried to stay away from her married man Kenneth (especially when her mother kept urging her to keep him), ultimately she was wooed by his charm time and time again, all while holding on to the hope that he would still one day leave his wife for her. Thankfully, she finally had the confidence to move on in the end.
Mary Jane Paul (Gabrielle Union), what are we going to do with you? In season one of the hit series, Being Mary Jane, the fictional newscaster is shaking sheets with a married man named Andre (Omari Hardwick) and she has the nerve to taunt and confront his wife about their passionate affair — in person. Finally finding some act right, MJ leaves Andre behind to focus on what’s important: her friends, her family and her career.
We’ve admittedly fallen quickly in love with all the women in Girls Trip but we openly hate Simone (Deborah Ayorinde). As the one who is standing in the way of Ryan and her husband Stewart from having it all, the side chick (who we can admit is beautiful and what body goals are made of) made us angry every single time she appeared on screen.
Robin (Lela Rochon) is like the homegirl that you are rooting for to get her stuff together because she’s beautiful, talented and throws out one liners like no one’s business but she’s messing with a trifling married man named Russell who gets her pregnant. She deserves better and you know it just like she does.
When it comes to love, both old and new, no one reflects on them quite like Nia Long’s character Jordan does in The Best Man. She told Harper(Taye Diggs) she felt the moment between them even though she knew he was already coupled up with his longtime girlfriend, Robin (Sanaa Lathan). She planted a kiss on him, made an successful attempt to shoot her shot and was truly ready to execute her plan that night had things not gone so terribly wrong.
When Halle Berry’s character slapped Eddie Murphy’s character in Boomerang and uttered the famous line, “Love should’ve brought your ass home last night,” it was all because of Robin Givens’ Jacqueline just had to see if her ex lover could still be tempted by her. Now that’s playing dirty.