As the ‘docu-soap’ heads to London, the reality TV king explains how it became a worldwide hit
“I’m not out to get someone – I’m out to make interesting television,” says Andy Cohen. We’re discussing his culture-axis-spinning, controversy-laden reality TV franchise Real Housewives in the cloistered lobby of an exclusive west London hotel. Surrounded by low-voiced business meetings and phone-lit brunches, the TV exec-turned-host is readying to drop a bombshell sure to set the internet alight. In its 18th year, after 11 separate franchises across the US, 27 spin-offs and 21 international editions globe-trotting from Athens to Melbourne, the Housewives universe is expanding again. Real Housewives of London is officially in the works, a show that will chronicle the lives of the city’s most affluent – and as the templates reflect, highly opinionated and hilarious – women.
Cohen is the mastermind behind the franchise that’s become one of the world’s most successful runs of reality TV, and he’s in town for the first-ever Hayu FanFest – a megafan reality TV convention where the British edition to the Real Housewives universe is to be announced. Tens of millions watch the wives navigate their family units, marriages, social scenes and each other, and this heavyweight mogul acts as Housewives’ executive producer, and hosts its rowdy reunion specials.
“We cracked the code years ago,” says the 56-year-old of Housewives’ evolving success, which includes high-stakes storylines ranging from shock divorces to arrests, anonymous troll reveals to a prosthetic leg slammed on a table during an argument. He puts it down to network Bravo’s intrepidness with key reality show hallmarks – they popularised the confessional interview format and special reunion episodes we now see everywhere from The Kardashians to Love Island. “Confessionals are juicy! [Real Housewives of] Atlanta are the queens of the confessional. They’re so funny, smart, shady and delicious.”
Cohen has been steering the reality TV ship for 30 years – arguably flipping the genre from niche pleasure to pop culture panopticon – beginning as a CBS News intern and rising to Bravo, where he held senior roles overseeing the development and production of shows including Project Runway, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Emmy-winning Top Chef. While Queer Eye bolstered Bravo as a reality TV powerhouse, it was Housewives that captured the zeitgeist.
“Reunions have always been ‘appointment television’,” Cohen continues – meaning they are, basically, as regular and must-watch as the evening news. The stage is set for peak drama and confrontation – the housewives come with receipts and scores to settle. “It feels like the Super Bowl. We’ve built something incredible. Our reunion shows are unlike those for any other show or network.” That’s facts: the meltdowns are truly nuclear. As reunion ringmaster, he usually manages to stay cool and sharp – unless it’s been a particularly drama-filled season of Jersey or Dubai.
Despite the ‘docu-soap’ definition reflecting some level of artifice, Cohen believes it’s the genuine connection and universal struggles on screen that keep fans invested. “We’re reflecting elements of life, and life isn’t always wonderful,” he says. Across the years, viewers have seen Orange County star Meghan King Edmonds on her fertility treatment journey, and Beverly Hills’ Sutton Stracke open up about her father’s suicide.
“The shows are the result of the combination of women who are incredibly opinionated and dramatic on their own, with or without cameras,” Cohen says. But this riles up divisive opinions: either that the shows caricature women and women’s pain, or that they offer a spectrum of women as their truest, most complex, messiest selves. “If it were all about pitting women against each other, it wouldn’t still be on air. It’s often confrontational and then often supportive. Natural examples of sisterhood are my favourite moments.”
“I’ve been a fan for 20 years,” says South Londoner Jilly, 35, whom I get chatting to at the FanFest after she finishes posing with a pink clapperboard in front of a green screen (she’s getting a picture in front of a Beverly Hills confessional tableaux with a baby grand piano draped in leopard print). Jilly’s here with her sister – their favourite is Beverly Hills. “I love films, and Housewives is cinema. It’s surreal. I feel like a psychologist getting a real eye on human behaviour.”
The FanFest is a one-day event – the UK equivalent to the Bravoverse summit, Bravocon – in a North Greenwich warehouse by Hayu, the global streaming service home to Bravo’s shows. Today, a 1,000-strong crowd walk the pink carpet, sip super sweet themed cocktails, and spectate objets d’art from the Housewives franchises. Lisa Barlow (Salt Lake City), Sutton Stracke (Beverly Hills), Jessel Taank (New York), and Ashley Darby (Potomac) are the headliners. “The talent wants more lettuce,” a flustered American publicist tells a burger stall proprietor.
