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Insider Reveals Why Kathy Wakile Was Demoted and That Kathy Uses Rosie to Stay on TV; Wakiles Build New Home, Hoping to Secure Spot on RHONJ (Updated 2/11/2015)
A source e-mailed FameWhorgas in October 2013 and revealed that “the dream home that the Wakiles are building on the lot they purchased in Franklin Lakes is on hold right now” because Bravo had not offered Kathy a contract as a full-time Housewife. The following is that e-mail.
Rich twittered not to believe the B.S. (referring to Kathy getting demoted) because BravoTV told them they have not made any decisions yet. Bravo does this every season with a franchise. They do it to get fan reactions.
Rich and Kathy are freaking out because they are building, or at least talking about building, a house and Kathy has a dessert book coming out, and she thinks she should be allowed to come on for another season.
Rich is really pissed off because he feels they did everything that Production wanted them to do – re: Teresa.
Neither Rich or Kathy can comprehend why people think they are boring. Kathy will say they are not bad people; maybe that is what they mean, that is why people think they are boring. She is clueless.
Yes, the show is scripted. Remember the scene where they made it look like their son and Rosie took the car for a ride with out them knowing? They knew – production set it up because they needed something good to show. Unless it is scripted with Rich and Kathy, it is not worth showing. Rich thinks he is TV gold.
Kathy’s own statements aren’t scripted. You know, how many versions has Kathy gave why she joined the show without her cousin knowing?
Rich is a disgusting pig. When he is on his twitter assaults, he is drinking. Kathy will congratulate him when he curses someone out. She will say that’s what they get when you mess with us.
The Wakiles think they are owed something. For example, there was an incident with making dinner reservations when Rich yelled, “Tell them who we are” – he was saying that because the place was booked for the night.
Both Rich and Kathy expect freebies all the time – Rich will say he will have Kathy send out a Facebook post and twitter. It’s really pathetic. Did you see the time Rich twittered asking on Christmas Eve if a pilot had room for four people? Needed to return New Years Eve?
I wish people knew the real Rosie. Rosie wanted nothing to do with TV. That was all Kathy. When you see Rosie upset, that is Kathy in her ear. Last year, at the reunion, Kathy was working Rosie up days in advance, telling her if Teresa says anything about Daddy she just hopes she says something because she needs to hear it from Rosie.
When a blogger exposed the Wakiles for knowing who Johnny was, Rosie twittered to Teresa that she was pissing her off – that was all Kathy.
What Kathy will do is: If something comes up in blogs or tabloids and Kathy thinks Teresa is behind it, Kathy will call up Rosie and say Teresa is at it again. When Rosie twittered that, Rosie had not even read the blog – she was going by what Kathy said to her.
Kathy does not care that people think Rosie is an animal. Kathy uses Rosie as her puppet. When the rumors started that Kathy would be demoted, Kathy put Rosie on a guilt trip.
Rosie never wanted to be on TV. Last season Rosie said this was the last time or she wanted to be paid – who can blame her? BravoTV did promise Rosie more paid appearances – not necessarily a contract, but VMAs, etc.
Kathy wants Rosie to tell Production that she won’t appear next season unless her sister is a full time housewife. This is a twisted family.
Kathy made sure to reconcile with Rosie before she was on NJ because, unlike Kathy and Joe, Rosie is loyal. Rosie will NEVER admit that her own sister disowned her practically when they were younger because Rosie is gay. Kathy wanted her to get help. It’s a joke. Kathy is acting like an ambassador for the gay community when Kathy never wanted anything to do with the gay community before. If Andy Cohen knew the truth, the Wakiles would have been gone by now.
The dream home that the Wakiles are building on the lot they purchased in Franklin Lakes is on hold right now.
Contracts for season 6 will be signed – it is just a matter of which ones – Kathy has Rosie to thank as explained above.
As far as Richie goes, he will tell you that Andy loves him.
Kathy is up Teresa’s ass now that Caroline is out of the picture, but their relationship is strained still.
As far as the Wakiles being demoted in season 7, on July 13, 2014, Rosie Pierri got into a twitter war with a viewer who mocked the Wakiles for being demoted. Rosie tweeted:
“At least I was there to get fired who fuck r u douche bag !! @BITCH_CATCHER: GET LOST LUNATIC✌️YOU WERE FIRED‼️‼️ #RHONJ RT @RosiePierri: And I can’t forget my cool ass cousin @joegorga @melissaGorga”
UPDATE NOVEMBER 2014: Andy Cohen wrote in his newest book, ‘The Andy Cohen Diaries,’ that Richie kept making jabs at him for “throwing them away” when Andy didn’t renew Kathy’s contract as a full-time Housewife for season 6:
“I saw Kathy and Richard Wakile tonight at the show and Rich kept making jokes about me throwing them away in the trash, because Kathy isn’t going to be a ‘full’ Housewife this season. I explained to Kathy that I couldn’t put her in the show opening because it would cause big problems with other Housewives. Everybody wants to be in the show open.”
Richie Wakile is disgusting, and he and Kathy have gotten close to the twins and Abbey Feiler-Kober (who provided the venue for the Project Ladybug event in season 6), no doubt in an attempt to secure a spot for season 7.
