Twenty years ago, when a group of affluent women behind the gates of an Orange County community agreed to let a few Handycams follow them around, nobody imagined they were inaugurating one of the most durable — and consequential — institutions in American popular culture. Least of all the women themselves.
The franchise that would redefine reality television began almost by accident. Scott Dunlop wasn’t looking for America’s next great soap opera. He wanted to document life behind the gates of Coto de Caza, where one ambitious insurance executive named Vicki Gunvalson stood out because, unlike most of her neighbors, she worked. Nobody — not Bravo, not the cast, arguably not even Dunlop — understood that they were inventing a format that would still dominate popular culture two decades later. Bravo executives, underwhelmed by the first footage, seriously debated killing the show before it aired — relenting, Andy Cohen later admitted, largely because they were already $400,000 in.
Photographed by Jake Chessum
Every subsequent entry replayed some version of that original bait-and-switch. Gunvalson was told the show was a social experiment. Luann de Lesseps was told she was filming “Manhattan Moms.” Teresa Giudice heard “Jersey Moms.” Even Gizelle Bryant, who entered the universe years later, says producers explicitly assured her that “Ladies of Potomac” would not be another Real Housewives. “They lied to all of us,” Bryant says now, laughing.
What followed was part soap opera, part anthropological experiment and part gladiatorial spectacle: an ever-expanding franchise that transformed table-flipping, wine-throwing, limo meltdowns and spectacularly ill-advised dinner parties into a vernacular understood far beyond Bravo’s audience. Housewives didn’t invent reality television, but it codified much of the genre’s modern grammar — the confessional reckoning, the escalating grievance, the reunion in which old wounds are reopened, the cast trip designed to strand incompatible personalities together until something breaks. It also helped create the modern architecture of celebrity fandom: recap culture, the meme economy and the parasocial intimacy of knowing someone’s tagline before you know her last name. Bravo didn’t merely build a hit. It built an operating system that much of unscripted television still runs on.
In the process, a cable network once associated with arts programming and prestige imports reinvented itself around an endlessly renewable reality universe. Housewives has produced 12 U.S. series, more than 30 international adaptations and 30 spinoffs, along with reunion specials, podcasts, BravoCon and an industrial complex devoted to parsing every cocktail, betrayal and table flip.
It also created an unlikely celebrity of its own. Andy Cohen — then a 37-year-old Bravo programming executive, now the franchise’s executive producer and reunion ringmaster — became nearly as famous as the women whose careers he helped create: their confessor and gay best friend, their provocateur and occasionally temperamental god, dispensing sympathy, judgment and renewal notices from the reunion couch. Cohen has a less sentimental explanation for the franchise’s durability. “People really like judging other people,” he told THR in 2024. “It’s that simple. I love Howard Stern and his Wack Pack, and I think of these Housewives as my personal Wack Pack. Even at the show’s cringiest moments, it’s hard to avert your eyes.”
Whether that has been good for American culture is harder to answer. The franchise helped accelerate reality television’s collapse of the border between private life and public performance. It rewarded conspicuous consumption, normalized surveillance as entertainment and created a fandom that can be both intensely loyal and brutally punitive. The women’s worst moments are preserved indefinitely, stripped of context and replayed for strangers who feel entitled to pass judgment.
But that is only half the story. Long before television executives discovered the commercial potential of “empowerment,” the Housewives put middle-aged women — loud, sexual, ambitious and contradictory women — at the center of a hugely successful entertainment franchise. They spoke openly about infertility, infidelity, alcoholism, divorce, domestic power, aging, money and the humiliations of family life. They built businesses, recovered from failed marriages and, in some cases, acquired the financial independence to leave relationships they might otherwise have been trapped inside. They were frequently ridiculous. They were also among the first reality personalities to understand that ridicule could be converted into leverage.
Over time, women initially treated as disposable punch lines became bona fide stars. De Lesseps turned a fall from countess to tabloid fixture into a thriving cabaret career. Kyle Richards went from former child actor and reality-TV curiosity to producer, entrepreneur and CAA client. Porsha Williams turned her audience into a platform for political activism and women’s health. Giudice survived prison, divorce and years of family warfare without relinquishing her place at the center of New Jersey. Gunvalson, the original Housewife, has now allowed cameras to document more than two decades of her life.
