When Did the Real Housewives Fandom Become So Toxic?

The Real Housewives fanbase is often wistful for a time when the shows were healthier and lighter—a time that never existed.

The franchise’s early seasons featured Taylor Armstrong suffering from domestic abuse as her castmates accused her of dishonesty, Teresa Giudice’s family falling apart while she and her husband were investigated by the federal government, and Lynne Curtin’s daughters receiving their family’s eviction notice on camera.

Darkness is embedded in the franchise. If anything, the shows now are glossier than they ever were before. But now that social media has inundated every corner of the reality franchise, there’s a 24/7 news-cycle full of vitriol and pile-ons. With unlimited access to the Housewives has come a parasocial attachment permanently changing the franchise—and the way people view it.

Fans are now active participants in the shows, and the Housewives ecosystem has become one of immense negativity, where fans call for the firing of any polarizing cast members and seem to expect the utmost morality out of the cast whose murky layers were once revered.

Take The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Bravo’s highest-rated show currently, and one whose fan base seems to actively despise it (despite tuning in with bated breath). For the past several seasons—since Lisa Vanderpump quit the show— thinkpieces hit Twitter and Reddit weekly about how especially disgusting the show has become.

Declarations of a Housewife needing to be fired for “crossing the line” are as frequent as the rising sun—actually, more frequent. And the fanbase’s passionate nature has only risen in voracity. As Season 12 of RHOBH aired, the polarizing Lisa Rinna (of M&M fame) was called out for her on-screen behavior, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. A conspiracy circulated accusing her of running a stan Twitter account by fans who think you can pull anyone’s IP address from Twitter. A few weeks later, a joke-photoshopped photo of her holding a gun circulated to the extent that Rinna's publicist was forced to make a statement about it.

Really, the whole season of RHOBH had a dark cloud over it from the discourse, elevating Kathy Hilton to some benevolent hero simply because she was on the opposite side of Rinna and Erika Jayne.

Somehow within the span of the season, Kyle Richards was accused of physical assault for grabbing Sutton Stracke, Crystal Minkoff was dragged over the coals for speaking her mind about an uncomfortable experience with Stracke (including by former Housewife Camille Grammer), and even Dorit Kemsley was accused relentlessly of faking her robbery. All of this when we could have simply appreciated Jayne’s continued rise to comic-book-villain status and the battle-to-the-bottom of picking a moral victor between Hilton and Rinna.

The intense online commentary took what was a purely mid-tier season and made it seem like explosive, horrifying TV. RHOBH is a solid franchise, but fans’ insistence it’s the most “dark” city in the series falls flat—at least, post-Season 2. It’s funny, too, since so many criticisms of RHOBH nail it for being boring. Somehow, it’s the blandest show on TV while also enraging its audience to an alarming degree. Quite the balancing act!

But the brain worms that once seemed exclusive to RHOBH discourse have spread like wildfire across the franchise.

Housewives fans witnessed the vicious fall of former Real Housewives of Salt Lake City fan favorite Heather Gay in the icy city’s latest season. Gay, who entered BravoCon to major applause, went out of the season a scorned pariah. When she got a black eye during the final cast trip to San Diego, rumors of the mysterious injury flew—most coming straight from Gay’s mouth. That escalated until she tearfully revealed at the reunion that she was blacked out and has no idea how it happened, but shrouded herself in mystery due to “Mormon shame.”

But what should be admired as a case study in the intricacies of Heather Gay’s mind was instead stripped of any fun by the discourse.

Gay was ripped to shreds by a fanbase who revered her months before and made out to be some Machiavellian villain rather than just a deeply flawed human. While it was no doubt a miscalculation to concoct a spectacle the way she did, the plot’s tearful climax that was met by a stone-faced Lisa Barlow was captivating. It was the kind of uncomfortable dark humor most scripted shows can’t come close to achieving. Gay may not be the lovable hero Season 1 made out to be, but she's something greater, boasting a villain arc that few have achieved.

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By the end of Season 3, Gay and Barlow had essentially swapped moral roles, cementing them as RHOSLC’s most dynamic snowflakes. We’ve only begun seeing her in all her layers, so why should we shun Gay for being a wonderfully flawed human?

Most puzzling are the pitchforks pointed at Real Housewives of Potomac’s Robyn Dixon. If you had told me a year ago that Dixon, Potomac’s resident normie, would be the source of the biggest fanbase outrage since Vicki Gunvalson’s cancer scam, leading to Andy Cohen grilling her in a supersized reunion episode, I’d have been stunned.

But even having seen it with my own eyes, I’m still entirely confused. Dixon lied, kept things secret, and then revealed them in a flippant way, creating a major mess. Are we supposed to pretend this is revolutionary or new, or inhibiting good TV? It isn’t.

How many of these petulant fans have said a word about the revelation at the RHOM reunion that Lisa Hochstein had seen her estranged husband in the hot tub with his new girlfriend TWO years before—and she only revealed it because loose lips Larsa Pippen said so.

There were no pitchforks when RHONJ star Jennifer Aydin denied her husband cheated in Season 9, only to fess up three years later. In fact, Aydin is often regarded as a quintessential modern cast member (and she is!).

Were fans demanding the firing of RHOM firestarter Adriana de Moura when it was revealed she had lied to the audience and her cast about the fact she was actually married during Season 3?

No—and they didn’t need to. Lying is ingrained in reality TV, and also just humanity. Hochstein, Aydin, and de Moura are all great on the show; their lies don’t negate that.