Vince Foster, Jr. @JustTheFactsNJ Jul 26
@richardwakile @Leopard_Man_ Teresa named her anus, she calls it Leopard.Richard Wakile @richardwakile
@JustTheFactsNJ @Leopard_Man_ leopard is code for #Bitch
abbey feiler-kober Rosemarie Pierri
6:02 PM – 26 Jul 2014
https://twitter.com/richardwakile/status/493199627751944193
With Teresa going to the pokey and Dina being bullied off by Jacqueline, Kathy, Amber, Jim and Melissa, the Wakiles are trying to worm their way in via the newbies, but that could be in vain if the twins and Marcheses are not offered contracts for season 7.
Perhaps producers should bring back Kathy and add her estranged brothers and their wives to the cast to expose their family secrets, since she and Melissa believe RHONJ is about family and mending relationships (at least that’s what they said during the season 6 reunion). Kathy herself said when taping an episode for The View on June 8, 2012: “It’s a big pie and everyone can eat from it.”
NM said on June 17, 2012 at FameWhorgas:
“The police report on Joe Gorga is the truth. Kathy also has 2 siblings with police records. I wish they would come to light. Joe Gorga called Kim D a Coke whore. Look at your own wife’s family, JoeG, and your cousins’ PD reports about drugs. We all live near each other. Albie & Greggy ARE VERY close! Caroline’s family is a complete mess. More needs to be exposed. This was a fantastic read. Thank you! Search hard and you will find the other police records. There is so much more that is hidden. #Fact – YOU’RE an open target when you become a public figure on The Telly! Teresa, you are a class act, my dear. See you at your book signing. Melissa, I have had many a lunch dates with your sisters…Stop all the lies!…You never know how people talk when catching a buzz. Rich, you’re a slumlord…How’s the gas station doing? Caroline, I’m very glad Lauren got a lap-band. She’s very beautiful. Sad you trashed her on national TV. Wonder who I am? Don’t bother to send your investigators, I talk to you every week. Hmmmm…”
Hailey said on April 25, 2012 at AllAboutTRH.com:
“I said it before. Kathy has many family skeletons in her closet about her family! It will come out! Mel’s family has many also. All will come to light soon enough! Let’s all hear about the siblings of Kathy that she hides. Mel, your sisters and their husbands are pure drunks! Why doesn’t Kathy bring up how they put things in different peoples name to hide money or that they couldn’t afford to buy the shore house (they rented it). Oops did I say too much? Kathy, thank your sister for exposing you on that!”
Richie refuted the October 16, 2013 story by RadarOnline, picked up by Perez Hilton on October 17, 2013, which stated that Kathy had been demoted to a part-time role (with the financial terms of her contract having been drastically reduced) and that her sister Rosie Pierri will finally get paid to appear on the show:
Briana Sullivan @BrianaSulli 17 Oct
@richardwakile horrible I read on @PerezHilton Kathy will only be part-time next season! She brings the class and comfort! Can’t be true!Richard Wakile @richardwakile 17 Oct
@BrianaSulli @PerezHilton don’t believe the BS!
On October 6, 2012, when addressing Rosie’s presence and outburst at the season 4 reunion, Teresa told RumorFix:
“I never thought Rosie was gonna be at the reunion show. I’ve done nothing to Rosie. I have always love, love, loved Rosie. Every time I was with Kathy and I would always say to her, ‘Invite your sister’. Kathy never wanted to invite her before. They never got along. Now all of a sudden they’re all best friends. I’m just sayin’. Kathy didn’t want her sister around her kids because she was gay and because she had a girlfriend at the time. Rosie went through a lot of hard times trying to find herself.”
In the same interview with RumorFix on October 6, 2012, Teresa unleashed her dose of reality on Kathy and Richie:
“I can’t even believe they got on the show. They’ve gone to stores — they expect to get free clothes. They’re such moochers.”
When researching for another blog that I’m working on, I ran across some comments from July 2012 on Television Without Pity about the discussion between Rosie and Teresa (and Teresa’s TH) in season 4 where she says that Kathy didn’t always support Rosie (at the season 4 reunion, Rosie attempted to clear things up by saying Kathy knew that she was on a bad path and disapproved of that, not her). The following are some of those comments.
“Rosie denies everything Teresa has said, but I don’t trust her recall, especially because when Teresa said it, Rosie started to tear up and nodded her head in agreement. Also, Rosie’s mom let on as if there were big fights in the past between them at the dinner table.”
“I’m sure Rosie feels the need now to defend her sister, but I saw and heard different on the show. If Teresa was out of line and lying, why didn’t Rosie say right then and there outside at the table when she was giving her tabloid speech, “Hey, my sister never treated me like crap.” Nope, she put her head down and teared up a little. Says it all to me.”
“According to this family, Teresa is the devil and they’re all angels. But Teresa isn’t in agreement with everyone else’s assessment that she’s behaved so terribly (off camera) toward her brother and his wife. Therefore, that contradicts everyone’s claims about Teresa, the same way that Teresa’s claims about Kathy and Rosie’s past relationship contradicts what Kathy and Rosie say about it.”