And yet, even at the summit, there are indignities. Jeff Klein, the Sunset Tower hotelier whose hospitality empire caters to the apex of the A-list, once admitted that the only guest who had ever left him starstruck was Lisa Vanderpump — though he was still embarrassed to seat her at his establishments. San Vicente Bungalows, his private club, is rumored to maintain a policy against admitting Housewives as members. (A club spokesman says “members are admitted at the discretion of our board.”) But the story neatly captures the peculiar limbo of Housewifery — edging ever closer to fame and acceptance, but always one velvet rope short of both.
For some lucky Housewives, the show has been a springboard to newfound fortune and independence. But that transformation came at a price. Marriages cracked under the pressure. Children who were too young to consent grew up with their childhoods available on demand. Family feuds became serialized intellectual property. The women learned that they could ask producers to remove a devastating scene — but had no power to make them do it.
Cohen draws a sharper line than the women do about the consequences of that bargain. “You’re not drafted into the Real Housewives,” he told THR. “You either want to be on the show or not, and you either see it as having some greater benefit for you or not.” Several of the women — especially those whose children were too young to make that choice themselves — complicate that argument in the conversation below.
The franchise’s 20th anniversary also arrives amid a bit of legal turbulence: Leah McSweeney’s disability-related claims against Bravo and related companies are moving forward in open court, after a judge rejected the network’s bid to move the case to private arbitration in March, while Caroline Manzo has sued over an alleged assault during Ultimate Girls Trip. The defendants dispute wrongdoing, and Bravo says an outside investigation found allegations against Cohen unsubstantiated. Even the anniversary’s biggest returning cameo carries a legal footnote: NeNe Leakes, back on camera for the occasion, sued the network in 2022 alleging racial discrimination — a case she later dropped.
The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th (premiering Aug. 9 on Bravo, with 82 Housewives past and present appearing across its nine episodes) brings together Gunvalson, de Lesseps, Giudice, Richards, Williams, Bryant and Lisa Barlow — a multigenerational gathering of originals from across the franchise. In their first extended interview together — two hours this spring in a studio at Rockefeller Center, seven women trailed by a small, frantic army of stylists, hairdressers and minders — the women sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss what they thought they were signing up for, how the shows changed their families and why, after everything, they continue to come back.
The conversation is raucous, self-aware and unexpectedly rueful. Gunvalson reveals that her former husband once gave her a choice between the show and their marriage — and admits she regrets the choice she made. Richards recalls her daughter Portia, who was 2 when filming began, asking at age 5, “Mom, do we do the show until everybody dies?” Gunvalson says her own daughter, after the program’s treatment of her Marine husband, told Andy Cohen to “please lose my number.” Williams describes entering the show determined to present a perfect young Black family, only to discover that the camera was not manufacturing the story: “Oh no,” she remembers realizing. “This is just me.”
They debate whether the sisterhood is real, whether reality television destroys weak marriages or merely exposes them, and how much responsibility they bear for bringing their children along for the ride. But they agree on one thing: Once the cameras capture your worst, most embarrassing moment, you have no control over who gets to see it.
“None,” Richards says.
“Zero,” says Barlow.
“Zero,” says Williams.
“Zero,” echoes Bryant.
Twenty years in, the Housewives may still be arguing about what the franchise has done to America. They are much clearer about what it has done to them.
When each of you first agreed to be filmed for this show, what exactly did you think you were signing up for? Because apparently several of you were not told you were joining The Real Housewives.
VICKI GUNVALSON Scott Dunlop [RHOC creator] told me it was going to be a social experiment: Pull back the gates of Coto de Caza and ask what it was like to live there as a working woman when 99 percent of the women didn’t work. I said, “What do they do all day?” He said, “They play golf, play tennis and go to the doctor for Botox.” I said, “I do all of that, plus work — and I’m the breadwinner.” He said, “Oh. We’ve got a TV show.” This was just a pilot. None of us thought it would ever be made. So when Scott called to say it was a go, I panicked. I had no desire to be on TV.
KYLE RICHARDS I had been an actor since childhood, but I didn’t know anything about reality television. But I thought, “Well, my babies are little and they’re just following me around with a camera while I’m playing with them and having fun.” I had no idea what hell I was getting myself into.
