Why Is Arionne Curry Called “Coleslaw”? The Psychology Behind the Nickname
Before we get into it, let’s clear something up: Arionne Curry’s name is not Coleslaw. That is not a nickname her family gave her. It is not a cute little pet name. And no, it has nothing to do with a bowl of cabbage sitting next to somebody’s barbecue plate.
If you have spent any time in Love & Marriage: Huntsville conversations online, then you have probably seen the name repeated so often that you may have wondered where it even came from. Baby, the internet has called Arionne Curry “Coleslaw” for so long that some people barely use her actual name anymore.
I remember when the commentary around this situation was fresh. I wrote about Arionne years ago on my former blog, When This Woman Speaks, while reacting to commentary from Funky Dineva. So this is not me coming late to the party with a plate in my hand. I remember the interviews, the social-media back-and-forth, the threats, the messy opinions, and the way everybody had something to say about Martell Holt, Melody Shari, and Arionne Curry.
Now, let me be clear before anybody starts typing with two thumbs and a bad attitude: this is not a post to rewrite history. People were hurt. A marriage ended. Children were involved. There were choices made that affected more than just the adults in the situation. Nobody has to pretend that betrayal is cute, harmless, or something people should just “get over.”
But the “Coleslaw” nickname has always been interesting to me because it says a lot about how reality-TV audiences handle scandal. We do not just want to discuss what happened. Sometimes we want a villain, a punchline, a meme, and somebody we can drag until the sun comes up. And when it comes to relationship mess, that person is often a woman.
Before We Get Into It, Her Name Is Arionne Curry
I know some people are going to roll their eyes at that heading, but stay with me. There is a difference between discussing somebody’s actions and acting like their actual name no longer deserves to be used. When a nickname catches on, especially one that was designed to embarrass somebody, it can become a shortcut. People no longer have to explain what they mean, because the insult does all the talking for them.
“Coleslaw” became shorthand for the public affair storyline involving Arionne Curry, Martell Holt, and Melody Shari. The nickname was popularized in commentary by Funky Dineva and grew out of the idea that Arionne was the “side dish,” while Melody was the wife—the “main course,” if you will. It was sharp, it was memorable, and baby, the internet ran with it like it had been training for the Olympics.
Once people attach a name like that to you, it can follow you everywhere. Not just in a comment section. Not just in a YouTube live. It follows you into every conversation about the show, every reposted clip, every headline, every reunion discussion, and every new person who discovers the story years later.
And again, I am not saying people have to like Arionne. I am not saying readers have to excuse choices they believe were wrong. What I am saying is that the nickname itself became bigger than the original joke. It became the easy way to reduce an entire person to one role in one man’s relationship drama.
No, “Coleslaw” Is Not a Cute Nickname
Let’s be honest: nobody says “Coleslaw” because they think it is sweet. It is a read. A drag. A way of saying, “You were never the wife. You were never the main one. You were the side.” The joke works because it is built on a hierarchy between women, and that hierarchy is exactly why it stayed alive.
The “main dish versus side dish” language makes a very messy relationship situation easy for people to digest. One woman gets positioned as legitimate. The other woman gets positioned as disposable. One gets sympathy. The other gets a food name. And the man in the middle—the man who made vows, had a family, and participated in every decision—can somehow become a side character in his own scandal.
Now don’t get me wrong. I understand why people had strong feelings. When viewers become emotionally invested in a couple, and they see a wife publicly dealing with infidelity, anger is going to show up. That is human. But anger can get real lazy online. It can turn into repeating the same insult for years instead of asking the harder questions about who was lying, who was manipulating, who benefited, and who was expected to carry the shame.
Funky Dineva Put the Name on the Menu
The reason people connect the nickname to Funky Dineva is because he helped make it part of the broader commentary around Love & Marriage: Huntsville. If you know Funky’s commentary style, then you already know he knows how to give a phrase some legs. He can say one thing in a way that has the audience repeating it for years.