“Regardless of what Teresa believes, there’s no denying that there is in fact an ongoing rift and issue between her and her brother in the present. We’ve seen it play out on the show. It doesn’t matter if she wants to believe it or not, the truth is there are problems between them, whereas there aren’t any current rifts between Rosie and Kathy. There was no point in Teresa bringing that up, whereas anything that has been brought up about Teresa’s behavior goes towards recent, current and ongoing strife between them that’s being captured during taping. References to the past have been made, but it isn’t done in a vacuum. Teresa randomly taking about a rough point in Kathy and Rosie’s relationship pretty much came out of the blue and for no reason.”
“At least in the case with Danielle throwing out her tidbit of information at the reunion about Melissa’s son, Danielle didn’t really care for Teresa so it wasn’t a shocker that she would say something like that, using her little bit of inside information. But who’s the enemy in Teresa’s talk with Rosie? That was some Danielle-type hate Teresa pulled on Rosie and on Kathy with those comments. I personally didn’t think that the animosity between her and Kathy was at a level of Danielle crazy but, then again, I do believe Teresa is that level of hateful. Danielle hated Teresa, so she used something painful to be hateful. And Teresa did her Danielle impression on Rosie (and ultimately Kathy) for what reason?”
“On the Wakile kids: Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’re good kids, but a little too sweet, if you know what I mean. I get a vibe of them playing up their goodness for the cameras, stacking the deck if you will. Whenever I see the kids, I immediately think Eddie Haskell. Playing up that goodness just irritates the hell out of me. The over the top sweet speech by Victoria? I guess the halo needs to be on display (couldn’t resist). I get that same weird fakeness from Kathy though, so no surprise that the kids have it. A hint of ruthlessness from her too. It’s why I want to like her but I find something about ‘Kathy and her soft voice’ very ‘Hekyll and Jyde’. The kids’ saccharin sweetness personas aren’t even done well, but I guess that comes with age, <cough> Kathy.”
“Even though Teresa may be wrong in publicly talking about Kathy’s alleged bad treatment of Rosie in the past, I can COMPLETELY understand why Teresa feels justified in doing so. It’s because they did it to her first, and she probably wanted to give them a taste of their own medicine. This sums it up for me. Of course it doesn’t make Teresa look good for doing that, but I doubt she can comprehend that. It was a huge ‘Fuck you’ to Kathy ‘soft voice’, and everyone got the message.”
“Horrible Things (seen or mentioned on the show) that the Gorgas, Wakiles, Manzos and Lauritas have done to Teresa:
- Melissa betrayed Teresa and contacted Danielle to give her info to use as ammunition against Teresa.
- Caroline and Jacqueline both betrayed Teresa when they continued to be friends with Melissa even after she betrayed Teresa.
- Joe Gorga called Teresa “garbage” at his son’s christening.
- Behind Teresa’s back, they all (including their husbands and the grown Manzo kids) have talked shit and ridiculed Teresa’s business, her bankruptcy, her kids, her husband, her marriage, how she talks, and her intelligence.
“Horrible Things (seen or mentioned on the show) that Teresa has done to the Gorgas, Wakiles, Manzos and Lauritas:
- She was referencing Christopher when she mentioned in her cookbook that she doesn’t want her daughters to be strippers at a car wash.
- Also in her cookbook, she repeated a joke about Caroline that was originally said when they were both on a talk show.
- She has talked shit about Melissa being a gold digger and being jealous of her and how badly Kathy used to treat her sister.
“IMO, the rest of the cast seems unjustified in their seething hatred of Teresa. Because unless I’m forgetting something, what exactly has Teresa done to them that’s worse than what they’ve done to her?”
Tabloids reported in November 2013 that in addition to the return of Teresa Giudice and Melissa Gorga for RHONJ season 6, three new wives, Amber Marchese and twin sisters Teresa and Nicole Napolitano, are being added. On November 1, 2013, Teresa told the Bradenton Herald that “we have four new people, and going forward I think it’s going to be really good” – she must be counting Dina as the fourth new cast member.
RHONJ Former Producer Says Outsiders Were Involved in Setting Up Strippergate (Originally Published on 9-25-2012)
The producers invited Angelo, to the Posche Fashion Show because they needed a big drama to lead into the reunion, a hook. The people who connected Angelo with the producers of the show were not part of the cast. The cast are angry with each other because of what they were being fed by the producers, who were only trying to up the drama.
Angelo actually went and approached the table before his interaction with Melissa and was stopped by security at the table and turned away. Melissa saw him at this point. She didn’t want to let on she knew in front of the cameras, but she texted her husband under the table to come to the fashion show and let him know what was going on, and she texted one of the producers who let her in on what was going to happen and who was coming over to say hello.
A producer texted all the wives, except Teresa, and told them why Angelo was there and that Angelo had told Teresa at an earlier time that Melissa was a stripper and he was there to embarrass her. To avoid getting their conversation on camera, the woman all texted each other under the table. The other cast were angry with Teresa for not letting Melissa know what was going to happen, but she was told not to by producers because they wanted a ‘reaction shot’ from Melissa — so either way, Teresa lost out.