Expecting honesty and integrity out of Real Housewives is a fool’s errand, and one I have no sympathy for. These goal posts are arbitrary and manufactured to justify pile-ons of random women we don’t know.

While it’s natural to feel annoyed Dixon kept Juan’s infidelity off screen only to reveal it on a Patreon podcast, let’s leave it there. When even the moderators of the r/BravoRealHousewives subreddit are dismissing her with a perfunctory “Juan’s Roommate” nickname, we’ve lost the plot.

Robyn doesn’t deserve all of this vitriol. She’s spent most of her run as a supporting character, often criticized for her lack of proximity to drama. This season was different. Dixon entered a more polarizing arc, antagonizing co-star Wendy Osefo, making a spectacle with a speaker to expose her friend Candiace Dillard, and dropping accusations that Karen Huger’s long-rumored affair with a man dubbed “Blue Eyes” is true. Robyn was, shockingly, the most talked about housewife this season, for better or worse. She finally came into her own in the role—and you want to fire her?

It’s so backwards. Fans spend all their time attacking the Housewives they claim to hate most online, and then demand their firing. But a franchise like Real Housewives isn’t built on uncontroversial, nice women—if it were, Eileen Davidson would still be here (miss you queen).

The truth is, the authenticity fans claim to yearn for will never return in the age of social media—and we have ourselves to blame. How can anyone expect a reality TV star to be honest when fans rip their heads off for any mean comment or bitchy moment?

And that’s the real issue. Can we really ask any of these women to be “authentic” when they’re constantly fileted, over-examined, and held to impossible standards? If fans can’t accept that the concept of a “Real Housewife” is inherently going to attract morally corrupt human beings, then we’ve hit a dead end.

The vitriol is in no way evenly handed out, either. There are very few audience blow-ups more puzzling than the outrage leveled at RHONJ friend-of Jackie Goldschneider for slightly insulting newbie Danielle Cabral’s shorts.

Fashion insults are the bread-and-butter of petty Housewives feuds—Karen’s trolling of Gizelle’s fashion on RHOP, Luann’s iconic “even Louis Vuitton makes mistakes” line on RHONY—so what makes Goldschneider’s snide remark any different?

Some fans have said that she shouldn’t insult anyone’s clothing as Goldschneider has publicly struggled with an eating disorder. Apparently, having an eating disorder means you need to love everyone’s shorts. Who knew? No one, because that’s an inane reason to hate on someone for doing her job—stirring up petty drama.

It’s hard to see how we can return to the beginning when so many women are genuinely terrified to act like villains on screen. In fact, some of the only unabashed villains remaining are in the current fan favorite franchise, RHOM—Alexia Nepola and Pippen.

Neither Nepola nor Pippen entered the reunion with their tails between their legs. They doubled down on their drama, and even sparked new feuds. Of course, that has only amped up the fan outrage, but, at the end of the day, that’s how it should be.

It’s better to be authentically mean than to come to the reunion spouting Twitter talking points hoping to win big with the fickle fanbase.

Now, that’s not to dismiss any Housewife of moral criticism. There’s “messy for TV” behavior and truly deplorable, fireable offenses. RHOSLC’s Jennie Nguyen deserved the swift boot she received after racist, horrifically bigoted posts were found all over her Facebook. And as fun a troll as RHOC’s Kelly Dodd was in her early seasons, her off-screen behavior became intolerable. Even an Ultimate Girls Trip seems out of her reach given she can’t go two days without saying the most vile things imaginable.

But there’s quite a difference between Dodd and women like Nepola and Rinna. To pretend otherwise is dishonest and creates arbitrary boundaries for the women to contend with.

Season 2 of RHOBH—largely believed to be a peak season of the entire franchise—wouldn’t stand a chance with today’s fanbase. The season is especially dramatic, depicting the final year of Taylor Armstrong’s abusive marriage with her husband Russell. Cast members openly talk of how they don’t know if they believe Armstrong is being abused, Grammer outs the abuse while yelling at her, and Russell commits suicide.

It’s dark, disturbing, and authentic to the point of uncomfortable. And the season’s other major plot is the continued friction between sisters Kyle and Kim Richards as Kim’s erratic behavior boils over, until she admits she’s an alcoholic at the reunion. Hardly a feel-good season.

It’s not just the major plotlines. There’s just no way we’d see a scene like Luann de Lesseps telling a young girl “losing weight is the easy part” after hearing she wants to be a model. Gaffes like that which represent how especially out-of-touch these women are now receive thinkpieces and demands for accountability.

Believe it or not, Andy Cohen does not need to hold anyone “accountable” for causing drama. He’s not the Bravo school principal, and scolding women for petty behavior is hardly something anyone should watch this franchise for. Maybe some of you don’t get it, but women doing catty, mean things is kind of the whole purpose of these shows.

Stop viewing these shows from a “heroes” and “villains” lens, and whatever you do, never make a role model out of a Real Housewife. Joanna Krupa, effortless villainess who helped the original RHOM seasons soar, may have said it best in her first tagline. “I’m a model, but not always a model citizen.”

None of them are model citizens, nor should we want them to be. But, neither are we. Let’s turn down the temperature and try to appreciate the messes for what they are, saving the vitriol for when it’s really necessary.

There’s a reason Tamra Judge is a franchise staple and no one’s clamoring for a return from Cindy Barshop.