This season of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City has featured one cast member being arrested and charged with fraud while the FBI and Homeland Security circled a van in which most of the rest of the women were filming, horrified and confused.
It has chronicled allegations against another cast member—who is married to and has a son with her step-grandfather—that she is conning and exploiting members of her church and running what some have referred to as “a cult.” Another cast member has discussed her husband’s desire that they obtain a “sister wife,” bragged about breaking his ribs in a fit of violent rage, and has since been fired from the series after racist memes she’d posted on social media surfaced.
So it is a bar higher than the Utah mountains, so high that Joseph Smith himself can see it from the Celestial Kingdom, that is being cleared when we say that what happened in the final moments of Sunday night’s episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is the wildest thing to happen on the series yet. In fact, it might rank among the most explosive Housewives moments in the franchise’s history—and it was never meant to be captured.
There is no more blissful and, as RHOSLC star Lisa Barlow just discovered, more devastating aspect of reality television than the accidental “hot mic” moment. For viewers and producers, it’s serendipity: candid confessions, juicy reveals, or, in this case, unhinged rants one would make when they assume the cameras aren’t on them and their words would never be made public.
One of the greatest and most consequential moments in nonfiction television happened courtesy of a hot mic: Robert Durst’s burp heard around the world… and subsequent murder confession. (Though HBO apparently doctored it.)
The Real Housewives are icons—victims, survivors, ambassadors—of the hot mic. Barbara Kavovit on New York City getting caught saying that her friend Luann de Lesseps “can’t really sing,” and a season prior alleging that de Lesseps was only going through with her wedding because she had “something to prove.” Joe Giudice on New Jersey warning someone on the phone that his “bitch wife” was coming. LeeAnne Locken on Dallas alleging that co-star Cary Deuber’s husband liked “to get his dick sucked at The Round Up.”
Even presidents of these fair United States have fallen prey to the hot mic, be it Barack Obama muttering that Kanye West was a “jackass,” or Joe Biden recently calling a Fox News reporter a “stupid son of a bitch.”
But with all due respect to the leaders of the free world (and Barbara K.), the hot mic crown now belongs to Lisa Barlow.
Sunday night’s episode concluded with Barlow storming off from a heated dinner argument during the cast’s trip to Zion. She beelined it to the bathroom, where she exploded into a tirade about castmate—and friend of over 10 years—Meredith Marks, who, among other things, she calls a “whore” who “fucked half of New York.”
It was remarkable for how explicit and vicious it was, full of intimate allegations that a) only a close friend would know—assuming they actually are—and b) seemed to have been pent up for a long time. It also, like every outburst on The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, seemed to come out of nowhere.
A common theme of the show this season has been cast members spontaneously erupting with impassioned, screaming rants and attacks with little-to-no lead-up or context, confusing fellow Housewives and viewers alike. In this instance, the women were piling on Mary Cosby’s moral double standard and cruelty toward the cast, whether that was defensible, and why Marks hasn’t done more to condemn the behavior. There was a blip of a moment in which Jen Shah turned the conversation on Barlow, but that had already passed by the time Barlow got up, stalked off, and began ranting and raving about Marks—not Shah or Cosby.
Here is the transcript of the hot mic moment, which deserves every dramatic reading and viral meme treatment that Erika Jayne’s “Tom’s house was broken into” monologue did in the recent season of Beverly Hills (Warning: explicit language):
Meredith can go fuck herself, I’m done with her. Cause I’m not a fucking whore and I don’t cheat on my husband. Her and her dumb fucking family that poses. Why don’t you own a house? Oh wait you can’t, cause your husband changes jobs every five minutes. Meredith is a piece of fucking shit. I had your back and I’m offended by that. Fuck you. That fucking piece of shit garbage whore. I fucking hate her. She’s a whore. She fucked half of New York. She can go fuck herself.
The moment was first teased in a trailer for the show, but it wasn’t clear who Barlow was talking about—though fans suspected it was about Marks. Marks and her husband had been separated for a time, and the cast spread rumors about Marks dating men in New York, but it had never been discussed with this kind of vitriol.
Seeing the rant in the context of the episode, it’s all the more shocking that Barlow would say this about a former friend, but it’s also unclear what Marks did in the moment to set it off. There seems to be more behind it that we haven’t seen… which probably explains why it all came out on a hot mic when Barlow thought she wasn’t on camera and what she was saying likely wouldn’t be on the show.
The Real Housewives franchise has, over its run, been criticized for relishing in presenting women at their worst for our entertainment, and whether or not that is misogynistic or has cultural value. But that’s always been a myopic way of looking at a series that is not just an anthropological study of a certain subset of women, but also holds a funhouse mirror to how wealth, power, and narcissism affects all societal behavior.
Still, Housewives critics might find it crass that fans of the show are delighting in a moment so cruel and damaging to another woman’s reputation. But that’s the interesting thing about surveying the reactions now that the episode aired. Obviously beforehand people were salivating over what promised to be a juicy moment of television. Yet there has been considerable backlash against Barlow for her comments, and empathy for Marks.
Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live!, hallowed ground where the Housewives’ messiest moments are revered and exalted, treated the incident with a somber gravity on Sunday night after the episode premiered. Marks was the guest, and there was no giddiness over the salaciousness of it all. Host Andy Cohen was stern and empathetic while allowing Marks to react.
Like most of us, she’s uncertain what triggered Barlow, saying she’s “trying to still decipher that,” and attempted to fact check and defend herself against the allegations that were lobbed against her.
What we’re seeing, I think, is a sort of evolution of how Bravo fans interact with moments like these. There’s excitement in watching them, sure, because it makes for captivating TV and is inevitably consequential when it comes to future drama on the shows. But that excitement is tinged with unease and a certain queasiness.