Teresa was told by the producer to discuss with Melissa who Angelo said he is, but she refused to do it until pushed by Melissa. Melissa then made a call in the bathroom to her husband to tell him about the situation, and he told her he was on his way. That phone call was faked: he was already aware of the situation from her texts earlier and was actually just next door. Melissa knew who Angelo was, and he is who he says he is.
– Former RHONJ Post Production Supervisor, September 17, 2012
FameWhorgas received more from its source who is related to a former post production supervisor for the RHONJ. The source is still editing the transcript, but here is the section related to the Posche Fashion Show.
A: “(edited*****************************) at the Posche fashion show.”
Q: “I actually haven’t seen the episode. I know the basics of what happened, but it hasn’t leaked.”
A: “Well, it hasn’t screened yet but (this interview was conducted on 17/09/2012).
Q: “Sorry, can you just clear up who invited the man who outs Melissa as a stripper?”
A: “Angelo, he was invited by the producers. He doesn’t say she was a stripper, just that she worked for him at a gentlemen’s club. Cat and Caroline (producers Cat Rodriguez and Caroline Self) needed the season to go out with a dramatic ending because they knew without the drama the audience wouldn’t have a hook to go into the reunion, and they were getting pressure from the network. I mean, the reunions are always the highest rated shows of the season anyway. It was after Andy started to have more input in the series once again, after seeing disappointing and confusing early footage, that Cat started getting worried about her job, so she knew she needed to bring the drama.”
Q: “Wait, so the producers invited him because they needed…”
A: “A big drama to lead into the reunion, a hook.”
Q: “But you said earlier that the season is planned, that there is a basic structure and plan; so if there was a plan, wouldn’t they already have a big finale planned? And did everyone know what was going to happen?”
A: “No, the only cast member to know about Angelo before the evening was Teresa and that is because she meets him at the salon. Melissa knew that someone from her past wanted to say hello to her and that was all. The original plan for the finale was that they (the producers) were hoping on Danielle or Kim G to be there: they pretty much begged them to attend the fashion show. The dramatic end for the season was supposed to be Danielle confronting Melissa about getting in contact with her behind Teresa’s back, but Danielle refused to attend. So the next plan was to have Kim G make an appearance and attack Teresa about comments made in the media about her, but she refused as well. Then Jacqueline was asked by the producers to attack Teresa over comments she had made on Twitter about her daughter, but Jacqueline refused. All scenarios had Teresa as the sympathetic character.
Q: “So who connected Angelo with the producers of the show?”
A: “That was organised by people who are not part of the cast. You have to remember, there are so many more players in these shows than you see on screen.”
Q: “Did Melissa know she was going to be outed as a dancer?”
A: “No, but she was made aware that someone from her past wanted to say hello and we were to film her reaction to that. Angelo was kept away from the ladies on purpose so that Melissa wouldn’t see him until the right moment, but Angelo actually went and approached the table before his interaction with Melissa and was stopped by security at the table and turned away. Melissa saw him at this point.
Q: “And she didn’t do anything?”
A: (abridged due to privacy of source) “Well, I don’t think she wanted to let on she knew in front of the cameras, but she texted her husband under the table to come to the fashion show and let him know what was going on, and she texted one of the producers who let her in on what was going to happen and who was coming over to say hello. Shortly after that Angelo enters, says hello to Melissa, then says hello to Teresa: that was intentional (his hello to Teresa) to show the other ladies that he had met her before, but that backfires because she plays it off as a friendly hello and he then leaves the scene. It was at this point Teresa realises she is being set up to take the fall for bringing Angelo to the fashion show, so she confronts one of the producers.
Q: “So why didn’t Melissa just deny recognising who Angelo was after he left the table?”
A: “She couldn’t because she suspected Teresa was involved in the storyline somehow, so she knew she couldn’t lie.”
(edited – in regards to the bathroom scene)
A: “Teresa is told by the producer to discuss with Melissa who Angelo says he is, but she refuses to do it until pushed by Melissa. Melissa then makes a call in the bathroom to her husband to tell him about the situation, and he tells her he is on his way. That phone call was faked: he was already aware of the situation from her texts earlier and was actually just next door.”
Q: “Did Melissa know who Angelo was, did she recognise him? And is he who he says he is?”
A: “Yes, she did know who he was. And, yes, he is [who he says he is]. He went through checks before appearing on the show. We don’t just put microphones on anyone and say ‘go nuts’. We checked with the owner of the establishment if Angelo was who he said he was, and if Melissa worked there, as well as numerous other checks.
(edited) ON THE FASHION SHOW
“The Posche show was advertised as having the cast of RHONJ there, so in that situation you get everyone who wants to be cast on the show up and try and get noticed by the cameras. It’s a nightmare because the reality of the situation becomes too fake and dramatic as every woman wants to get in on the drama to have her 15 minutes or, even better, get noticed by a producer. We had a lot of that happening this night: suddenly everyone who had ever worked with Melissa happened to be there and so did past friends, old roommates, the list went on and on. Everyone knew she was a dancer and it was no big deal — all of this was edited out.”
