Credit: David Becker/Bravo
Married to Medicine star Dr. Jackie Walters is under fire for comments she made about pregnant Black women.
After suggesting to Dr. Heavenly Kimes, 53, that Black women don’t get the same care as others due to their supposed tendency to be “dramatic” and “cry wolf,” Jackie, 65, was met with backlash from Mariah Huq, 45, and social media users, many of whom slammed Dr. Jackie for her “dangerous” and “disturbing” statements.
“Sometimes as African American women, we’re a bit more dramatic in that you go to the doctor and you complain and you complain and you complain, and you’re not taken serious because you cried wolf the entire pregnancy,” Jackie alleged in a video shared by The Neighborhood Talk on Instagram, which appears to have originated from a YouTube Live she did with Dr. Heavenly a while ago.
“That ain’t me, boo, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. But go ahead,” Heavenly replied.
Continuing on, Jackie added, “I didn’t say you. I just said as African American women, we wanna also make sure you’re being serious with your doctor and not playing the games so I can take you off work. Because then we see you 25 times in the pregnancy. It’s hard to believe that there’s a true problem when there’s a true problem.”
While Dr. Jackie was featured on the most recent episode of Married to Medicine working on an initiative with Vice President Kamala Harris to help deal with the higher-than-normal mortality rate for pregnant Black women, the OBGYN still faced a ton of backlash.
Following the sharing of the post, one person wrote, “Her saying this is dangerous!”
Another added, “This is TRULY disturbing coming from a black woman.”
“For a Black woman to say this and white women in healthcare to admit how much Black women have been and are overlooked health-wise is insane,” shared a third.
Someone else noted that Black women have the highest death rates during childbirth, adding that the stat is likely due to “doctors saying things like this.”
“It’s truly sad and heartbreaking,” they added.
“This is truly disturbing and wicked work,” wrote another IG user.
Then, after someone else called Jackie’s comments “disturbing AF,” a woman claiming to be a former patient of Dr. Jackie’s spoke out.
“This is very triggering [Dr. Jackie Walters] because you minimized my pain. I’m crying and shaking because I’m in disbelief that you continue to minimize the experience of an African American mother,” the person wrote. “I was a patient who complained about pain. Your office staff misdiagnosed my pain over the phone and attempted to deny me a sick appointment. After pleading, they agreed to schedule the appointment. The first thing you said when you saw me is ‘You don’t look like you’re in pain.’”
“My husband told you that I was in pain. Since you didn’t have sonogram equipment in your Duluth office, you sent an order to a specialist at Northside who discovered that I had started dilating,” she continued. “They immediately admitted me into the hospital and I ultimately delivered my baby girl at 22 weeks, 1lb via emergency c-section. You never followed up, you never apologized, you never cared. The clip of you minimizing the pregnancy experience of mothers speaks volumes to your character and it’s one that I wish I saw before I made the mistake of entrusting you as my doctor.”
Another patient asked, “Soooo this is the reason I almost died in ur care huh, Jackie?”
“I am still traumatized by my experience of telling you over and over how I didn’t feel right how exhausted I was and how your response to me was I was just lazy and I would have a lazy baby and I just needed to exercise!” they shared. “This is so triggering I am literally shaking and crying!! YOU ARE THE PROBLEM! I would be dead!!”
“This is why the black maternal mortality rate is where it is right now. Because of doctors like her,” someone else added.
Meanwhile, in another video, shared by All About the Tea, via The Neighborhood Talk on Instagram, Mariah admitted Dr. Jackie’s comments weren’t all that surprising to her due to the Married to Medicine castmate’s previous behavior.
“She’s shown that since season one. We’ve seen how she treated obese ladies and we’ve seen how she’s judged a lot of women. I mean, we give her grace because she’s Dr. Jackie, but she ain’t Jesus, and she makes mistakes like the rest of us,” Mariah explained. “I think one of the problems with the show is that we have put her so much on a pedestal and why? Because her patients are celebrities? No. We gotta do better with that … It’s not the worst thing to educate the fool.”
According to Mariah, she thinks it’s “horrid” that Dr. Jackie planted that kind of seed about Black women.
“We are already fighting so many stereotypes and preconceived notions,” Mariah went on. “[And] I hate that she’s made those comments, but I saw who she was when she compared me to herpes, and she’s an OBGYN and treats people with venereal disease daily. I was one of the victims of her spewed hate and people kind of swept it under the rug because it was Dr. Jackie, and we gotta stop doing that.”
Also in the video, Mariah said she’s glad to see that Dr. Jackie finally showed her true colors.
“I think it’s great that she’s telling you what she really thinks. I think it’s great that we’ve seen what she thinks about Black women and think that we’re crying wolf. And I think that we just have to take a step back, and when people show you who they are, believe them,” she stated.
Married to Medicine season 10 airs on Sundays at 9/8c on Bravo.