LUANN DE LESSEPS They called ours “Manhattan Moms.” They didn’t tell me it was The Real Housewives of New York — because if I’d watched Orange County, I would definitely have said, “No way I’m doing that.” I didn’t know how popular it would become — or how many of us would end up with mug shots. (Laughs.)
GIZELLE BRYANT They did it to us years later. They told us explicitly that Potomac was not Housewives. We were “Ladies of Potomac.”
I’m seeing a pattern here. (Laughs.)
TERESA GIUDICE They told us “Jersey Moms.”
BRYANT They lied to all of us! (Laughs.)
PORSHA WILLIAMS Speaking as the only one who wasn’t tricked, I probably fooled myself. I was a big fan of Atlanta [when I came on the show] — I did not work. I was literally the quintessential housewife. I thought, “I’m going to be different. They’re so messy. I don’t live like that.” I genuinely thought when I came in that I could lift the veil and show a young Black family and I could make it look perfect. I thought the show was more produced. Then once you get behind the camera, you realize, “Oh no, this is just me.” And then things got real! We are supposed to show how fabulous our lives and our marriages and friendships are. In reality that’s not always true.
Photographed by Jake Chessum
Whatever you thought you were joining, the show has become a 20-year institution. And for all the perks, it can be pretty brutal. What convinced you to stay for so many years?
DE LESSEPS I didn’t have a lot of options. When I started, my socialite friends would say, “How could you do a reality show?” Everyone looked down on this sort of thing back then. I’d say, “You have a husband. I need to work!” It was poo-pooed. Then suddenly they all were getting divorced — and now I had my own income, my own show, my own life. The tide shifted.
GUNVALSON And suddenly they are all broke.
RICHARDS The stigma has certainly gone away. When CAA called to sign me, I thought, “Wow, the game has changed.” That used to be reserved for Oscar winners. But it’s not just that. The crew becomes family; the show becomes part of everyday life. Last year, after my separation [from husband Mauricio Umansky] and my daughter moving out, leaving would have felt like another loss. I was afraid to lose it, too.
BRYANT When you start with a franchise, it’s personal. Potomac is my baby. I don’t want to leave my baby — then filming starts and I’m like, “When can I leave my baby.” (Laughs.)
WILLIAMS If you’re savvy, you can build on your visibility here. I wasn’t even on Instagram when I started the show. A few months in, my numbers were crazy. I was like, I got to monetize this, and I started my business, Go Naked Hair. It’s true that the drama and attention can get really intense. I took a three-year break from the show and really enjoyed the peace. But after a while you start missing the energy and the sisterhood. Not many other people can share the experience of being gutted in front of a crowd of millions.
Does that gives you a connection to each other that other people don’t understand?
BARLOW It’s a sisterhood, like she said. Or like being part of an NBA team. You go through all these crazy, traumatic, thrilling things together. On our show, Jen Shah got arrested —
RICHARDS That’s the bar for us these days. Being arrested!
BARLOW Security and the FBI showed up. It was scary. But we still showed up for Jen and wanted her to win. Guilty until proven innocent. You might not like all these women. You might even hate them! But there’s a special bond that develops anyway.
BRYANT And if you’re going to jail, we’re coming for you. (Laughs.)
I know you spend a lot of time watching yourself on television. Do you ever watch yourself as a character and decide that your character needs to change?
RICHARDS In season one, in the back of the limo with my sister [Kim Richards], the world saw a traumatic family dynamic. I stilI get teary watching it. would never handle it that way today.
What would you do differently?
RICHARDS I wouldn’t lunge at Kim in the limo. I also understand alcoholism differently now. And I’ve learned to confront people constructively. It took me 15 years on the show, with everyone watching.
BARLOW I was watching. As one of five sisters, I felt the love behind what you did. At the time, I probably would have pulled her hair too.
DE LESSEPS We forget that the camera is there, and we act out like everyone else. People don’t really understand that.
BARLOW You’re loved one day, hated the next — and it all happens in enormous, loud waves. I don’t let myself feel the high or the low. That’s how you stay on without wrecking yourself.
Are there scenes that you wish you could permanently delete?
BARLOW How much time do you have? (Laughs.) So many!
WILLIAMS Each season, there’s a scene tor two that we would like deleted or to have never happened. But growth comes when you realize you’re just human. You have to forget and forgive yourself almost every season.
