Bronwyn Newport is opening up about her daughter’s paternal family.
The newest addition to The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City sat down with PEOPLE to discuss why she shared details about her 18-year-old daughter Gwen’s estranged grandparents.
Newport revealed on the show that Gwen, whose father died when she was young, has never met his family. It was actually by coincidence that it became a topic on the show when Newport unknowingly revealed the identity of Gwen’s paternal grandparents to cast member Lisa Barlow, who happens to be friends with the couple.
Revealing she rarely spoke about the subject publicly or privately before, Newport says she was hesitant to give it life on a reality show.
Bronwyn Newport and Lisa Barlow.Arturo Holmes/Getty; Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
“I'm so proud of Gwen,” she tells PEOPLE. “I know there's a lot of questions about if that was a planned thing or a surprise, and it was incredibly shocking to me that Lisa [Barlow] knew my daughter's family. I probably would not have gone on the show actually if I'd known that ahead of time. But there was this moment after we found out that as a family we talked about and said, ‘Do we want this to come up with the other ladies? Do we want this to come up later? Or is there a way to handle this?’”
She continues, “The way that we would handle this without the cameras here, [was] for Gwen to tell her story to Todd and I and us to be receptive to what she had to say. So we did let the cameras follow that. And I don't think at the time that I thought I was doing this noble thing, I just thought I was doing the honest thing, which is this happened and cameras are rolling, so they get to capture it.”
The show documented a deep conversation between Newport and her daughter, in which Gwen expressed reluctance to ever welcome her grandparents into her life given they went 18 years without reaching out. After the episode aired, Newport says she received “positive” feedback that helped her in her own journey of acceptance.
“It became really beautiful for me to hear so many people say that they were the child in that story or the mom in that story,” Newport says. “And I've learned a lot of tools hearing other people's stories, that I could be a better mom to Gwen going forward from here. There were lots of messages I got to read to Gwen and tell her how much that resonated with other people.”
Bronwyn Newport and her daughter Gwen (left).Bronwyn Newport/Instagram
“I think when you're going through it and it's hard, it's really great to have somebody else say, ‘This is how it will maybe will end for you,’ or ‘This is how it's happened for me,'" Newport explains. "And so many people were impressed with her vulnerability and how mature she is, and I'm almost mad that her room's kind of messy. So it was nice for me to see this wonderful version of her too, that everybody loves. And I was like, ‘Oh no. I am raising a really fabulous kid up.’"
Newport says because she felt like she had been carrying “a secret” for so long, it was a relief to finally share.
“It has changed who I am as a person to have had my entire adult life be a single mom, be somebody who's kind of pushed this trauma down for the betterment of my child,” she explains.
“It's a very weird thing when your story and someone else's intertwine and your feelings are not totally separate of their feelings," she adds. "So I definitely never want to tell Gwen's story for her. I always want her to have the ability to do that how, when, if, where, with who she wants. And I never want to get into telling her family's story, but there is a big part of this that's my story and how it's changed me and how it's made me the person I am today.”
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The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo.