And look, I have watched Funky. I have written about Funky. I understand why people enjoy him. He is funny, quick, expressive, and he says things that plenty of viewers are already thinking but may not know how to word. The nickname landed because it captured the frustration people felt about the affair storyline in a way that was easy to repeat.
But once a commentator gives the internet a phrase like that, the audience takes it somewhere else. A commentator may say it in a video, but fans turn it into a permanent label. They take it into comment sections, reaction channels, Facebook groups, TikTok clips, and every conversation where Arionne’s name comes up. That is when commentary becomes a crowd sport.
And whew, we all know the internet does not know when to leave a good drag alone.
```htmlThe “Side Dish” Joke That Would Not Go Away
A nickname like “Coleslaw” lasts because it gives people a simple way to explain a complicated mess. It tells the audience who they are supposed to root for, who they are supposed to blame, and who they are supposed to laugh at. Nobody has to sit with the uncomfortable parts of betrayal when they can just type one food word under a video and keep it moving.
But relationship situations like this are rarely as simple as the internet makes them sound. Yes, there were choices. Yes, there was damage. Yes, people are allowed to have an opinion. But somewhere along the way, the discussion became less about what happened and more about making sure one woman never forgot where the public believed she belonged.
That is why the nickname kept working. It was not just calling Arionne the other woman. It was putting her in a permanent place beneath another woman. It was saying, “You will always be the side.” And for people who felt loyalty to Melody, that may have felt like justice. But public humiliation can feel good for a moment without actually creating healing, accountability, or peace for anybody involved.
Melody Was the Wife, But Martell Made the Choices
Now here is the part that should not get lost while everybody is passing around the coleslaw jokes: Martell Holt was the husband. He was the person who had made a marital commitment to Melody Shari. He was not a plate sitting on the table while two women fought over who got a serving. He was an adult man making adult decisions, and he had responsibility in every single part of the situation.
That does not mean Arionne had no agency. It does not mean she should be treated like she was just floating through life with no awareness of what was happening. But if we are talking about accountability, then we need to be grown enough to put accountability where it belongs. The person who made the commitment has to answer for breaking it.
Sometimes people get so focused on the “other woman” that they almost act like the married man was lured into a situation against his will. Baby, no. He knew his wife. He knew his children. He knew his marriage. He knew the promises he had made. And the public should never let a man’s choices disappear just because it is easier to direct all the smoke toward a woman.
How One Man’s Mess Became Two Women’s Public Fight
This is where the psychology comes in, because some people love to create triangles and then sit back while everybody else fights for their attention, approval, truth, or affection. One person tells one woman one story, tells the other woman something different, makes promises, hides information, denies things, and then watches the fallout.
That kind of relationship dynamic is often called triangulation. It happens when somebody uses another person—sometimes intentionally, sometimes through their own selfishness and dishonesty—to create competition, jealousy, confusion, and insecurity. One person stays in the middle, while everyone else is busy reacting to each other.
And that is why I always pay attention when women are being encouraged to battle each other over a man. Who benefits from that? Usually, it is the man who has both women focused on one another instead of focused on his behavior. He gets to become the prize, the judge, the victim, or the man everybody is trying to understand. Meanwhile, the women are left carrying anger, shame, comparison, and the public’s opinion.
No, I am not diagnosing anybody. I am talking about a pattern that happens in relationships every day, on television and off. The details may be different, but the setup is familiar: keep people competing, keep the truth scattered, and make sure nobody has enough information to walk away with clarity.
The Part the Viewers Played in Keeping the Triangle Alive
Reality television is not just about what the cast does. It is also about what the viewers do with it afterward. We watch the episode, then we watch the recaps. We watch the recaps, then we go to the comment sections. Then we take the comment-section opinions to Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, group chats, and wherever else somebody is ready to say, “Now y’all know I have something to say about this.”
There is nothing wrong with discussing a show. Lord knows I have discussed my share of shows. But the audience can become part of the storyline when we keep recycling the same humiliation long after the original moment has passed. A nickname becomes a hashtag. A hashtag becomes content. Content becomes clicks. And the person at the center of the joke becomes less human every time the joke is repeated.