Q: “Why did Angelo leave?”
A: “The producers told him to leave because Joe Gorga was texting (name removed crew), asking him what the hell was going on and that he was on his way to the fashion show.”
Q: “If the Angelo part was producer influenced, then why does the cast hate each other so much; why was everyone so angry?”
A: “Because of what they were being fed by the producers, who were only trying to up the drama. [Name removed – producer] texted all the wives, except Teresa, and told them why Angelo was there and that Angelo had told Teresa at an earlier time that Melissa was a stripper and he was there to embarrass her. To avoid getting their conversation on camera, the woman all texted each other under the table. [Section removed by source to protect privacy.] The other cast were angry with Teresa for not letting Melissa know what was going to happen, but she was told not to by producers because they wanted a ‘reaction shot’ from Melissa — so either way, Teresa lost out.
Q: “It doesn’t seem normal to not talk to your sister for a year because of such a trivial thing; there must be more to it?”
A: “Of course, I mean you won’t see it (the media blitz, because the interviewer is overseas) but there’s been interviews and leaked stories to the press where they go after each other, attacks on twitter, on each others fans — they have sold each other out for stories — so, yes, there is more too it but the fact that Joe thought his sister would rather listen to producers and shut her mouth than make Melissa aware that she was about to be outed as a dancer on television. Also, season 3 was screening, and you have to remember they lived one experience, then 8 months down the track they have to relive that moment again, but with everyone’s opinion added to the mix — it’s hard for anyone, let alone a family that already had problems.
Q: “So what are we going to see in the final edit of the finale of RHONJ then.”
A: “Teresa and Kim D will get the blame for Angelo being at the fashion show. Angelo has several conversations with female guests and a conversation with producers that gets edited into one conversation that implicates Teresa and Kim D in setting up Melissa.The truth is, Angelo was just trying to impress these other guests (by saying) that he was part of the show and had filmed with Teresa earlier in the day. They (the producers) got lucky: he outright lies to impress a woman and says to her that he is a vital part of the finale and was asked to be there by the producers; and that audio track is what is heavily edited and used to incriminate Teresa.”
(edited out)
The Napa Trip
Q: “But they all seemed to be getting along in Napa?”
A: “For the cameras, yes.”
Q: “Oh, so the whole Napa trip was a put on?”
A: “They all decided to put the past behind them for the sake of making the trip bearable because they all had to be there, but no one was happy about going on the trip — they all just grinned and bear it.
Q: “So, do you think Teresa and Melissa were wanting to put the past behind them and be a family at any point in season 3 or 4, or was it all a put on?”
A: “No, I think, at times, they were both wanting to put the past behind them, but when one was ready to, the other wasn’t, so they butted heads a lot.”
BLOGGERS, TABLOIDS, ETC: Please clearly credit FameWhorgas and link back to this article if you copy or reference any part of the interview above as this is an exclusive story.
“Andy Cohen does play a role in the editing process. He has said so directly in interviews. With that said, overall Cat Rodriguez [@yourfriendkitty] and Caroline Self [@carolineself] have the most editing power. They are the executive producers of Season 3 and Season 4 of #RHONJ. They work on location and off location. They send the editors what footage to use as well as tell them what to keep in and what to cut out. Caroline Self is tight with the Manzos while Cat Rodriguez is tight with the Gorgas and Wakiles. Cat edited @PDKhair as well as multiple ex-coworkers of Melissa’s, who were present at the salon and fashion show, completely out of the two-part finale. Their interactions made the Angelo incident look g-rated. Obviously that move was deliberate. Furthermore, Cat held Penny back from defending Kim when Joe Gorga called Kim a drug addict, a cunt and went to punch her. Even worse, as you will see in the finale, Cat completely butchered the conversation Angelo had with a friend at the bar to make it appear as though Teresa masterminded everything. The unprofessionalism of Cat Rodriguez and Caroline Self is disgusting. In this economy, why are these the type of people who have employment? Only a network like @BravoTV would believe that their viewers are so incompetent that they wouldn’t see past the blatant bias.” – Will Love, September 18, 2012, Twitter
Here is the real timeline:
- Washington, DC Fancy Food Show – July 8, 2011
- Melissa takes Gabriella, Milania and Antonia to Sweet & Sassy for manicures and pedicures – July 11, 2011
- Jamie Laurita’s wedding – July 23, 2011
- Beatstock 2011 in Farmingville, NY – August 20, 2011
- Caroline’s Birthday – August 23rd or 24th
- Cast Arrives in California – August 28, 2011 (cast spends 2 nights at Half Moon Bay RV Resort and 1 or 2 nights at Cassini Ranch)
- Caroline’s Birthday Dinner in the Vineyard – September 1, 2011
- Final Dinner at the House with the Big Blow Up Between Caroline and Teresa – September 2 or 3, 2011
- Posche Fashion Show (Season 4 Finale) – September 27, 2011
- Taping of the Reunion Special for Season 3 – September 28, 2011
- Fashion & Beauty Week 2011 at the Pleasantdale Chateau – October 3, 2011 (Caroline, Jacqueline, Melissa & Kathy attend and blacklist Teresa and Kim D)
- Teresa’s Fabellini Launch Party (Taped for Season 4) – October 7, 2011
- Sirius XM Radio to Launch ‘Real Housewives Radio’ (Taped for Season 4) – October 8, 2011
- Jacqueline tweets that Teresa is scum, etc. during premiere of reunion 3 – October 16 & 23, 2011
Related:
- Kim Granatell (Kim G) is Writing a Book About Her Experience on the RHONJ
- Kim G’s Shocking Allegations Against the Manzo Clan
- Tom Murro and Kim G. are Friends to the Manzo/Laurita Camp
- Watch What REALLY Happens on The Real Housewives of New Jersey
- Posche Fashion Show, Play by Play
Reality TV is Fake, Producers are Puppeteers, and the “Talent” Makes So Little That They All Need Second Jobs
“I do have a job and yes, I spend money on Vicki! @vgunvalson #editedrealitytvisnotreal” – Brooks Ayers (@BrooksAyers), April 25, 2013, Twitter
“Hard to prove anything to fans that don’t realize that this is for entertainment only! #editedrealitytvnotreal” – Brooks Ayers (@BrooksAyers), April 27, 2013, Twitter
In her book, Reality Bites Back, Jennifer Prozner delves into the world of reality TV and gives insight into producer manipulation.