RICHARDS But the audience doesn’t let you forget a thing!
WILLIAMS I just stopped looking at social media. In my second or third season, I stopped deciding to see myself through their eyes. Lots of times they judge you in the first episodes, but by the reunion the story looks totally different. I know I have a good heart. I know I didn’t mean it like that.
BRYANT Oh, you meant it like that! (Laughs.)
WILLIAMS Sometimes I did. But I stopped living through their eyes. They don’t know me. They just know the part of me that made it to the show.
If you know you’ve just made a terrible scene, how much power do you have to keep it out?
RICHARDS None.
BARLOW Zero.
WILLIAMS Zero.
BRYANT Zero.
GIUDICE None. I fought with my brother [Joe Gorga] and Melissa [Gorga] on the show for years. I never wanted my family on TV. Now we’ve finally made up. But the cameras didn’t help.
You all chose the show, but your families — and especially your children — were drafted into it. How do you reckon with that now?
RICHARDS Portia was so little, she didn’t really have a choice. She’s now applying for colleges and she wrote something in her essay about all this. And it really hit me like, “My gosh, this child has no memory of her life before the show.” She once asked me when she was around 5, “Mom, do we do the show until everybody dies?” I told Andy [Cohen] and he goes, “You know, she may not be wrong.” (Laughs.)
BRYANT I asked my kids. They were so little. They just were like, “TV, yay.” But now, they could take it or leave it. And they do know that we some bad bitches over here. And they’re very proud of me.
WILLIAMS Am I the only one who didn’t have a sit-down conversation? I honestly now feel a little selfish, because I don’t remember just asking them.
BRYANT But you had a baby on the show.
WILLIAMS Yes. She learned to say, “Mic me!”
BARLOW How cute!
GUNVALSON My children are now 39 and 40. My son did a film this year. My daughter wants nothing to do with it. Her husband just got back from the Marine Corps — six tours overseas — and he’s got some PTSD, and they really showed a bad light of him. She just was like, “Mom, I want nothing to do with it.” I’m like, “Can you do a cameo? Can you come on for a little bit?” Andy even called her for this season and she was like, “Please lose my number.” What the show did to their family was not good.
GIUDICE Two of my daughters like it and the other two don’t. I always ask; I don’t force them.
DE LESSEPS My daughter has supported me through all the shit in my life. My son, since the [season one] dancing moment, will never forgive me. He’s an artist; it’s not his life.
RICHARDS For years Portia assumed everyone had a show. Her classmates would say, “No we don’t.”
What has the show done to your marriages and romantic lives?
GUNVALSON It killed mine. When Scott approached me and Donn [Gunvalson, Vicki’s then-husband] at the time about doing this pilot, Donn’s like, “There’s no way we’re doing this in our family.” He was like, “Anybody that goes on TV is going to get divorced.” I’m like, “We’re not going to get divorced. We’re fine.” And obviously, fast-forward, we got divorced.
RICHARDS You regret that?
GUNVALSON I do. My family was more important than the show, and it broke apart.
WILLIAMS Two things can be true. The show can strain a marriage, but it can also reveal things about that marriage — or about yourself — that you needed to know.
GUNVALSON If the marriage is weak, it’s going to fall apart.
WILLIAMS And it’s not always just about the poor guy whose wife ran off to become a star. The show reveals people to themselves. It is a true mirror. At home I might call myself submissive, but the audience says “No, he’s controlling!”
RICHARDS Are you projecting by any chance?
WILLIAMS I’m projecting a little. But men aren’t always the victims here.
GUNVALSON But sometimes they realize the woman they see on TV isn’t the woman they married.
BRYANT I started divorced and stayed that way. It’s difficult to find a man who wants to participate in all this— which is fine. If he really wants to be on camera, he’s not for me.
DE LESSEPS I don’t think it’s the show that breaks marriages, I think it’s the people that break marriages. The show just speeds that up.
One of the big questions coming into this: How much is reality and how much is TV? To what extent are we watching the real you, and to what extent are you playing a role you’ve come to inhabit?
RICHARDS I’m never playing a role!
BARLOW Never?
GUNVALSON No. But I think we can accentuate our role sometimes.
GIUDICE I think everybody here is authentic.
