Real Housewives’ Most Vicious Feud Gets Even Nastier

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City constantly walk a tightrope, whether they’re attending forgotten friend-of Meili’s ropes event or handling deranged drama with just enough campiness to avoid the depths of darkness.

After a season that went to wonderfully low places, these masters of the craft are blowing kisses to the rest of Bravo’s Real Housewives, showing exactly how it’s done. Besos!

This reunion’s full of many firsts. It’s the first RHOSLC reunion with a truly stunning set (although Season 2’s tacky ice cave will live on in my heart). It’s the first time two women wore the same dress, even if poor Britani was forced to change off-screen. And it’s the first reunion in the post-Jen era, as her ghost has finally exited the building, exorcised by none other than Angie K.

The former benchwarmer is not only center snowflake now, but has taken the prized seat right next to Andy. The Angienassaince is upon us, a moment of vindication for all the fans who loved her monotonous slay from the second she bumbled onto our screens.

Meanwhile, poor Whitney Wild Rose has to sit all the way at the end, tucked behind Bronwyn’s giant dress. She’s hilled, but at what cost?

Whacking Whitney is simply a rite of passage for the Salt Lake City ladies, so it’s nice that the reunion starts with a reminder of the Alibaba drama. You see, the reason Whitney used the same stock photos as Alibaba is they were just a placeholder! That calls into question what the actual product looks like, if pictures of an Alibaba product could properly advertise her jewelry.

If I’m Whitney, the lie I’m giving is “Alibaba uses stock photos of real, authentic jewelry—like mine—and sells junk instead.” Wild Rose PR at your service.

Next, a brief discussion of Angie K vs. Lisa gets railroaded by the Bronwyn circus, as our bobbed-up newbie takes it upon herself to do what she does best: Talk a lot, nod her head, and use words she’s only ever read online in order to assert herself. The shorter her hair, the shorter her patience.

Surely, Angie’s issues with Lisa will take center-stage eventually. For now, we get to relive the Twitter drama where Angie accused Lisa of having a “Park City mystery man who pays for her lip filler” as an aperitif, while Meredith reminisces about the Angie she once knew as Jen Shah’s backup dancer in the now-infamous WAP video. Okay, maybe the ghost of Jen Shah lives on, just a little.

“It’s a FACT, Angie. It’s been all over the internet. What are you talking about? You were a backup dancer in her WAP video!” Meredith says, delivering another great quote. No one does it like her.

Another great quote? “There’s a new 2025 Porsche sitting right next to it, and then there’s a new 9/11 coming.” I love Lisa for many reasons, one of them being that she made me pause my screener and google “9/11 car” to see what exactly that could be. Maybe she has national security access from one of her many cyber security mavens.

Immediately upon arriving at Bronwyn vs. Lisa, the reunion goes to the gutter in truly inspired ways. First, Bronwyn does a little Bronwyn chuckle, smugly asserting that she does in fact own the $4 million necklace she allegedly bought in Palm Springs.

Apparently, the truth is far different. The jeweler—who has joined the ranks of hairstylist Tenesha in low-down bone-collecting—shot Lisa a text saying Bronwyn bought nothing of the sort, simply showing off for the cameras before sending it all back.

“Wow. This is really dastardly of her,” Bronwyn mutters. I love vocabulary lessons from the Real Housewives.

Both of Bronwyn’s faces came into this reunion knowing full-well that this was not her season, and her 16-episode strategy to pummel Lisa at every turn while simultaneously wondering why Lisa doesn’t feel warm kinship was sloppy.

She still hasn’t learned that Housewives isn’t just a game of playing the audience. You have to work the room, too. That’s how fan-hated Housewives like Kyle Richards come back year-after-year, while audience surrogates like Crystal Minkoff are relegated to the podcast circuit.

It’s most succinctly summed up by Heather, our consummate narrator. “It doesn’t matter what you projected. It matters what happened.”

In fact, it’s interesting to see the hyper-online side of things manifest in Bronwyn, acting as a perfect counter to Heather Gay, who spent the finale admonishing Housewives who collude with fan accounts.

This leads well into Carolyn from Buffalo blaming Heather’s weight loss on giving her “mean girl energy this season.” It’s the kind of thing that sounds so ridiculous said out loud, but is important to discuss, nonetheless. Heather’s faced a brutal road as a Housewife—first ridiculed by fans and even her own castmates for her weight (lest we forget Jen Shah calling her Shrek). Now that she’s lost the weight, so many see it as a chance to knock her down.

She isn’t the relatable voice of reason who just wants to give a funny confessional and eat meatballs off a stick, anymore. Heather Gay has transcended her original form to show us an imperfect, often messy woman who never signed up to be a role model.

The incessant discussions of Ozempic and plastic surgery always miss the mark, as they basically give people an excuse to say nasty, vicious things in the faux-pursuit of feminism. It’s not right, and it’s great that Heather finally got to say her piece, for all the Housewives.

And finally, the reunion dives into an even trickier discussion, as Bronwyn’s paternity drama takes center stage for a brutal battle with Lisa. It’s definitely grimey for such a discussion to happen without Bronwyn’s daughter Gwen present, but ultimately, that was the decision Bronwyn made when she brought the topic on camera.

Of course, Lisa has handled it all poorly, playing both sides when one side clearly needs no support. But Bronwyn—and later Todd—should have some perspective that this is Real Housewives, not the Bronwyn show. If you’re going to take a delicate topic like your daughter’s paternity and make it a storyline, it’s simply going to spiral out of control.

Some Housewives—as in the case of Potomac’s Mia—specifically want that chaos. But if you want to protect your kid, don’t confide in the modern day Ramona Singer. Lisa is a great Housewife, but she’s expertly dexterous. She can easily fit her entire foot in her mouth.

There was simply no way this discussion would go anywhere other than the gutter. And that it does, as Bronwyn resurfaces Lisa’s after-show claim that the family had been told Bronwyn had a miscarriage. This twists into “Did Lisa accuse Bronwyn of faking a miscarriage?” which is, somehow, only the second darkest thing on Bravo this week, thanks to the RHONY finale.

The hurt does feel really deep here, as Andy said, and it’s something that seems too hard to hash out on a reunion couch. For Gwen’s sake, it’s probably best to just call it a day, even if Bronwyn could get an easy win on Lisa.

Just as a pin is put in the conversation, my hopes of this going away forever are decimated by the husbands taking the stage. Frankly, it’s not becoming for Todd to keep acting so haughty all-the-while policing everyone else’s actions. But it leading to the randomest feud possible, Todd vs. John Barlow, makes it all worth it. Everyone on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is a certified diva.

No other franchise could traverse such treacherous depths without succumbing to the abyss. This cast may walk a tightrope, but they’ve maintained their balance all the way through five seasons of absolute beauty. Sure, there was a little trip-up in Season 3, but I’m simply not in the business of doubting these ladies.