‘RHOM’ star Dr. Nicole Martin says ‘the truth always prevails’ amid cast drama

Dr. Nicole Martin may live in Miami, but she says her "Real Housewives of Miami" castmates make her feel like she’s living on another planet.

Martin, star of Peacock’s "The Real Housewives of Miami" recently got some laughs on social media when she responded to an Instagram question that stated, “How do you deal with being so normal and your castmates are not from planet Earth?” with simply an alien emoji.

She tells TODAY.com, “Sometimes I do feel like I’m living in an alternate universe with some of these people.”

Martin stars alongside Alexia Nepola, Larsa Pippen, Lisa Hochstein, Guerdy Abraira, Julia Lemigova and friends of the cast Marysol Patton, Adriana de Moura and Kiki Barth. New episodes of "RHOM" drop Thursdays on Peacock.

With only a few episodes left in ‘RHOM’ Season Five, TODAY.com caught up with Martin about the rest of the season and the highly-anticipated reunion.

Martin says ‘the truth always prevails’ when it comes to show drama

During her two-season tenure on "RHOM," Martin has found herself deep in drama with her castmates, often going up against seasoned OGs all alone. 

Martin’s ability to easily clap back at her castmates quickly made her a fan favorite.

"When you’re completely authentic with who you are and you’re not trying to be anyone else or you’re not trying to do it for fame, you’re just genuine … I think that radiates. The truth always prevails," she says.

She says she opened up more during her second season on the show. Martin explains, “In my first season, this was a whole new world. I had never done anything like this, I was not used to being in front of the camera. The second time around, you get a little bit more comfortable. So I think you’re a lot more in the moment and the reactions are a lot less censored,” she says.

How Martin came up with that disinvite for Larsa Pippen

In Season Five, Martin and Pippen got into a tiff after Pippen said Martin slept with “the whole hospital.”

Martin, an anesthesiologist, denied the claim and emphasized how damaging Pippen’s “slanderous” words could be for her career.

Martin then uninvited Pippen from her engagement party by sending her a mirror that said, “Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fakest one of all.” The mirror is meant to imply that Pippen is the most disingenuous of them all.

How did Martin come up with the idea? She tells TODAY.com, “I was talking to my makeup person, Grace, who has become one of my very good friends. I was just venting to her and I was like, ‘man, I can’t believe her. How dare she say something like this? You know, the audacity … she should really look in the mirror.’”

Martin continues, “Then I was like, ‘OK, I’ll say I don’t want her to come to my engagement party because I don’t think someone who said such nasty things should be invited to a celebration of love.’ Then we just started chatting and playing with it, and the mirror disinvite was created.”

Wondering why Andy Cohen screamed at Larsa Pippen at the ‘RHOM’ Season 5 reunion taping? Martin knows

Pippen has yet to apologize to Martin for her comments about her alleged extracurricular activities with hospital staff.

"I want to say that at some point she would have been like, ‘I get it, this was wrong.’ But no, you know, even up until the reunion, which you guys will have to catch on Peacock, she still just did not get it. Hence the Andy yelling at her moment. He was even like, ‘Are you serious, you just don’t get it?’ It just does not click for some people and I can’t even answer why she’s just so incapable of understanding," she says.

Martin adds that although Pippen “really wants to be on reality TV,” she thinks that she “doesn’t want to open up her real life,” including her rumored relationship with Michael Jordan’s son, Marcus Jordan.

"Her entire season has been shaming others, spreading rumors, starting conflict because she doesn’t want to share her real life. At what point is it OK to have a real life, but then you show us a fake life and you create fake drama," she says.

Martin says Nepola doesn’t like when 'somebody that comes into her orbit that sparkles'

Martin points to a divide between the newcomers and the OGs within the cast – namely, Patton and Nepola.

Martin says the more senior cast members have a "blind alliance," as in: "I’m gonna have your back no matter what because of X, Y and Z."

“They can say the sky is purple and they will die on their deathbed saying the sky is purple together because they’re scared or there’s potential accusations that can fly,” Martin continues.

Nepola has proven to be quite the opponent for Martin. The pair feuded over Nepola not understanding Martin’s side of her drama with Pippen.

Much of this season has centered on Lisa Hochstein’s impending divorce, leading to Nepola hosting a brunch with a family attorney to answer questions from the housewives.

When Martin asked the attorney about slanderous comments, referencing Pippen, Nepola interjected, telling Martin that she’s “not that smart,” and adding that she wasn’t paying the attorney to be there to answer questions about slander.

In response, Martin retrieved her black American Express credit card from her purse and gave it to the attorney, telling him to charge her to answer her question. Nepola coined Martin’s actions as disrespectful.

When Martin and her husband, Anthony Lopez, also an attorney, went to dinner with Nepola and her husband, Todd Nepola, tensions continued to bubble over as Nepola confronted Martin for “disrespecting” the attorney by giving him her credit card.

