NeNe Leakes addresses her oldest son’s addiction: ‘Nothing I can do’

NeNe Leakes says her oldest son’s addiction has her at a loss.

The former star of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" spoke about her son Bryson Rashard Bryant’s struggles in a clip previewing an upcoming two-part interview for the “Reality with the King” podcast, according to People magazine.

Speaking to the podcast’s host Carlos King, a former "Housewives" producer, Leakes shares that she’s spoken to Bryant, 33, on the phone and described him as “doing OK.”

Bryant is Leakes’ oldest child. She also has a younger son, Brentt Leakes, with her late husband, Gregg Leakes.

“He needs rehabilitation,” Leakes explained. “He needs a lot of counseling. Like many families out there, I have family members that are struggling with drugs and certain addictions. He has an addiction. He’s been struggling with it for years. He’s been in rehab for a couple of times, and he still has come back out and relapsed.”

Leakes shared that while his road to recovery has been difficult, she’s come to the realization that she cannot help her son until he is ready to receive it.

“As a mom, just to watch it, my hands are tied,” she explained. “He's an adult. He has three beautiful children who I adore. He has a wife. (There’s) not much that I can do. For people who have had children or family members that have been on drugs, they know that they have to be ready. They have to simply be ready.”

Leakes shared that she has tried to help Bryant in the past.

“But every time I’ve sent him off is because I said, ‘You are getting your a-- up and we are sending you off,’” she explained. “But I learned through counseling myself that he has to say, ‘I’m ready to go,’ not me making him go. So until Bryson is ready to make a change, (there’s) nothing I can do.

“As a mother, I could never wash my hands of my child, right? But I'm kind of numb to it because it's been happening for so many years.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com