A former Bachelor producer on the condition of anonymity told Prozner:
In the private one-on-one interviews with a producer (like me) it is the producer’s job to get the sh*t talking started, like “tell me honestly what you think of Sally” – if the interviewee does not respond in a catty way then the producer will usually go to the next level, like “well I personally think she is a self absorbed, attention starved skank,” and then see if the person will take the bait… it is easy to start seeding conversations and gossip. Also, if the conversations linger too long on favorite movies and stuff, the producers will step in and say, “ok, we all know we signed up for a TV show – so if you don’t start talking about something more topical, then you can’t have the sushi you requested tonight.” The smart cast members start to realize that you can be bartered. Like, “I will give you a good one-on-one interview about Sally, IF you let me listen to my iPod for the rest of the day.”
Prozner says that Bravo’s The Real Housewives series teaches us that women are catty, bitchy, manipulative, and not to be trusted, especially by other women.
The cast are frenemies: enemies vying for the same prize. Producers get cast members to turn on each other based on off-camera misinformation, manipulation, and a false economy where trash talk is a participant’s only way… children are selectively edited to appear bratty with their parents and catty with competitors.
Producers ensure that women dutifully perform their bitch-tastic roles by egging them on with techniques that would make psyops intelligence officers proud. They conspire together like high school Mean Girls. They mouth off in hateful, bleep-filled ‘confessionals’. Lifestyle series (like The Real Housewives) manipulate us in the opposite direction.
Some of Prozner’s best points about reality TV and Bravo’s The Real Housewives series, in particular, include the following:
1. Catfights are among the main viewership draws and the primary promotional tactic of The Real Housewives series
Thrown together as cameras trail their semi-scripted – yet supposedly authentic – lives, they are rude and unkind. They betray their so-called friends’ trust… The Housewives make fun of one another (Orange County), flirt with each other’s men (Atlanta), and reveal embarrassing scandalous secrets about members of their social circle (New Jersey).
According to Tamra Barney in one her Bravo blogs:
“Anytime you put a bunch of ladies together who are not necessarily friends, there is going to be some drama.”
In Atlanta, one cast mate (DeShawn Snow) who wouldn’t perform diva antics on cue was canned … she was the only original cast member not asked to return to Atlanta’s second season because Bravo considered her too dignified. A producer “said I was ‘too human for a circus show’ and that because the show did so well, they are about to pump up the drama and they didn’t think that I would fit in.” During RHOA’s entire first season, viewers never learned about original cast member DeShawn Snow’s postgraduate divinity studies. Why? Because filming a competent, intelligent African America woman pursuing a master’s degree would have broken producers’ preferred narrative: that Black women (and their wealthy white lady friends) are gossipy idiots.
NeNe Leakes told Jet magazine:
“None of us are friends. Friends don’t do what we have done to each other on the show. You have not seen one of us get the other one’s back. If you did see somebody get somebody’s back, the next week they were talking about them… We are all clearly associates.”
2. Women who truly dislike one another are portrayed as ‘real life’ friends [except in the case of RHONJ, who are real family and were real friends]
In NJ [where we have real friends and family pitted against each other by Bravo], we get “low-class” tantrums, in which Italian American women accuse each other of prostitution, kidnapping and drug dealing while flipping over banquet tables.
[The trips that the cast mates take together on RHs are designed to] isolate them and encourage alcohol consumption and wild behavior; and angry outbursts are stoked and edited.
3. Reality TV producers are puppeteers
Producers craft dialogue they can feed to cast in a pinch or pop into scenes after the series has stopped filming. They coach cast to deliver monologues on specific topics… And if there aren’t enough sparks, editors “take something black and make it white,” as reality editor Jeff Bartsch told Time. Bait-and-switch is par for the course. “Footage has to be manipulated cleverly and often, so it’s really in my job description to know where all the bodies are buried,” a Top Model producer says. “If the show is done well, you wouldn’t even know my job exists because it would just feel like watching people do stuff.”