The fans are varied and excitable. A clutch of drag queens cosy up to a group of Scouse women in “HI BABY GORGEOUS” T-shirts (a vastly memed quote from Salt Lake City’s Lisa Barlow). EDM-inflected pop by Housewives stars blasts on the speakers. But this is small fry compared with other BravoCons gone by, like last year’s three-day Las Vegas edition, with a whopping 30,000 Bravoholic attendees (paying minimum $250 and upwards of $1,200 per ticket) and more than 150 Bravolebs. “I can’t think of another brand that could gather that level of fandom,” says Cohen. “Fan conventions are pure happiness. America is so divided politically and we bring people together.”
Fans resist seeing the show as mind-numbing – for them, it’s moving and transformative. “Growing up, I wasn’t confident. I always looked to popular girls at school, and was inspired to shed my insecurities seeing how they moved through life,” says David, 39, who travelled from Newcastle. “Now I think it’s the confidence the housewives portray that inspires me.”
“Some people tell me they don’t get along with their moms, but they can talk about Housewives,” adds Cohen. “As crazy as the world can feel, the shows are an escape.”
I chat to James, 42, from Brighton, as they sip the dregs of their cocktail on one of the confetti-covered pews. He loves The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills – and New York, Potomac, Dallas, and Salt Lake City. “You see these incredibly wealthy women that live a life that’s aspirational for some, and yet, when you eliminate the money, the problems that they deal with are the same,” he says. “It’s, ‘Are you there for me?’ and ‘Will you show up when I need you?’”
“I call these shows guilt-free gossip,” Cohen continues. “You can sit around with your friends and have very strong opinions about these people that you don’t know, but that you actually kind of do know. The play-along-at-home factor of judging human behaviour cannot be overlooked.” The upper echelons of celebrity love the Bravolebrities too: certified fans include Michelle Obama and Jennifer Lawrence. Rihanna is a particularly vocal watcher, known to DM housewives on Instagram when the drama gets hot.
The fandom really is its own beast. “Our fans are really smart. We can’t pull things over on them,” says Cohen. “People who don’t watch the shows often ask if they’re real. The truth is, our fans wouldn’t accept anything other than what’s real.” Cohen has driven an era of interactive television, with WWHL and the reunion shows centred on viewers’ questions. It’s an alluring, open dialogue. “That was a deliberate avenue when I was in charge of programming,” he says.
There’s one thing Cohen wants to clarify, too: “I’ve become the face of this thing, but the show would not be what it is if there were not women producing the shows.” And new, more progressive genres of housewives are emerging, including the first openly lesbian cast member Jenna Lyons. “New York is fashionable, aspirational, and diverse,” he says. “It’s the best iteration of what we could have hoped to do. I think it’s empowering to have a very 2024 version of Housewives.”
Meeting pop culture where it’s at has kept the almost two-decades-old franchise with the times. “We fought for years not to break the fourth wall, but it feels like we’ve torn it down now,” says Cohen. The shows contain a knowing wink to their outsized celebrity. Stars will push their own product lines, music careers, and restaurant openings – they know their power. “Housewives is pop culture.” The shows and spin-offs hit a new level of mainstream in 2024: An affair that rocked the Vanderpump Rules cast known as ‘Scandoval’ became international news and even a line in a White House speech. Salt Lake City was quoted in Congress. RHOBH’s Lisa Rinna walked in Fashion Week. Bravolebrities are worldwide.
Is anyone doing it like Bravo? “The last decade has seen plenty of copycats, like that MTV show where Lindsay Lohan was going to be the boss of a beach club,” recalls Cohen. “The problem is they just put these people together for the sake of the show.” He reflects on Beverly Hills spin-off Vanderpump Rules, where the young, hot cast are servers in RHOBH’s Lisa Vanderpump’s restaurants and bars. “These are people who have known, dated and worked with each other for years. An organic connection that bonds the group is a major trait that makes the shows sing.”
But the internet will always have wrath to exact during the shows’ biggest conflicts. “The internet is for trolls and haters,” he says. “Social media is just one avenue of discussion and taste.” The producers hold focus groups with actual suburban housewives who aren’t extremely online.
Its queer fandom is massive, too – Housewives is high camp, and its cast welcome their gay icon status. Andy Cohen is its doyen; he’s the only gay late night TV host in American television, and has access to the delicious campiness of the show’s most absurd arcs.
“Gays love strong women, in old Hollywood films, in 90s music. Housewives is a weekly instalment of that,” adds James from the FanFest. (Then again, Cohen reported being approached by more straight male fans in London than he’s used to.) “This is our soap opera, and our sport.” Going off the fierce screams at FanFest with the new London announcement, Britain might meet Real Housewives of London with the same ferocity as the Champions League. As Cohen says: “People come together for Sunday night football, so why can’t they come together for Housewives?”
