Emily Simpson recently suggested that Katie Ginella may be “self-sabotaging” as she offered an update on where they stood after filming the 19th season of The Real Housewives of Orange County.
While accusing Katie, 41, of crossing boundaries, shading her for being one way on camera and another way off camera, and calling out Gretchen Rossi, 46, for her hypocritical behavior toward Tamra Judge, 57, Emily looked back on Tamra’s temporary departure from the show and compared Gretchen to Alexis Bellino, 48.
“I don’t know if that’s self-producing or self-sabotaging,” Emily, 49, said of Katie’s season 19 antics on the June 30 episode of Access Hollywood‘s Housewives Nightcap. “She’s broken boundaries that are in places that I just can’t come back from.”
“We don’t go after each other’s children, and I even had a conversation with her last season … I didn’t attack her. I was like, ‘Let’s just have an intelligent conversation and be rational. It doesn’t have to be an attack.’ And I felt like it was clear what boundaries were, but she didn’t adhere to that,” Emily continued.
According to Emily, Katie is a villain in a way she can’t respect.
“Tamra’s a villain, and she does it well, and she does it on camera. She is who she is, and she is authentic, and you can like her or you can dislike her or whatever, but she’s doing it on camera,” Emily explained. “Katie doesn’t do that on camera. I don’t have respect for people who do deceitful and deceptive things in the dark, behind closed doors, and then sit in front of your face and then act like they did nothing wrong.”
When asked where she stands with Katie, Emily replied, “I don’t know anything about Katie. I don’t have any idea. Does she live in Orange County? I don’t know.”
Moving on to Tamra’s season 19 drama, Emily addressed Gretchen’s suggestion that Tamra cheated on her husband, Eddie Judge, 52.
“I found the situation with Gretchen and Tamra to be exhausting, and I felt like it could’ve been resolved easily, and it just wasn’t, and it just lingered,” she shared, and she then shaded Gretchen’s claims.
“Everything Gretchen accuses Tamra of being and doing, she does the same,” Emily declared.
As for Tamra’s brief exit from production, Emily said Tamra “allegedly” quit “more than once” before admitting to being unsure about why.
“I don’t know if it had to do with Gretchers or not. I just know that I felt like Tamra was different this year and maybe through therapy because I felt like she was feeling things more than she had before, whereas before I felt like she would be more stoic and more Tamra and more, ‘I don’t give a sh*t’ kind of attitude,” Emily explained.
Looking back, Emily said she felt like Tamra was struggling and “having a hard time” with Teddi Mellencamp‘s cancer battle.
“Teddi to her is like [Gina Kirschenheiter] to me … I don’t even think I could’ve done it. So I have a lot of sympathy for what she was trying to deal with,” she shared.
After wrapping filming months ago, Emily said she and Tamra are “good friends.”
“I respect Tamra. I think she respects me … Tamra and I are fine, at least from my viewpoint. If you ask her, she might say something different because I think she was mad at something I said in an article a couple of weeks ago or something,” Emily revealed, adding, “[And] I was like, ‘You haven’t even seen the show yet.'”
Also during the appearance, Emily shared how Gretchen and Alexis differed.
“Alexis is almost like a cartoon character … bonkers and nutty and doesn’t make any sense. Could you have a conversation with her that made any sense or had any takeaway?” she asked. “But Gretchen, you can. I think that’s the difference. I find Gretchen to be more reasonable. She can have conversations.”
“[Gretchen] made an effort to be friends with everyone. She did a lot of things right that was different from Alexis,” she added.
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 19 premieres on Thursday, July 10, at 9/8c on Bravo.