Martin tells TODAY.com that Nepola and her husband’s demeanor at the event felt “so punitive and petty, and just an attempt to be confrontational for no apparent reason. So I just don’t understand the anger and people that are newlyweds … aren’t they supposed to be on cloud nine and in marital bliss?”

Although the latest episode of "RHOM" shows Nepola saying she has love for Martin after the pair made amends, Nepola’s recent appearance on ‘Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen’ tells a different story.

On the February 1, 2023 episode of "WWHL," Nepola appeared alongside co-star Patton, who said “we like Julia (Lemigova) and Guerdy (Abraira),” a sentiment that Nepola agreed with … seemingly indicating they do not like Martin.

Martin tells TODAY.com, “I had really high hopes when I came on the series. Alexia was actually the one that introduced me to all the women. We have so many things in common when it comes to our past, so it would feel like a very natural progression for us to be good friends, but it’s never been that way.”

What might Nepola’s holdup with Martin be? Martin says, “I think she puts it best … like she says, she’s a star. As a star, I don’t think she does well when anyone comes into her orbit that sparkles. So if you’re coming into her space and you potentially shine, she is very combative and she wants to shut you down.”

Martin continues, “She did it with me, she did it with Julia, and she did it with Guerdy. She did it with every single newbie on the cast. I think that says more about her than it does about us.”

In a recent interview on Behind The Velvet Rope With David Yontef, Nepola said that Martin is different on and off camera, which Martin denies.

Martin addresses Nepola’s statement, telling TODAY.com, “I’m a very kind, transparent person both on and off the camera. Whether I’m on camera or I’m not, if you come for me, I’m going to be a d--- back, rightfully so.”

“I’ve never instigated a single problem in the two seasons that I’ve been on. I’m never on the offense, I’m never instigating, I’m always playing defense. It’s like, don’t come for me and I won’t come for you, just leave me alone. They don’t realize it, but them creating problems with me is giving me life,” Martin concludes.

Martin ‘will never understand’ why Nepola won’t apologize to de Moura

For weeks on end, tensions have run high between Nepola and de Moura over Nepola’s accusations that a romantic partner of de Moura’s was still married while they were dating. The accusations were disproven, as Nepola admitted she didn’t read a public records website correctly. The man is, in fact, divorced.

Even though Nepola admitted her statement was incorrect, she refuses to apologize to de Moura on camera, something that Martin “will never understand.”

Martin tells TODAY.com, “I think it would have been so easy to say, ‘Hey, I know you’ve been burned in the past, I was watching out for you. I didn’t want you to get hurt again. I jumped the gun and I was wrong. I’m sorry.’ I will never understand the lack of an apology.”

De Moura also called Nepola a bully. Martin says, “I don’t necessarily want to call her a bully, but I do think she has been through a lot of things in her life, a lot of struggles, and they’ve toughened her and not necessarily in the best ways.”

“It’s like a banana…when you drop it, it gets bruised, it gets tough and it’s no longer yummy because it gets kinda sour. I think that’s maybe the point where we’re at with Alexia (Nepola). She’s overcome so much, but it’s not everyone's fault that you’ve been through those things. We’re all very apologetic and feel for you, but don’t take it out on everybody,” Martin continues.

Nepola and de Moura’s tensions seem to come to a head on the cast’s trip to the Bahamas. “It’s the number one trip I’ve ever regretted taking," Martin says.

A preview for the next episode shows de Moura saying to Nepola, “accidents, you know, have consequences, as you know with Frankie (Rosello, Nepola’s son),” triggering a fiery reaction from Nepola. Rosello suffered severe brain damage as a result of a car accident in 2011.

Martin addresses the comments, as she says, “I think some poor choices were made, but the crime doesn’t fit the punishment. At some point in time, people make mistakes. We all make mistakes, no one’s perfect. It was just too much.”

Martin teases more about the cast’s upcoming reunion

A ‘housewives’ season isn’t complete without a reunion, and from the sounds of it, the Miami reunion is going to be intense.

Martin teases that “the same person who came out of the season looking the worst” will have the roughest time at the reunion, and on the flip side, “the same person that came out of the season looking the best” will come across the best when the reunion airs.

Many housewives utilize a reunion to settle old scores and set a clean slate for next season, but it seems the women of "Miami" weren’t exactly able to do that, as Martin says there was “no resolution.”

Martin continues, “I don’t know where you go from here. It’s almost like this was the problem 10 years ago, when the show was canceled the first time. It was because rifts were created, and it was so toxic that people couldn’t come back from that.”

“When you go after people’s professions, you go after their relationships, you go after their children, I’m pretty sure those are the three unwritten rules of housewives … you don’t go after your jobs, you don’t go after children, you don’t go after spouses. When you attack someone on all three of those parameters, how are you supposed to be friends? How do you film from here? How do you bounce back?” Martin concludes.

With a potential Season Six on the horizon, Martin shares that she hopes “people can acknowledge their downfalls” as the group moves forward.

Martin says, “Give an apology where apologies are due. Like own your s---, and that way we can move on, but if you’re incapable of owning your stuff, how do we ever move forward?”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com