Inside the ‘Real Housewives’ Reckoning That’s Rocking Bravo
Glanville says she and Manzo had been by no means alone, and nobody from manufacturing stepped in at any level. (Glanville had behaved equally on a earlier season of UGT. Glanville says NBCU executives despatched optimistic suggestions to the forged.) Forged member Phaedra Parks informed Vainness Truthful she was sober that night and noticed Glanville and Manzo’s interplay as “nothing wanting a modern-day Harlequin Romance…. Love was successful.”
“You’re not in your proper thoughts, and also you wish to give them good TV,” says Glanville. “The entire level of those exhibits is to get us unhinged. If there was a difficulty or state of affairs the place somebody was uncomfortable in Morocco, nobody in manufacturing or the crew or forged intervened within the second.”
Glanville says she heard nothing till she began posting about Bravo and UGT on social media whereas she was hospitalized for irritation in October, at which level she acquired a textual content from Barry Goldstein, whom she had by no means heard of, telling her he was a psychologist who wished to name her for a “check-in.” Bravo lately introduced the season will premiere in 2024, although a supply with information of executives’ choices says the community continues to be discussing whether or not it’ll air in any respect.
On October 20, Manzo’s lawyer filed swimsuit on behalf of Marco Vega towards NBCU, Bravo, Peacock, Warner Bros., Shed, and Forest Productions (a subsidiary of Shed). Vega, who was an onscreen butler on a UGT arc, alleges Glanville sexually harassed Vega, and that Parks smacked his backside. “Defendants allowed, condoned and even inspired Ms. Glanville’s sexually aggressive and offensive conduct on others on the units,” the swimsuit says. (Warner Bros. doesn’t touch upon pending litigation.)
Different actuality exhibits at different networks have needed to make corrections. The Bachelor reportedly instituted a two-drink-an-hour restriction after two intoxicated Bachelor in Paradise forged members reportedly had an on-camera sexual encounter. On the British courting present Love Island, previous forged members have mentioned they’re allowed two models of alcohol a day, and rigorous psychological well being protocols had been put in place following the suicides of two former forged members and the present’s longtime host (which I wrote about for this journal). On Netflix’s Love Is Blind, a courting sequence with single-season casts, a forged member accused producers of not supporting her with psychological well being care, though emails seen by VF present she was supplied postshow remedy. This month, a forged member filed a lawsuit asserting she was sexually assaulted whereas below “24-hour surveillance” and no producers intervened. Chris Coelen, the creator of Love Is Blind and CEO of Kinetic Content material, informed Folks that casts will not be filmed or managed across the clock and that “we will’t be accountable if somebody doesn’t inform us that they’ve a priority.”
On Kinetic exhibits like Love Is Blind, The Ultimatum, and Married at First Sight, professionals interview every forged member previous to filming to judge whether or not they’re in a headspace to be on (and subsequently off) actuality tv. Related protocols are in place on Love Island, The Bachelor, and MTV’s The Problem. Frankel says she underwent emotional and psychological testing throughout casting for The Apprentice, which aired on NBC. A supply with information of the casting course of clarified that whereas psych evaluations happen for competitors sequence like High Chef and Undertaking Runway, unstructured, unscripted sequence like The Actual Housewives solely require companions to have already-cast expertise converse with a psychologist in a gathering NBCU calls “Intro to Psych.”
McSweeney, Williams, and Frankel say they didn’t discuss to a psychological well being skilled earlier than filming a Bravo present, although a supply with information says McSweeney and Williams accomplished Intro to Psych. Two different Housewives informed me they’d Intro to Psych telephone periods with Goldstein, however of their view that the calls didn’t obtain the acknowledged purpose of “set up[ing] rapport with the present psych early on.” The final murkiness concerning the degree and kind of care offered extends to the language of the rules. A consultant for Shed says that, “Going ahead, forged members can have much more touchpoints with present psychologists.”
Bunim/Murray Productions president Julie Pizzi oversees The Problem, one of many few long-running actuality exhibits exterior Bravo with a repertory forged. (Bunim/Murray is the manufacturing firm that introduced us The Actual World and Street Guidelines by way of MTV.) The Problem has advanced its method by way of a number of cases of racism and a 2009 accusation of sexual assault. Pizzi says psychological well being professionals who’ve labored with the identical contestants over a few years are on name 24 hours a day throughout filming, and counseling is offered as soon as manufacturing wraps. If producers see forged members order what they deem to be an excessive amount of alcohol, they get reduce off.
On April 2, 2023, Vanderpump Guidelines star Rachel Leviss entered inpatient psychological well being therapy for 3 months following a season on which her affair with a castmate, often called “Scandoval,” grew to become the present’s central plotline and a nationwide information story. Regardless of Bravo’s information of Leviss’s residential care, Cohen subsequently declined to appropriate Leviss’s castmates on a number of episodes of WWHL after they mentioned she was truly at a spa and implied she was faking her psychological well being points. Cohen additionally repeatedly requested what company thought of Leviss and her psychological well being. Saturday Night time Reside star Chloe Fineman known as her a “filthy whore,” and Cohen laughed. After the reunion, he speculated in a Selection interview that Leviss had been “very medicated” on the taping, throughout which her costar Ariana Madix, whose ex-boyfriend Leviss had the connection with, informed Leviss, “Fuck your self with a fucking cheese grater.” Cohen didn’t intervene.