What reality fan doesn’t assume that the Real Housewives show up where and when producers instruct? When eight women in bikinis in an Australian hot spring simultaneously shave their legs with Skintimate Gel on Outback Jac, we realize that’s staged. Yet most of us remain unaware of practices like Frankenbiting. Even fewer understand that pretty much every part of a reality show is manipulated to support producers’ chosen narrative.
4. Quotes are manufactured, crushes and feuds constructed out of whole cloth, episodes planned in multi-act storyboards before taping, scenes stitched together from footage shot days [or months] apart
“We shoot 100% of the time and air 1% of what we shot,” then edit “the really good stuff” to suit their purposes, an anonymous Bachelor producer told NPR. “We have even gone as far as to ‘frankenbite,’ where you take somebody saying, ‘of course I’d like to say that I love him’ and cutting the bite together to say ‘of course I love him’… [It’s] misleading to the viewer and unfair to the cast member, but they sign up for this.” [Time]
5. Cast members are molded into predetermined stock characters such as the weeper, the bitch, etc.
Casting is the single most important ingredient in the success of any reality show – truth is, producers seek out people they believe will behave in hypersensitive, bizarre or stereotypical ways (those proven to verbal outbursts, physical aggression or addiction are desired). People who are overly emotional and mentally unstable offer more potential for conflict.
6. Standards for reality casting are very low
Standards for entry into reality casts are so low because background checks aren’t intended to ensure contestants’ safety. Instead, they’re conducted primarily to absolve producers and networks of legal liability. In fact, casting directors often seek out participants who are prone to violence—including alcoholics, drug addicts and emotionally unstable people—the better to ensure fights, tears, and that oh-so-important ‘drama’. One anonymous producer admitted as much to Entertainment Weekly:
“The fact is, those shows work only because of the irresponsible casting. If you force people to cast upstanding citizens without criminal records, you’re not going to get the same show.”
In the world of reality TV, women are not concerned with politics, law, athletics, activism or even careers in general (unless their competing for the supermodel/starlet/rock star jobs that populate 10-year-old’s daydreams). Instead, reality TV producers have collaborated to paint America women as romantically desperate, matrimonially obsessed, and hyper-traditionalist in their views about the proper role of wives and mothers, husbands and fathers.
7. Violence is used as promotional devices and as a ploy for ratings
When acts of physical abuse make it to the screen, they’re not treated as seriously inappropriate—they’re simply a promotional device. Reality shows trivialize abuse of women as a ploy for ratings… as a cheap ploy to induce those all-important tears they promise to deliver each episode.
8. Companies hawk products through embedded advertising and product shilling
The primary purpose of contemporary television is not to entertain, engage or inform us. Today, the driving factor for all corporate media production is to turn tidy profits for the tiny handful of mega-merged corporations that own the vast majority of media outlets and control the bulk of what we are given to watch, see and hear on TV and radio, in movies, video games, and more. The suits in charge of deciding what shows, songs, films and news programs we get to choose from care only about their companies’ bottom lines—and see their media products as virtually indistinguishable from sneakers, Snuggies, or any other doodad to be bought or sold.
In this climate, what viewers want will always take a back seat to what multinationals such as the Big Six media owners (Disney, News Corp., Time Warner, General Electric, Viacom, and CBS) can convince us to watch. TV shows live or die in today’s media market based not on pure-and-simple ratings, but on demographics (which viewers are watching, in relation to age, race, gender and income bracket, not just how many overall) and broader economic factors, including the cost to produce a program versus the amount of profit it generates.
The key to media profits is advertising, a $200 billion annual industry. In the last decade, TV companies’ ad revenue has come not only from traditional commercials between, but increasingly from product placements within, the content of our favorite shows. Embedded sponsorship has been a particular windfall for cable, which operates under a subscription model and is, therefore, seen as an ‘ad-free’ medium.
Media scholars Robert W. McChesney and John Bellamy Foster have noted that by 2003, 80 percent of U.S. ad spending was funneled through the eight largest advertising corporations, giving companies the ability to name their tune with corporate media firms more than willing to play ball. For example, during a series of top-level meetings held in 2000 by USA Network, major advertisers were invited to “tell the network what type of programming content they wanted.”
Reality TV’s racial typecasting, infantilizing fairytales, and hyperconsumerism—indeed, all the issues explored in Reality Bites Back—are a testament to what happens when advertisers expand the stories they tell from static print ads and thirty-second commercial breaks to feature-length programming. Using real people as their props, marketers have worked with producers to cultivate entire faux worlds based on sexist, racist ideologies. Worse, they have pretended the results are just reflecting—rather than attempting to shape—American life.
9. It’s not just advertisers who influence unscripted programming
In today’s multimerged media environment, TV networks, film studios, newspapers and magazines are just a small sample of parent companies’ cross-holdings. Big Media corporations are also invested in industries such as travel and theme parks, insurance and financial services, sports teams and stadiums, medical technology, and aircraft, weapons, and nuclear manufacturing, to name just a few. In practical terms, this means that some reality TV content is crafted to serve the financial and ideological agendas of the owners of the networks airing the shows.