BRYANT If you’re too aware of the camera, or too self-conscious, the scene just doesn’t work.
RICHARDS Look, there are some Housewives who are very aware of the cameras! But you could spot those girls from a mile away!
But you can play to the camera a little bit, if you wanted more air time?
WILLIAMS Well, that’s a dangerous game. You cannot play to the camera if you’re being yourself. Every time I did that, I lost. I would get to that reunion and I would forget the play. And I’d end up looking like a total fool.
RICHARDS That’s an old, mean Housewives trick. They dig up the most horrific clip of you and then Andy says, “What does the audience think?”
WILLIAMS Contrary to what people think, we’re not great liars.
DE LESSEPS Or great actors! It’s always easier to remember the truth than it is a lie.
GIUDICE I don’t know if anybody else has here, but I’ve had a hot mic moment [back in season four]. I was like, “Shit. Oh my God.” You’re always saying shit that you regret.
BRYANT How many times have you said something horrible and you’re just frantic about it? Then you’re waiting for that episode and they don’t use it and you’re like, “Thank you God!”
RICHARDS But they run it as a flashback a little later. And you die all over again. (Laughs.)
OK. You’re authentic — I will take you at your word. But producers want a compelling storyline. How do they get you to deliver it to them?
RICHARDS They’re your friends, your family, you’re endlessly spilling your guts at them. And they are writing it all down. The next thing you know, they will ask you, “Why don’t you guys talk about what you’re feeling right now?” And I’m like, “I can’t even lie because I already told them what I was feeling!” Honestly, there’s a lot of manipulation going on. It’s just the way it is.
You become intimate with producers, but is their loyalty ultimately to you or to the show?
GUNVALSON Oh! The show.
RICHARDS The magic is thinking it’s to you.
BRYANT But it’s always to the show.
RICHARDS That’s why we open up our lives and reveal everything. We give them what they need from us. It’s a twisted kind of love.
WILLIAMS We do negotiate, though. There may be a moment where there is something you don’t want to say right then, and you can bargain with them a bit. I sometimes say, “I’m not ready today for this, but I’m going to give you this instead.” It’s still real, but sometimes you need to take a beat.
RICHARDS For example, say something bad comes out on TMZ about a castmember. It’s fair game. Someone has to ask them about it. So they may come to me and I’ll say, “You need to get some other sucker to do this. I’m sorry. I’ve been here too long. I am not bringing that shit up with her.”
We’ve seen all these political changes since the show started — discussions of race, #MeToo and sexual orientation. The Housewives used to be pretty apolitical. How has the show changed in its handling of these issues?
GUNVALSON Back in the day we never talked about race, religion, who we’re voting for. You want to be where the conversation is. But we still have to be very careful not to offend anybody.
DE LESSEPS You can be canceled so easily.
RICHARDS My mom always raised me not to talk about politics in public, so I take that to the cameras too. It’s the safest way.
GUNVALSON I’m going to say this: I just want what’s right for America. It doesn’t matter.
WILLIAMS We couldn’thide from politics during Black Lives Matter. I had been arrested twice while I was protesting, and before we filmed I told them that the subject had to be handled responsibly, not in the usual Housewife way. There were viewers who kept saying “All Lives Matter.” It bothered me. I thought a real conversation was necessary. But we tried to do it with tender loving care.
BRYANT Potomac is right outside of D.C., so we’ve taken the cameras into the White House. Politics is a part of our show. I recently went to Congress, and we took the camera there, too. Every franchise has their own unwritten rules and code of ethics. For instance, on Potomac, we don’t talk about other people’s children, and we don’t get into religion.
GIUDICE That doesn’t happen on my show, either. No politics or religion. Or kids. But OK with everything else!
RICHARDS In Beverly Hills, we would never say anything about someone’s child, ever.
Not in public, anyway. (Laughs.) What other things would be off-limits?
GUNVALSON Businesses, to me. My business was 27 years old.
BRYANT Oh, that’s on the table for us. Business is always on the table.
GIUDICE I feel like your spouses should be off-limits. When I got married [to Luis “Louie” Ruelas], he was innocent to this. I had all these people who I just met attack my husband, and he didn’t sign up for this.
DE LESSEPS But he did go on the show, so once you have somebody on the show, it is fair game.
