For the last ten years, I have been living a double life. By day I am a mum, wife, friend, writer - but for two hours almost every evening, I am a Real Housewives aficionado, an absolute obsessive. My gateway series, the one which first reeled me in, was The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Losing myself in the mind bogglingly unrealistic existences ofLisa Vanderpump, Camille Grammer and Kyle Richards et al, felt like a luxurious escape. After all, nothing could be further from my own drudgery, washing out the cat’s bowls or cleaning the lint tray, than women who carry around small dogs in sequined tuxedo jackets (Vanderpump) or who host an annual six-figure White Party in their back garden(Richards). Hayu, the streaming service which allows you to keep up with Bravo series as they air in the US (meaning you can be a part of the, frankly fierce, fast-moving online Bravo meme communities) soon became my best friend.
It’s not just Housewives, my Hayu guilty pleasures include tales from the yachting world (Below Deck), Hamptons party houses filled with hidden cameras (Summer House), and the make ups and break ups of the frankly unhinged wait staff at Lisa Vanderpump’s restaurant (Vanderpump Rules - which you may be familiar with from the show’s headline-grabbing ‘Scandoval’ cheating story in March, thanks to VDP veteran Tom Sandoval’s affair with co-star Raquel Leviss). I turn to these shows time and time again in times of chaos in my life, if I'm anxious, down or happy - they are my background noise. A rewatch of season five of Real Housewives of New York helped me deal with the grief of my best friend, watching Real Housewives of Orange County from the very beginning got me through my pregnancy insomnia before I had my son. These women are always there - and a growing celebrity fanbase agrees: Rihanna, Jennifer Lawrence and Hillary Clinton are all Housewives devotees.
Scandoval wasn’t the only Housewives related story which broke into the mainstream this year: Housewives have led the debate about Ozempic, becoming some of the only mainstream names to openly admit to taking the diabetes drug which has appetite suppressant - and therefore weight loss - side effects. Among them is Real Housewives of New Jerseystar Margaret Josephs who revealed earlier this year that she’s lost 22 pounds by taking peptides (though Ozempic hasn’t been named specifically, peptides such as the one Joseph is taking are commonly sold under the names Wegovy, Rybelsus and Ozempic). ‘It’s been life-changing,’ Josephs said. Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Heather Gay also admitted to taking an Ozempic-style drug (adding that she feels like people have behaved differently toward her since she began losing weight.) RHONJ star Dolores Catania said in April that she had been taking Ozempic, adding, ‘I wasn’t going to come to the reunion looking any bigger than anyone else, so I got on the bandwagon.’
It’s unsurprising that where Hollywood actors would perhaps shy away from sharing such details, the Housewives aren’t so demure. After all, they take the phrase ‘warts and all’ to a new level. These women are pure camp, their names say it all: Nene Leakes, Countess Luann de Lesseps, Dorinda Medley, Ramona Singer, Shannon Storms Bador, Kandi Burruss, Tammi Knickerbocker - they are almost Dickensian in their nominative determinism.
They fight, they are spoiled, they argue about the pettiest things (a row whilst picking bedrooms in a sprawling holiday villa can be the setting for blows to be thrown), they drink, some of them far too much, and there is legal drama. There have been multiple Housewife arrests over the years as well as lawsuits against Housewives such as ROBH’s Erika Jayne (who won in her fraud case, brought against both her and her ex-husband Tom Girardi in 2021), and Salt Lake City housewife Jen Shah, who is currently serving time for fraud. But there is heart there, too. You see IVF journeys, deaths of loved ones playing out in real time (no one could ever forget watching Real Housewives of Orange County’s Vicki Gunvalson collapse on the floor as she found out on camera that her mother had just died) and many, many, many marriages falling apart. It is gratifying to see women over the age of forty, because most of the housewives are, getting screen time in a world which sees such little value in middle aged women. Friendships between women are front and centre of these shows - something that the joyous response to the rebooted Sex and the City show And Just Like proved we are lacking in the traditional mainstream.
When Grazia caught up with host and executive producer of all Housewives franchises Andy Cohen at Bravocon, the annual convention for fans to come and meet their Chanel-clad idols, and watch panel talks about their favourite reality show (there were around 30,000 attendees at the Las Vegas event last month - and you can catch up on panel talks via Hayu), he summed up the allure of the shows perfectly. ‘I think that it’s people’s happy places,’ he said. ‘There’s so much chaos and drama in the world that watching someone else’s drama is very calming.’
For this reason, it’s clear why the Housewives movement has grown so rapidly since it started in 2006, with a low-ish budget reality pitch from creator Scott Dunlop (who wanted to go behind the scenes of a gated community in Orange County to cast local mums, wives and entrepreneurs, including Vicki Gunvalson, for the first Real Housewives franchise). RHOC was an unexpected hit, and more franchises were born, with New York and Atlanta franchises following - all helmed by Andy, the true King of all things Housewives. There have been eleven US franchises of Housewives, and 21 international versions - including one in Cheshire. I am now a proud expert on the following series: Real Housewives of Orange County, Real Housewives of New York, Real Housewives of New Jersey, Real Housewives of Atlanta, Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Real Housewives of Miami, Real Housewives of Potomac, as well as two Australian offshoots, Melbourne and Sydney. When you put it like that, it feels like a lot - and yet if they launched another franchise, I’d watch it.
My evening Hayu sessions now feel like some of the only true me-time I get as a working mum - and my light relief in my scroll time comes in the form of anything Housewives, from memes to headlines. Where else could you see a woman throw her prosthetic leg across a dinner table as RHONY star (and she is a star) Aviva Drescher did in season six, whilst yelling, ‘The only fake thing about me is THIS!’, in an episode wryly named ‘The Last Leg’. Where else could you hear insults such as RHOBH’s Kim Richards’ putdown to co-star Lisa Rinna, ‘Why don’t you have a piece of bread and maybe you’ll calm down a little?’ thrown out at parties?
The answer is: nowhere. Real Housewives is my therapy, it’s my safe place, it’s my happy place. As Lisa Vanderpump would say: Life isn’t all diamonds and rosé, but it should be…’
Learn more about Hayu here.