Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’ star Whitney Rose reveals where she stands with Jen Shah after arrest: 'I do not like the charges against her'
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Whitney Rose definitely blossomed in her second season on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.
After frequently biting her tongue during her first go-’round, the Wild Rose Beauty founder told herself she would speak her mind more often this season, and she’s stayed true to that promise. During a banner year for the franchise, in which co-star Jen Shah infamously got arrested in the middle of filming, Whitney came to play — whether in her feud with Lisa Barlow or her unexpected fallout from Mary M. Cosby, she made sure to engage.
For the latest episode of In The Know’s pop culture interview series We Should Talk, Rose opened up about all things season 2 of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, including her feuds with Lisa and Mary, where she stands with Jen now, the rebrand of her skin care line and much more.
“It’s very much an out-of-body experience. I kind of go numb a little bit. In that moment, we’re just trying to figure out what’s going on. Was someone after Jen or is she in trouble? Did she do something? [You’re] given this much information, but your mind wanders to any possibility out there. Like, anything and everything is possible at this point,” Rose told In The Know about watching the episode based around Jen Shah’s arrest. “As we’re driving, we’re trying to fill in the lines with no information, and then once she went to the courthouse and they released the indictment, then people started messaging us. I had probably a hundred people send it to me within a minute.”
Listen to Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Whitney Rose’s full episode of We Should Talk here, and keep reading for highlights from the interview:
On where she stands with Jen Shah after her arrest: “For a minute there, I was all over the place. You’ll see me go full circle of how I’m going to show up for her. To be honest, Jen and I didn’t have a relationship at all until this season. She was awful to me the first season. I mean, she threatened to drown me in the lake behind my house! But [in] season 2, we did start off OK, and we were starting to build on our friendship. […] I decided that I’m going to show up as Whitney Rose and I’m just going to keep the peace. There’s no point for me to condemn her, chastise her, judge her. Until we know — her trial starts in March — and once we get more information, I think that will better inform how I want to move forward. […] It’ll be interesting to see because I do not like the charges against her. I think they’re pretty awful. It’ll be interesting to see how it all unfolds. […] I don’t want anyone to think I condone that kind of behavior. I don’t condone that at all. But also, in the United States, she has the right to a fair trial, and we just have to wait and see. It’s hard not to pre-assume and prejudge and expect an outcome, but we’ll see what happens. That’s going to be a hard moment, to be like, ‘Yeah, I was OK with you, but now I’m not.'”
On thinking Lisa Barlow knows more about Jen Shah’s situation than she revealed: “Especially listening to Lisa call all her attorneys and listening to those conversations, I felt like Lisa knows more than she’s leading onto because I think that she understood the magnitude of the potential problem. That’s no slam to her because, in that moment, I just think that she’s very close to Jen. She knows the most but what was interesting was that Lisa and I had a trauma bond. It was like, all of our crap? It’s gone. In that moment, we had a trauma bond of, ‘No, we’re fine.’ A caterer [versus] a federal indictment? We’re fine.”
On her feud with Mary M. Cosby: “I was stunned. That came out of nowhere to me. I was truly shocked. Emotions were high because 1. I really thought she was my friend and 2. I’m emotional because I’ve taken so much from her as I shared in my confessional. I felt like there were moments where I was the only one standing up for her last season so it really shocked me. […] It is literally one of the worst things [fighting with Mary]. And I think this is why I always danced around it and why a lot of my other friends and cast-mates dance around Mary, too. Because it is terrifying! She does go below the belt, and words hurt you. She uses a little bit of fear to keep people down, and it’s hard for me because there’s so much out there online — so many rumors about her and about her church — and just this last episode, her family is upset with me. I’ve hurt all their feelings. It’s scary because I don’t know if rumors are true or not! Am I putting myself in a bad situation? I don’t know. It’s the hardest situation.”
On her plan for the season 2 reunion: “Just wait for the reunion. I’m going to be passing out a few gifts! It’s going to be hilarious, because I am running with [Mary calling me ‘little girl’].”
On her feud with Lisa Barlow: “Honestly? I don’t have a problem with her. I would say my only problem with her is that she has such a deep problem with me. I just think she’s threatened and insecure. I think that I embody or represent her worst nightmare because I was the younger woman coming into the mix. Truly, before I even met her, she had a lot to say about me, and I was so excited to meet her. From the moment I came into this circle, she tried to get me out of it. She’ll always say she doesn’t have a problem with me, but she does. I think it’s just her own insecurities. […] With Lisa, the only thing that she really didn’t like about me was the way I dressed. She thought I was trashy because I would wear clubbing clothes in a club … these are the things that she’s screenshotted from my Instagram and passed around. She always docked my style, docked my age difference with my husband — just docked everything physical about me. I’ve never done anything to Lisa, and she can’t look at me in the eyes and say, ‘This is why I don’t like you,’ because I’ve never done anything to her behind her back.”
On accusations that Lisa Barlow is self-producing this season: “That’s a pattern, and that is absolutely poor self-producing and trying to control the narrative. […] First of all, I had never met Henry and Jack. Why would they invite me if they really controlled their invite list? Two, Jen showed up at the Fresh Wolf photo shoot. So, it was twofold: She was trying to sling mud at Jen and my relationship to cause a fire there, and then [in planting] Cameron, I think her intention was for him to say to me what he said to Meredith. I think she saw [on] tubing day that the sliver [of tension was there], because there was tension building between Mary and I because I stopped kissing her butt. […] I threw a wrench in her plan by having a cold, but she still got it out there.”
On what she changed about her mentality going into season 2: “The first season was hard because I was the underdog. I was the young one. Whether they admit it or not, no one wanted me there. I think I was just a little bit of a threat as this younger Housewife coming in. I’m nice. I’m a really nice person and I was always trying to be nice. This season I’m still nice but I watched myself [in] season 1, and I was like, ‘You need to speak up! What’s going through your head, I need to have the confidence to verbalize it.’ It was hard at first, but I really gained that confidence during season 1, so season 2, I was like, ‘I’m not going to hold back.'”
Watch In The Know’s full interview with Whitney Rose below, and tune into The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Sundays at 9 p.m. EST only on Bravo:
If you enjoyed this interview, check out In The Know’s recent interview with fellow Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Lisa Barlow here!
The post ‘Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’ star Whitney Rose breaks down her epic second season appeared first on In The Know.
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