GIUDICE He did not know that he was going to get attacked by my castmembers and my family members. My brother even attacked him! That was so heart-wrenching for me.
Fans seem to have a special relationship with people on reality TV — more intense and passionate than with other stars. On social, everything you do or say is debated and analyzed and meme-ified. Doesn’t that drive you crazy after a while?
GIUDICE It used to drive me crazy. So I don’t look at it anymore. They don’t know me.
DE LESSEPS Does it happen to you, though, where you’re walking around and you forget who you are? You’re just Luann. And then some stranger bounds up to you at a store and you think, “Oh, shit. I forgot. I am famous.”
WILLIAMS I just think I scared them without my wig.
DE LESSEPS People tend to project their own lives on to you. They think they know you and what you’re feeling. But they see just a few minutes out of your life that the producers create. But look, people care. They give you lots of bad advice, but sometimes its really smart and helpful. I’m a cafeteria Catholic, OK? I take what I like from social, and I leave the rest behind.
RICHARDS When my husband and I first got separated, people were totally devastated. It was like it happened to them. I was already feeling like I let down my family, and strangers were reaching out and messaging me, “Please don’t get divorced, please.” That really did get to me after a while.
You’re dealing with your marriage but also feel responsible to millions of viewers. How do you make decisions in that gap?
RICHARDS I still feel the pressure of it in my own marriage. “Why haven’t you made a decision? Why haven’t you gotten divorced? I feel like people are expecting an answer from me, and I owe it to them because they’re watching me on television every week. There were people who said, “We believe in true love but you let us down.” I knew, logically, that I shouldn’t let that affect me. But it did.
Have you had any frightening fan encounters?
GIUDICE I just found out that there’s this Facebook account that is posting horrific, false things, like me with another man holding hands, kissing him.
It’s AI?
GIUDICE Yes. My husband with another woman. They were saying false things about my daughter with her boyfriend, that she was having a baby, and she’s not. Some people believe it.
BRYANT It’s very believable. The pictures are so believable.
RICHARDS I had a fan show up at my house, a woman, and she was saying, “Kyle,” and I looked out there. She said, “I know you’re out there. I know that’s your car and those are your dogs,” and then she said, “You need to talk to me. We’re friends. We’re best friends.” I had to call the police. They sent a helicopter, and I was like, “OK, this is crazy.” But from watching the show, she really felt we were best friends, and I’d never met this person.
BRYANT An Amazon driver once realized it was my house when she dropped off a package. She took a picture of my house, the map of my house and posted it, and was like, “Y’all won’t believe whose house I went to today.” And she posted where I live. She didn’t even think she was doing anything wrong.
WILLIAMS This family was in my house on Easter, y’all. It was a husband, a wife and their kids. They were like, “Oh. We were looking at houses, so we want to stop by and say hello.” They were standing in my foyer.
Photographed by Jake Chessum
If there’s a god of the Housewives universe, it’s Andy Cohen. Is he a loving god or a vengeful god?
BRYANT Loving.
BARLOW Loving.
DE LESSEPS Loving. Mostly.
GUNVALSON We all love Andy.
How often do you all talk to him?
RICHARDS He text messages me a lot. He checks in from time to time.
BRYANT He’s a prolific texter. But we know he’s watching from afar.
In his role on the show, he has remarkable sway over your lives and your livelihoods. Do you ever think that he has favorites?
BARLOW As you said, he’s kind of the God of the franchise, and he sometimes works in mysterious ways. But like God, we like to think he loves all his children equally.
Do you know what role you’re being cast to play at the start of the season?
RICHARDS No.
GUNVALSON It evolves as you go. Maybe they know.
WILLIAMS Oh, they know exactly! Before every season.
RICHARDS I don’t think anybody goes in thinking, “I’m going to be the villain.”
WILLIAMS Right. They just turn you into one. You have nothing to say about it.
Do you know what you all get paid?
BRYANT No.
RICHARDS No, we do not discuss.
BARLOW No.
Does your salary get bigger the longer you are here?
GUNVALSON Of course it does!
RICHARDS I mean, I love my crew, but I’m not here for nothing.
DE LESSEPS And let’s just say, as big as it gets, it’s never enough!
BRYANT Money is never a conversation with men. If we were all men, there would never be a conversation of, “Hm, are y’all getting paid too much?”