We tell ourselves it is just commentary, but commentary can become a crowd pile-on real quick. And I am not saying people should pretend they have no opinions. I am saying we should be honest about what we are doing. Are we discussing behavior? Or are we enjoying the feeling of seeing somebody publicly embarrassed?
When a Joke Becomes Somebody’s Whole Identity
The problem with a nickname like “Coleslaw” is that it can freeze somebody in time. It says, “No matter what you do next, this is who you are to us.” People can get married, have children, change careers, apologize, make more mistakes, learn nothing, learn everything, or disappear from the internet for five years—and the public may still pull them right back to the version of them it remembers best.
Again, that does not mean the original choices did not matter. It means people are more than the lowest moment the internet can package into a joke. And if we want to talk about emotional growth, healing, boundaries, or accountability, then we have to leave room for the possibility that people are not required to remain the same forever just because we enjoy recognizing them in their worst chapter.
We Can Call Out Bad Decisions Without Becoming Cruel
I am not here to make Arionne Curry a victim, crown anybody a saint, or tell people they have to change their opinion. People are allowed to believe she made harmful decisions. People are allowed to support Melody Shari. People are allowed to be disappointed in Martell Holt. People are even allowed to say, “That entire situation was a mess.”
But we can do all of that without acting like cruelty is the same as accountability. Accountability says, “These choices hurt people, and the people who made them should own that.” Cruelty says, “I want to keep humiliating you because it makes me feel powerful, funny, righteous, or entertained.”
Those are not the same thing, and I think sometimes social media has convinced us that they are. We get a few likes, somebody comments a laughing emoji, and suddenly we forget that we are talking about real people with families, children, trauma, regrets, blind spots, and consequences that will live much longer than a viral clip.
So, Is It Still Funny—or Have We Said Enough?
That is really the question. Why is Arionne Curry called “Coleslaw”? Because a commentator used a “side dish” metaphor, and the audience turned it into a long-running nickname tied to a public relationship scandal. It was memorable. It was shady. It was funny to some people. And it became much bigger than the moment that created it.
But after years of hearing it, I think it is fair to ask what the nickname tells us about the way we consume women’s pain, women’s mistakes, and women’s relationship drama. We say we want the truth, but sometimes what we really want is a person to blame. We say we want accountability, but sometimes what we really want is a public punishment that never ends.
The deeper Pinknarcology message is this: do not let somebody else’s relationship triangle turn you into a person who forgets where responsibility belongs. You do not have to excuse betrayal to understand that the person who made the commitment had a responsibility. You do not have to like the other woman to recognize that reducing her to a permanent insult will not heal the wife, fix the marriage, or undo the damage.
I am not here to erase Melody’s pain. I am not here to pretend Martell did not help create a public mess. And I am not here to tell anybody that they have to forget what Arionne’s role looked like from the outside. I am simply saying that after the joke has been told a thousand times, we should ask ourselves whether we are discussing a situation—or just enjoying having somebody to embarrass.
But what do I know? I am just a bootleg sociologist who remembers when this whole story was unfolding in real time.
References
- Yahoo Entertainment. “Love and Marriage: Huntsville: What to Know About Arionne Curry, Martell Holt’s Former Lover Who Shares a Child With Him.” August 26, 2022.
- Bossip. “Love & Marriage: Huntsville Exclusive Clip: Arionne Curry Claps Back at ‘Coleslaw’ Nickname.” September 2026.
- Funky Dineva. YouTube commentary and public discussion related to Love & Marriage: Huntsville, Arionne Curry, Martell Holt, and Melody Shari.
- When This Woman Speaks. “My Reaction To Funky Dineva’s Video, ‘Love & Marriage Huntsville: Arrionne Curry Says She’s Suicidal Due To The Show.’” Elizabeth Palmer-Hall, March 15, 2022.
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Crisis support information for people experiencing suicidal thoughts, emotional distress, or a mental-health crisis.
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