10. Marketing plays a mammoth role in generating the illusion of populist demand, an illusion of popularity bestowed upon them by corporate synergy
- TV/radio/billboard conglomerate—PR blitzkrieg
- Multiplatform media attention, public relations, and product integration
- The truth is, unscripted programming carries so little financial risk that networks now often prefer likely ratings flops over nurturing more-expensive scripted fare, regardless of viewers’ inclinations
- Embedded marketers prefer unscripted programming because its practices are allowed by networks to bypass FCC regulations for advertising
The truth is, reality TV music and modeling franchises function much like the sex industry. Like most sex workers, they get a tiny fraction of the cash their bodies generate, while their pimps—the media conglomerates and embedded sponsors—control the profits generated by their hydrations. The workers are undervalued and treated as interchangeable.
Few other issues pose as serious a threat to our notion of entertainment—and to our understanding of ourselves and of our society—as the increased commercialization of contemporary corporate media. Why should we care about product-hawking, stereotype-heavy reality TV, we wonder, when television in general has become so risk-free and hackneyed… network TV content has degenerated as quality has increasingly taken a back seat to media companies’ and sponsors’ quest for astronomical profits. Advertisers have already too much control over what we watch, hear and read. We should identify brand integration—and the reality genre that brought it back to TV—as a threatening progression of that structural problem… Through sheer repetition, reality shows are training us to shrug all this off as inevitable. Advertisers are banking on our apathy… Even writers of successful, widely-respected series have been ordered to change story arcs to accommodate integrated sponsors, as NBC forced The Office to do for Staples, Sandals Resorts, HP, Apple, Cisco Systems, Gateway and Hooters, among others. This is a major thorn in the side of the Writers Guild of America, which has filed comments with the FCC protesting the impediment product placement imposes on their jobs.
If such trends continue unabated, entertainment crafted around commercial messages could largely replace traditional narrative.
Media insiders say the future of scripted television is an immediate, interactive model in which viewers will be able to instantly purchase products they see on their favorite shows… a scrolling ticker a the bottom of every show.
One-look-fits all casting will worsen, as will the homogeneity and vapidity of storylines… Advertisers are seeking more direct control over media content than they had even in 1930s radio and 1950s TV… Advertiser-controlled content is more threatening today than at any prior point because of the sheer breadth and inescapable power of modern mediated landscape… Today it’s nearly impossible to tune out the commercials woven into not just reality TV shows, but also blockbuster films, music and talk-radio programs, magazine and newspaper ‘advertorials’.
The Un-reality of Reality Shows
By Lisa Bloom
May 26, 2012
Having represented a number of celebrities in reality shows publicly and privately, I am here to tell you the shocking truth: there is nothing reality-based about this genre.
Let’s start with the shows themselves, much more “show” than reality. As with sitcoms or dramas, there are takes, re-takes, re-re-takes, and so on. Eight hours to tape a half hour scene is not uncommon. Hair and makeup artists lurk in the background; producers “suggest” lines to the participants, telling them to be angrier, more excited, have bigger energy. “Talent” – as on air types are known in all television – are given plot lines to work through: catty, petty female spats, lies told to some but not other members of the cast to create dramatic tension, props placed strategically to provoke emotions or arguments.
Please!
If you must watch these shows, at least, please, enjoy them as fictional as Days of Our Lives or Desperate Housewives. Don’t believe cameras are just “catching” real people living their lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cameras and klieg lights and hair and makeup and producers and directors do not make for reality. If they were all in your living room, how authentic would you be?
If a reality star complains about any of this, they are referred to the lengthy (often 30, 50 or even 100 pages) contract, which binds them so thoroughly they can hardly sneeze without the express written permission of the network. For example, as an attorney I was shocked to see my clients had signed contracts barring them from ever suing for defamation, no matter how egregiously the show had manufactured a plot line making them look like liars, cheaters, even criminals. The shows get it both ways: they call the show “reality” to hook in viewers, yet absolve themselves of all legal liability even when they falsely destroy someone’s character.
And at least according to the contract, they can’t be sued for it.
(I told one network I couldn’t believe that would be enforceable. Could the show falsely come up with a story line that my client was a child molester, and there would be nothing she could do in response? I didn’t believe any court would stand for that.)
Nor can they even complain. Ironclad confidentiality provisions prevent the talent from talking to anyone about what goes on in the show. From the pages of legalese on this point, one would think reality stars are being given the codes for Fort Knox.
Hey, at least they’re making the big bucks, you say. So isn’t it worth it?
No. Other than the rare breakout star, reality “talent” make so little they all need second jobs. Ten or twenty thousand dollars a season – for, say, six months’ work – is typical. And the thing is, they’re all so replaceable. How many people can play themselves? Just about everyone. How many people can be drunk/obnoxious/loud? Hundreds of millions. So these types of reality stars are replaceable. Here today, gone tomorrow.
The production companies and networks profit, the “talent” often walk away disappointed, and we all get dumbed down from watching these shows.
Unreal.
FAMEWHORGAS 