The Real Reason These Real Housewives Were Fired
Believe it or not, being a Real Housewife is a real job. These ladies all got booted from the Bravo franchise, either for not bringing enough drama ... or for bringing way too much of it for producers to handle.
Brandi Glanville
In summer 2015, it was revealed that Brandi Glanville wouldn't be returning to the Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills. It wasn't clear at the time whether Glanville was fired or if she quit, but she set the record straight in January 2016 on Kocktails With Khloe. "They didn't ask me back full-time," she said. "I was really counting on the paycheck as a single mom." As for why, she admitted, "I did tell Andy Cohen to f**k off, not only on TV and via text and via email and via Twitter." She added, "People were coming for me. I'm like, 'You know what? We have no story and you guys are boring. I'm going to be a dick right now.' I literally was the only one there that needed the paycheck. They were already rich to begin with."
Phaedra Parks
Of all Real Housewives Of Atlanta who should have known better, Phaedra Parks — an attorney — confessed to spreading a bogus rumor that fellow RHOA star Kandi Burruss and Burruss' husband, Todd Tucker, planned on drugging and raping co-star Porsha Williams.
"I repeated it because I heard it," Parks said on the reunion show airing May 7, 2017. "Something was brought to me. I just repeated it ... I repeated what someone told me. I'm not saying I didn't say it. I'm saying I repeated it ... I shouldn't have repeated it ... I screwed up ... I'm sorry."
On Monday, May 8, 2017, TMZ reported that Parks was fired from the show, with production sources saying her rumors were "out of line." An insider told Page Six, "They were so disgusted with her. The entire cast and Andy [Cohen] agreed Phaedra would not be coming back next season. She dug her own grave. She's considered a liability and will not be returning. Andy is upset."
"Phaedra tried to blame producers for manipulating the scenario, and it was cut from the reunion show. They're not allowed to break the 'fourth wall' and talk about production," a source told Page Six. "It may not have been entirely Phaedra's fault, but she has to take the fall ... There are lines listed in all cast members' contracts that they cannot cross. Libel is one of them. She's in breach of contract and the cast basically said, 'Us or her.'"
Adrienne Maloof
Though Adrienne Maloof claimed to leave Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills on her own accord, sources told Radar Online that she was fired after her feud with Brandi Glanville started to cost producers money.
"Adrienne's lawyers came at Bravo with all guns blazing after Brandi began mentioning the surrogacy of her twin sons," a source said. "She didn't want that aired on television. Producers of the show spent hours going over footage and editing it out. It cost a lot of money and took a lot of manpower to do. For Adrienne to then give an interview to a celebrity magazine about the surrogacy was a slap in the face to producers to say the least!"
The source added, "It rankled a lot of feathers and was ultimately the reason why Adrienne was fired. Bravo had no legal obligation to edit out all the mentions of the surrogacy, but they wanted to do the right thing for Adrienne and her family, so they obliged."
DeShawn Snow
DeShawn Snow was fired from the first season of Real Housewives Of Atlanta for being "too human for a circus show." Translation: She was too normal and didn't bring enough drama!
"[One of the producers] called and said that I was 'too human for a circus show' and that because the show did so well, they are about to pump up the drama and they didn't think that I would fit in," Snow told Essence. "He gave me an example, saying that during the reunion when I found out what a few of the other ladies said about me, they were expecting me to say more, but I'm not the type to go 'television' and start acting crazy because somebody's talking about me. I'm fine with the decision. It wasn't my decision. They let me go and there are no hard feelings. I am thankful for the opportunity."
Snow continued, "I didn't see it coming. I was shocked because I just talked to them in December about the new season. It's not like they came to me and gave me an option by saying, 'We're going to take a new direction and we want to know if you could be more like this.' I was a little hurt, but I just look at it like I am what I am. [My personality] didn't seem to be a problem before, but I suppose the show took a different direction and they no longer see me as the right fit. If you look at all the other housewives, they are all different ... enjoyed being on the show and hanging with the girls. At the end of the day, I was the same person throughout the show. I never changed. I was authentic and true to myself and I can't control what other people do."
Gretchen Rossi and Alexis Bellino
Friends Alexis Bellino and Gretchen Rossi were both given the Bravo boot from Real Housewives Of Orange County at the same time because they were, well, sort of dull. An insider told E! News, "Neither will be returning for season nine. The feeling is both of their journeys on the show have come to an end. Bravo is constantly looking at the casting and dynamics and it felt like time for a change."
A source told Us Weekly, "Alexis and Gretchen were fired. They just had run their course. Gretchen has been on the show a long time, and it was the same old story."
Claudia Jordan
Claudia Jordan was fired from Real Housewives Of Atlanta in summer 2015, and many believe that her beef with breakout star NeNe Leakes was what did her contract in.
Leakes, a RHOA fixture, told Extra before the news of the firing hit, "I don't know if I'll return or not, I don't know. I will return, however, if some of the other girls leave the show, because the show's called the Real Housewives Of Atlanta. There're a lot of women on the show this season who are single, they're not moms, they're not married, not dating ... We have too many girls that are looking for money instead of love, so I like to find a girl that's looking for love, really wants to find a husband," she continued. "I feel like we have a bunch of gold diggers on the show, so it'd be great if we found somebody really looking for love."
Leakes wound up returning ... and Jordan didn't.
Jill Zarin
In 2011, four Real Housewives Of New York were fired: Jill Zarin, Cindy Barshop, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, and Alex McCord. No concrete reason was given for the other firings, but a source told Us Weekly of Zarin, "[The producers] were sick of her being a diva."
In 2014, Zarin explained to Oprah's Where Are They Now, "One night ... I took a sleeping pill and I typed out an email to my producer and three out of the five housewives. I said, 'I'm leaving the show. I want to leave on a high. I'm in a good place right now.'" Zarin didn't include any Bravo heads on the email, but the damage was done: "I kind of got cold feet the next day, and I said, 'Ah, that was stupid, I shouldn't have sent that email out,'" she recalled. "So, when I got the phone call from my production company, I knew."
When Zarin asked Andy Cohen why she was let go, he explained, "We were looking to shake the show up. The viewers were the ones that, to us, dictated that they wanted something to change. The last reunion ... was incredibly toxic for everyone involved. When it was over, I think the viewers, the producers, and Bravo separately said, 'What can we do to change it? Because if we bring it back as it is, nothing is going to change.'"
Danielle Staub
After a whole lot of drama in the Real Housewives Of New Jersey (including the infamous Teresa Giudice table-flip), Danielle Staub was fired from the series in 2010. The network never went into exactly why she was let go, but Staub insisted to Us Weekly that it was because she was getting her own spinoff show. "I'm way too good for this," she sniffed. "They have used me about as much as I can be used ... I think it's time for me to move on and upward. I don't see any interest for me to be attacked like that. I mean, what's left [for the other castmates]? To kill me? Bravo seems to be glorifying their behavior ... I want my own show. I want to be me now," she said. "Not me according to other people. Me ... A spinoff is absolutely, positively where I'm going."
Aviva Drescher
Aviva Drescher brought the drama to Real Housewives Of New York, even hurling a fake leg at her castmates — but it wasn't enough to keep her on the Bravo payroll, and she was fired in 2014. She later told the New York Post, "For me the whole thing was sort of an acting job. It was never a reality for me. There were like 10 cameras around and I was there to entertain people and take them out of their hard day. So when I threw my leg, I was looking at it as entertainment. I just hope that in real life, nobody thinks that I really do that, I have three kids!"