Basketball Wives Season 8

Chronicling the lives of women who are wives, girlfriends, ex partners, and love interests of professional basketballers and coaches in the NBA, Basketball Wives is a reality TV show set in Los Angeles. Airing on VH1 since 2010, the show is now in its 8th season after taking an almost five year break between seasons 5 and 6. 

The cast of the show has changed throughout the eight seasons and has included wives and girlfriends like Evelyn Lozada, Shaunie O’Neal, and Tasha Marbury. Marbury is the wife of Stephon Marbury, the former Point Guard of the Milwaukee Bucks, who are the favourites to win this year’s Eastern Conference. For season 8, the main cast was made up of six actresses:

• Malaysia Pargo
• Jennifer Williams
• Evelyn Lozada
• Jackie Christie
• Tami Roman
• Shaune O’Neal

Despite the show being called “Basketball Wives”, all of these main cast members, with the exception of Jackie Christie, were ex-partners and no longer romantically involved with sportsmen. 

The 8th season was made up of eighteen 44-minute episodes, airing between June and October 2019, with none attracting more than 1.34 million viewers. It was the first season of the show to be moved from Monday nights to a Wednesday slot. The plot of each episode varied between revoked wedding invites, a secret marriage, household drama, robberies, rumour spreading, defamatory internet articles, and infidelity.  

Notable storylines include Tami Roman’s return to the show, bringing some big news with her. She is now married to Reggie Youngblood—a former football player who is 17 years younger than Tami—after the pair eloped in Las Vegas. Tami’s exited the show in episode 13 and is preparing a spinoff show called Tami Ever After, which will also star Youngblood. Malaysia Pargo’s return to the show is partly because she has moved back to LA for business; however, her sons have moved to Atlanta. Malaysia plans to travel between the two coasts regularly and spent most of the season trying to calm the drama among CeCe, Kristen and Byron.  

Season 8 of Basketball Wives was very much like other seasons. There was plenty of drama, most of which makes great guilty-pleasure TV. It is Tami’s last season, and other cast members are going through major changes in their lives that affect the show. After Tami’s departure, rumours began circulating that the show was going to be cancelled. Many fans took to Twitter to declare that they would no longer watch the show after Tami’s departure. While no official announcement has been made yet, the show’s drop in viewing figures for season 8 won’t do it any favours.