‘Shahs of Sunset’: Is MJ Planning A Surprise Wedding?

The sixth season of Bravo’s Shahs of Sunset is underway and our favorite Persian pals have wasted no time getting to the drama. After Asa made her baby announcement, all eyes were on Mercedes “MJ” Javid, who has been outspoken about wanting a child soon. As she deals with a sick father, her fiancé Tommy and her mom Vida’s bickering, and of course, the Shahs shenanigans, we caught up with her to find out what else is in store this season.

MJ, as candid as ever, opened up about where she gets her body confidence from, why she would have nostril Botox, and why everyone in the cast is going through “major life changes” this season. Could one of her life changes, a trip down the aisle, be coming sooner than expected — and be a total surprise to her guests?

Season 6 has begun! Are you feeling good?

I feel so good. I’m in such a different place now than the toughest most unpredictable high stakes period of my life, because my dad was ill. I feel a little bit better [now].

How’s he doing now?

He’s stable. I’d like to get him home and start planning the wedding.

Where are you in that process?

We’re looking for places. We have a guest list. We know the flowers. We know all the details. I know who’s going to make the dress. We just want to find the location and when we do that, it’s going to be quick.

This year?

You know what, I wish I wouldn’t have told you that. Because do you know what I want? I want the guests to be surprised when they get to the wedding.

So are you going to tell them it’s a wedding or no?

If they don’t [read] this, then maybe we’ll keep it a surprise. So, I don’t know. It’s very consistent with how I plan my life.

Do you have a lot of the details ready to go?

Well, you don’t plan a wedding when your father, you know, when I was in a state of mourning. So Tommy and I would have a year ago and been married by now. But now that we’re ready, we’re really ready, especially because we want to get the family started and everything. It’s really exciting.

On that note, we’ve seen Asa tell everybody her news, do you think that you’ll involve your friends in the same way when it’s your time?

She didn’t involve them at all. She waited until she was six months pregnant to tell everybody.

Do you plan to be more open about it?

I’m telling everybody every step of everything. You know, like the doctor told me to lose weight in preparation for getting pregnant to decrease the chances of gestational diabetes and all of those things that can happen. I will say that, [she] says that she is about women’s empowerment, but if she really were about that, she would also have the balls to share the journey. Like, tell people how you really got there. Don’t always make everything like perfect and immaculate conception. As you’ll see this season, that’s not the case. So I’m here to share my ups, my downs, my hardships, you know, the good times. Every step of it. Yeah, I mean if it hurts, if it cuts deep then I’m gonna — that’s just the way I am.

Was there anything about her pregnancy that you did take notes on and said, I do or don’t want to do it this this way?

Well, she hid everything about her pregnancy until the very end and then she complained to us and said that we weren’t involved. So I put her up on a pedestal. I was shocked that she would hold something so important from us. Because it’s like my niece, you know? Instead, it was more like nail in a coffin to keep that. She says that she has her issues with me, but not sharing it with Reza, someone who she’s close with, really is foreshadowing for what she’s really about. So that will also reveal itself throughout the season. We all go through a lot of major life moments. I think [Reza] was disappointed too because this is a joyous thing and it felt like I was meeting a stranger instead of my friend.

We also saw in the first episode that Tommy and your mom aren’t really BFFs —is there more of that to come?

Yeah, my mom has a really bad way of dealing with trauma, totally opposite from me. So I’m very alone in this plight to be at my father’s side. I do not have my mom’s back at all. Your priorities in life become very crisp and clean when something important is going on. So I try to give my mom a chance but if she disappoints me then also she’s not going to be able to be there. So Tommy and Vida, ugh. I always have hope.

Does it affect your relationship with him? Or are you both just like, she’s crazy and that’s it?

It affects our relationship because she gets inside like it’s like poison and he’ll say, “Just blow it off,” and I can’t. So the friction is created because he thinks that I should be able to let it just roll off my back and when it’s someone so important such as a parent, and I’m losing my other parent who’s my rock, I become immediately very combative. It’s that quintessential scenario where your parents make you crazy no matter what. And you’re like, “I’m gonna be cool this time. I’m not gonna let it affect me.” Really? Try. Then Tommy would be like, “Just calm down.” I was like, no, no, no. Me and my dad, we used to secretly gang up on Vida and look at her and give her side eye and laugh and point and make fun of her. But now I’ve lost that person, he and I don’t have that thing where we can do that. Tommy just doesn’t know how to deal with it either. I know there are people that have a lot of intense in-law dynamics and I have a lot of friends and a lot of my friends that have to go through a lot of that. I just hope that people are out there [relating] and it makes them feel better. You know? That pain.

One of the funnier moments from the first episode is at Mike’s party where we see you experience a couple of nip slips due to the jumpsuit you were wearing.

[Laughs] Yeah, we were watching it on the hotel room television and I was like, that little roll, I’m not ashamed of that. Because I was like, typically [anyone] over an AA cup girl would not wear that. I know what I had. It was probably 2 or 3 Ds and I’m still okay with it. I would turn around to the back roll of fat and I was like, I’m also okay with that.

Have you always had this no Fs attitude and such a comfortability with your body, and has the show impacted that at all? 

Well, where I grew up, hopefully every women I would want to grow up in the same environment, where it’s important to be — you gotta be smart, you gotta be funny, you have to be athletic, well-rounded. We all had to pick up a couple of instruments and learn how to read music. We would write for the paper, we would be on the debate team. We were so well-rounded and I think from all of those things, especially competitive sports and stuff, you get through a lot of your early childhood and build this foundation of what becomes your self-esteem. I wouldn’t be able to create that on a reality show. That would be the opposite. It would be the worst place where all of your insecurities would come out because, you know, someone will say you’re fat and I’m not even going to read Instagram or Twitter this week, or not until Christmas, it doesn’t matter.

It was one of my favorite scenes from the episode because it was clear you were having the best time and it’s fun to watch that.

And I got so drunk as the night went on. My expressions, like what Reza said, was so funny. Because my facial expressions started to get like — I started to turn into Beetlejuice or something, I don’t know. My nostrils always flair when I get excited. I wish there was a Botox job for that. I would totally do that.

This is the sixth season of the show, but was there something that happened for you this time that was completely new or unexpected? 

Tommy and I picked up and moved into this place to start a new life together. I never thought that my goal was gonna be to move into a place that was gonna be near my mom because of my dad, because I need that support. I never thought I was gonna have to put all of these big life plans on hold. I mean, I think the rest of us on the show are all going through similar, major life changes. Asa’s the obvious one.

Reza’s dealing with the some of the same things, with his husband Adam also very eager to have a baby soon.

Right, because I look back and I’m always thinking that life is going to get less complicated. But it doesn’t, it gets harder. Being in survival mode has been the name of the game for this season in its whole. Also, like I said, it’s not just me. It’s all of us. I would like to say to GG’s credit, she’s going through some things that are gonna mature and change her for the best. We had lunch the other day and I said, “Don’t you wish you would be GG of seven years ago?’ And she said, “Abso-f’ing-lutely.” And then I said, “Well, you can’t. That’s not possible. But, here we are.”

Shahs of Sunset airs Sunday night at 8/7c on Bravo. 

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