Nobody asked for this. There was not one single person in the world who was looking at the scope of reality television offerings across the world and thought to themselves, “You know what we really need? A show about six conceited gay men talking about how great they are, nonstop, for an hour.” Yet, that’s exactly the Rumpelstiltskin curse we’ve had forced upon us with MTV’s newest show, The Real Friends of WeHo, premiering Friday.
Yes, premiering Friday, as in, “The slot right after RuPaul’s Drag Race,” which just moved to MTV after airing on Viacom’s sister network, VH1, for the last few years. To make room for The Real Friends of WeHo, MTV is reportedly trying to create a gay destination night by chopping Drag Race’s cherished 90-minute episodes down to a rushed hour-long affair (42 minutes, with commercials). The decision has already resulted in an outpouring of derision from Drag Race fans, upset that the Emmy-winning reality sensation’s runtime is being kneecapped. Funny, Drag Race fans are usually so rational.
Maybe it would be a different story if The Real Friends of WeHo were actually any good. I’m no happier about Drag Race getting the chop than your average gay person who needs to stop using reality television as an antidepressant, but I approached the glittering gates of West Hollywood with an open mind. The Real Friends of WeHo could be so bad that it’s good! Better yet, it could be so bad that it’s fun to tweet about.
It brings me no joy to say that The Real Friends of WeHo stinks as badly as the alley dumpster behind The Abbey after jockstrap night. The show is choppy and unfocused, blithely assuming that its audience has an innate interest in its whiny circle of friends who were cobbled together at the last second. Never before has a series so clearly founded itself on the premise of getting its viewers to tune in for a hate-watch.
That might be a sustainable model of programming for more than one season if its cast wasn’t comprised entirely of narcissists, who threaten to run the show into the ground from the very first episode and are too focused on themselves to create even one second of compelling gay drama.
The Real Friends—who, by the way, are about as real of friends as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford—are comprised of some familiar and not-so-familiar faces, depending on what type of digital footprint you keep.
There’s Brad Goreski, former star of The Rachel Zoe Project turned solo stylist and bad Real Housewife impersonator; Curtis Hamilton, a semi-closeted actor whose biggest credit to date is four episodes of Insecure; Dorión Renaud, CEO/founder of Buttah Skin; Todrick Hall, choreographer and internet menace; Joey Zauzig, an influencer who sounds like he has milk trapped in his lungs; and finally, Jaymes Vaughan, the husband of the more-famous Mean Girls star Jonathan Bennett.
The premiere opens with a voiceover of Brad telling viewers that this show is “breaking new ground.” In what way, of course, remains unclear for the duration of the episode. There’s nothing remotely new about a slew of influencers appearing on reality television to elevate their personal brands. If anything, The Real Friends of WeHo is just more transparent about its intentions.
The fabric of the cast’s pre-existing connections is thin at best. “I might not directly know exactly who the people are,” Brad says. “But I know people, who know people, who know people.” At least in other reality shows, the producers have the good sense to construct convoluted ways to intertwine the cast. Throwing a bunch of mammoth egos into a room together does not constitute a plotline.
But each of the cast members knows who Todrick Hall is, and they’re all a little afraid. Even Brad, who was already friendly with Todrick before the cameras went up, seems wary of being associated with Todrick in this capacity. And for good reason! Not only has Todrick been recently ordered by a judge to pay back $100,00 in unpaid rent for his West Hollywood home, but he’s also been accused of not paying the dancers who have worked closely with him in his career. Addressing the allegations, Todrick simply spits some spin about being self-funded and working hard, never really denying anything.
The show’s producers are working overtime trying to portray Todrick as the show’s villain, while he thinks of himself as the star. In fact, each member of the cast is clearly consumed with their own delusions of grandeur.
There’s a clear difference between self-confidence and self-importance, and none of the cast has been able to crack a dictionary to figure that out. Least of all Joey, who spends all of his time on camera complaining about being marginalized for being a gorgeous influencer, despite the fact that he sometimes—gasp!—has insecurities. If we had a nickel for every gay man who became a muscle queen because they were insecure about being 10 pounds overweight when they were 13, we wouldn’t be careening toward a recession.
But, to Joey’s credit, Dorión is strictly anti-influencer, a point he makes clear to us from the beginning. Dorión’s skincare line is highly successful (which he reiterates nonstop), and he has no time for anyone who thinks having a big social media following equates to having a career. “A lot of people here in Hollywood think that putting a camera in front of their face and talking to their phone all day makes them a professional,” Dorión says. “That’s not a job!”
Dorión’s drama with Joey is the crux of the first episode’s manufactured drama, with the two men butting heads at Joey’s engagement party for him and his fiancé, who looks like his twin, naturally. Dorión keeps to himself at the event, leading Joey to confront him about being antisocial. Because gay people are just soooo attracted to displays of theatrics, this causes a slew of accusations about Joey’s career (or lack thereof) to fly.
Though the episode ends on a “To Be Continued…,” it feels unlikely that any viewers who are already reluctantly tuning in to The Real Friends of WeHo will be back for more next week. For lack of a clear plotline, the show could at least generate some memorably dishy disputes. But one persistent question kept popping up in my mind throughout the premiere: “Who cares?” There’s no fun in watching a bunch of catty gay men fight about who makes more money or who slept with who. I can’t even imagine West Hollywood’s actual residents being entertained.
The Real Friends of WeHo is entirely too aware of what it is and how it’s perceived. The first episode even includes a confessional with Todrick where he discusses the online backlash after the show’s first promo was released, just three weeks ago. Todrick’s response versus the actual show’s existence best highlights the disconnect that fractures the series from the very start.
MTV wants to use Drag Race as a flagship franchise to launch a new property, and the six stars of The Real Friends of WeHo see it as a paycheck and branding opportunity, rather than a job. That means that no one is actually considering what audiences ultimately want to see, because it sure as hell is not this.
What ultimately lands on our televisions isn’t even offensive enough to make the (extremely tacky and unfunny) joke that this show sets the gay community back by 50 years, because it simply doesn’t have enough power to do so. To set back progress, you actually have to impose a threat. But no one here is invested enough to put that much energy into the show. At least the Real Housewives have the good sense to step on each other’s necks to get to the top of the food chain; the Real Friends can’t free their heads from their own asses long enough to make that a possibility.
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