Bravo host Andy Cohen defended “The Real Housewives” show and brand on Sunday for having what a critic referred to as “MAGA women.”
On his Threads account, the “Watch What Happens Live” host took part in a brief question-and-answer session during a plane flight where one user asked why there were “so many MAGA women” on the series and how she could no longer watch “The Real Housewives of Orange County” because of it.
Cohen denied that the show was political and emphasized the need for “different” perspectives.
“If we didn’t showcase people with different POV’s there would be no show. Also it’s a show about the women and their relationships, not about politics,” Cohen wrote.
Fox News Digital reached out to NBCUniversal, the parent company behind Bravo TV, for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Over the past few years, multiple former “Real Housewives” have spoken out about facing pushback for conservative views — even when they themselves were not conservative.
In 2021, former “Real Housewives of Orange County” star Kelly Dodd was fired from the series following controversial remarks about the COVID-19 pandemic and accusations of her mocking the Black Lives Matter movement.
In an interview on Jamie Kennedy’s podcast in June, she described herself as the victim of cancel culture.
“I feel like if you don’t believe along the same lines they do, they don’t like you… I feel like I am an outcast,” Dodd said.
She added, “I feel that I’m getting politically discriminated against.”
Former cast member Annemarie Wiley, of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” spoke to Fox News Digital last year about no longer being invited to the show after leaving in 2024 for expressing conservative views, like protecting girls’ sports.
“I was given a terrible edit by Bravo and I found out after the season was finished when they didn’t invite me back, that that was the reason that I was given that edit, apparently… because I was a conservative,” Wiley told Fox News Digital.
Wiley said she was apolitical and actually fairly liberal before her time on the show.
“I grew up in Canada. I’d been a Democrat my entire life. And then, all of a sudden, I, you know, was forced to talk about this,” she said. “I was very apolitical. I was not at all into the political space, and so that experience made me look at what the two parties stood for,” she told Fox News Digital.
“Real Housewives of New York” star Jill Zarin, a friend of the Trump family, has also been critical of her Hollywood peers for ignoring the plight of the hostages during the Israel-Hamas war.
“I’m sorry that Hollywood can’t even get behind getting the hostages home. I just don’t understand it. They’re not wearing a yellow ribbon, but when there were other things in the world, you know, hashtag… Michelle Obama, hashtag, get the girls home,” Zarin told Fox News Digital in 2025.
Fox News’ Elizabeth Heckman contributed to this report.