What will you be doing in another 20 years? Are we headed for a Golden Girls edition?
BARLOW I’d love it, personally.
WILLIAMS I always say I want to hold onto my check as long as the Beverly Hills girls. Y’all don’t let it go!
DE LESSEPS If Kyle’s still here, we’re all here.
Vicki, you launched the franchise, were dropped and then brought back. What did being fired teach you?
GUNVALSON I needed a reset. I was burned out. I wanted to focus on my business and my children. Then Tamra [Judge] came back and I didn’t. I called Andy. “Why is she on and not me? I started before her.” They took me back. It was like a humble pie was served to me.
BRYANT I love how everyone was so supportive when you came back. People cried when they gave you back your orange!
Porsha, would the woman who joined the show at 30 recognize the person you are now — with a new partner [Patrice “Sway” McKinney]?
WILLIAMS I have a partner now, a woman, and I’m happy, and I’m free. When I was younger, at 30, joining the show, I was in a box from my past with men and my religious past. When I finally released myself, I said, “I’m just going to be me.” I decided to be open about my sexuality because I felt that I owed that to the women who had watched the show. We can’t be fake. We must be free.
Teresa, you kept filming during the investigation, before your incarceration and through your ex-husband’s deportation. Looking back, do you regret letting the cameras capture all that?
GIUDICE Yes. Because I’m always a mom first. But at the time, I really didn’t understand what my ex-husband had done. I just thought we had to go through the process and everything would be fine. I really never in a million years thought I would go to jail. If you said to me, “I’ll give you $40 million right now, are you going to go to jail?” I’d be like, “No, absolutely not.”
WILLIAMS Part of that invincibility that you felt, was it because you were a celebrity?
GIUDICE No. Being a celebrity made me go to jail. They made an example of me. I know I didn’t do anything. I went to a closing. I put my John Hancock on that dotted line, and I went to jail because of that. My story will never change. Everyone knew I had nothing to do with my husband’s business. I was a housewife. I stayed home, watched the kids.
DE LESSEPS Made lasagna.
GIUDICE And cooked. I did laundry. I was a real housewife. I thought, “I’m not going to jail. I didn’t do anything.”
Luann, did you know when you recorded “Money Can’t Buy You Class” that it would become the franchise’s defining anthem?
DE LESSEPS No. And I believe it: Money can’t buy you class, and it can’t buy you love, and it can’t buy you happiness, or fame, right? Women that we know would love to be on the show. But you can’t buy your way in.
What’s the best thing about being a Housewife — and what’s the worst thing about this level of celebrity?
DE LESSEPS I’m living my best life. I’m 60 years old now. I stand in my house and I go, “This is my house. These are my cars. This is my boat. Look at my beautiful children. Look at what I built.” I built my life. I’m free.
BARLOW You get to reinvent yourself all the time. I have a new song out [“Baby Gorgeous”]. Jack, my oldest, just heard my song and he’s like, “My mom is going to be a pop star.” Who does that?
RICHARDS Now that I’m separated from my husband, I never thought I’d be in this position, but I’m great. I’m working. I started my production company. I have four shows in development. I’m OK on my own, and there’s no denying that the Housewives had a big part in that.
Twenty years in, there’s no question that the Housewives have changed America. But has that been a good thing? Critics complain that you promote bad behavior and crass consumerism. What do you think you’ve contributed to the culture? What has your legacy been?
RICHARDS People like to focus on all the bad behavior. We fight and get drunk and act silly. But I hope they remember more than the drinking and fighting. We are all strong, capable and resilient women. We’re survivors. We are great mothers. We’re loyal friends. We make our own way. That’s not a bad legacy I don’t think.
BARLOW Our experience reflects the struggles that everyone goes through in life. People can get messy. Money doesn’t spare you from problems with your husband or your friends or your kids. None of us claims to be role models. But we try our best, and what we do has meaning to people. We get thousands of letters and emails from folks who are moved or impacted by us in some way.
GIUDICE I’m writing my seventh book now. My third memoir. There’s both good and bad that came with all that life. And everyone has gone on that journey with me. I gave birth on the show. I divorced on the show. I even went to jail on the show!
RICHARDS See? Who else could say that? She’s a Real Housewife of New Jersey. And she’s still standing, dammit!
A version of this story appears in the Aug. 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
