Scandoval to the reveal that The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Monica Garcia was behind a reality TV account that had targeted the cast at large.
Now more than ever, reality stars can’t avoid the social media reactions, as the audience input grows in intensity, while some cast members attempt to pander to viewer expectations.
“I think about women like Monica Garcia from Salt Lake, and everybody loved her. Right? Well, no, certainly not everybody. That’s a reach,” Fessler said. “But I feel like a lot of the fans absolutely loved her, which for me, went against what I thought when I was watching would happen, because the Salt Lake City ladies are also so beloved. It’s hard to predict which way the fans will go.”
“There’s not a lot of forgiveness. There’s not a lot of room to fuck up before the vultures descend,” she added.
A friend-of in the modern era, where women like Miami’s Adriana de Moura and Marysol Patton have found themselves front and center in the edit, Fessler said she feels just as involved as any other Housewife. While she’d love to hold a hypothetical tomato, she’s happy to return in any form.
With ample change on the horizon, Fessler simply hopes to be invited back next year. After a season of tumult on all sides, she’s eager for more “love and respect” and a return to a cast where “women may fight and carry on, but also have love for each other at the end of the day.”
“I wouldn’t want to return to the situation as it is now,” she said.
Season 13 of RHONJ came to a dramatic conclusion with the end of the Giudice and Gorga decade-long feud, as Gorga ditched Giudice’s wedding, and Giudice attempted to fire her on camera at the reunion. So, it was a surprise for viewers when cameras picked up for Season 14 with the entire cast returning.
It’s unclear what direction Bravo will take for Season 15, but one thing’s certain: There will be severe cast changes. The network officially scrapped this season’s reunion—an extreme step that has only happened once before across the franchise, with The Real Housewives of New York City Season 13.
Teresa Giudice, Jennifer Fessler, Jackie Goldschneider, and Rachel Fuda
Ralph Bavaro/Bravo via Getty Images
RHONY returned two years later with an entirely new cast, the OG’s shuttered off to a legacy Ultimate Girls Trip as Bravo embarked on a full reboot for the first time in network history. The network, which historically remains mum about casting rumors, hasn’t said what the future of RHONJ will entail, but Cohen said the Season 14 finale acts as a definitive conclusion, and will explain why there’s no reunion.
Fessler wasn’t able to comment on the reunion, and is just as curious as the rest of the audience about what direction Season 15 will take.
“I’m trying to figure it out, like everyone else is, all the time. What’s going to happen? Who’s on the chopping block? she said. “And it wakes me up in the middle of night. Not in a frightened-of-it wakes me up [way], but more like, ‘Well, in this scenario if Teresa stays, let’s say Danielle and Jen stay, what happens then? And if Melissa stays, and Marge…’ So it’s in my head a lot, and I’m trying to put the puzzle together. But I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Not only is she hoping for a lighter Season 15, but Fessler wants to see the Ultimate Girls Trip spinoff return with a season entirely composed of friends-of. Having attended BravoCon last fall, Fessler said it was “like a dream come true” meeting all the different casts. For a professed Housewives “super fan” like Fessler, it was “completely surreal that they would even know my name.” She especially loved spending time with RHOSLC stars Meredith Marks and Whitney Rose, as well as RHOC Housewives Tamra Judge and Jennifer Pedranti.
While she’s a happy member of the RHONJ cast, she’d love to join RHONY or RHOBH in another life.
“I love New York. I think I would fit in better with old New York, just because of my age,” she said. “And I would love to be on Beverly Hills, but I do not have the money for that shit.”
