Prior to the show returning to Bravo, Mary Amons appeared on David Yontef's podcast, Behind the Velvet Rope. Mary revealed that RHODC was originally supposed to be titled, “Inside Washington” and not a part of Real Housewives Franchise. Mary explained the difficulties in casting a show with wives in the political sector, which added a layer of NDA's and confidential information, and how the show ultimately morphed into a part of the Bravo's biggest reality franchise.
One of the show's most controversial moments was the infamous White House scandal. Amons talks about the implications that scandal affected the whole cast, the franchise, and Bravo as a network.
Amons reveals that RHODC production was shut down for several weeks while Congress and The White House launched a thorough investigation into this breach in U.S. security.
Mary says Bravo (16:30) never told the potential cast they were being considered for a Real Housewives Franchise. The show was going to be called something like “Inside Washington.” She didn’t find out until she went to sign her contract. She said the more she met with casting and heard about how the show was being portrayed, it was clear it was going to be part of the Housewives franchise.
Amons explained (22:15) that she believes Bravo was hearing a lot from the fans that they were losing followers because the franchises were getting so crazy and that Bravo was testing for a less chaotic kinder gentler show when they greenlit the now-canceled series. The RHONJ girls were flipping tables and the RHOA girls were behaving and carrying on the way they were. According to Amons, people were getting turned off to that level of drama and chaos so they were testing to see if the ratings would hold for a kindler gentler show. She thinks they brought a level of class that hadn’t yet been seen in the franchise at that time.
The end result according to the critics was that they were flat but she blames the Salahis. (23:10)
She said producers tried to create additional drama though (26:10) - and tried to cause drama for the other women as well. It happened more in the pickup interviews than anywhere else. It's very subtle it happens usually after two hours in pick up interviews - you are fed little nuggets of what is being said about you. She claims that the cast was very naive.
The producers had to go back and re-edit the show to make it all about the Salahi's and the one event of crashing the White House (29:10) so when they went for pickups in post-production, EVERY question was about the Salahis. The situation isn’t why they were cast. They started filming and the happened towards the end of production.
"Our production went dark (36:10) after this happened for 4 weeks with the Salahi’s crashing The White House," Mary said. "Bravo was being implicated by The White House - Secret Service and Congress etc because of what the Salahis had done. Legally Bravo had to deal with all this while Comcast was buying NBCUniversal so Bravo had much bigger issues than the end of RHODC due to what the Salahis had done."
"The show went dark for 4 weeks while Bravo was figuring all this out legally and all because Congress and The White House had to determine that Bravo did not have anything to do with the Salahis crashing The White House. The cast didn’t even know if the show would see the light of the day after The White House Crash when Bravo was dealing with the implications legally."
Mary reveals that the WHOLE season has to be re-edited (37:10) so the show could end with the Salahis crashing The White House since this White House crashing became a worldwide scandal. The cast was pissed (43:10) that they took the whole spotlight of the show away from everyone onto only themselves. They put the President and White House in jeopardy. The good news was (44:15) that due to this stunt by the former couple - security is stronger.
"They NEVER would have done this if it were not for the show. They did this ONLY because there were cameras on them. This was all for fame. All for the cameras (44:10)," Mary says. She added that she was so DISGUSTED at the end of it - she couldn’t even watch Bravo. To this day it's still hard. Even the music for Real Housewives she can't listen to and it's bothersome to her. It brings back (47:05) feelings of disgust and disappointment of how the show turned out.
The cast was upset. You are not paid a lot in the first season (47:05) and they had to plead to the producers to please try to salvage the rest of the 4 of them with a decent story. The 4 of them made it clear to producers if the show came back for another season that (47:45) would NOT work with the Salahis again, and will not film with them.
When asked by host David Yontef, why she thinks the show didn’t work, Mary said she thought it worked but that it was hijacked by that one incident. She added that financially the incident caused Bravo A LOT of money on the legal side so their business model was blown out of the water. Also, she thinks Andy was getting a lot of pressure from the new partnership/ownership with Comcast that this franchise was too risky for them due to the Salahis White House crash. Also, since that national incident was so well known she doesn’t see how she would have been kicked off and recast.
She said there was supposed to be a sixth cast member. She said casting in DC is hard due to confidential information etc (54:25), people willing to talk and interesting. She said the sixth member quit the day they were signing the contracts. Her name was Lisa Spies, she is a political consultant to potential candidates at that time. One of her clients said he would fire her if she took the Real Housewives job, so she puled out.
Years later, a new series close to the area made its Bravo debut with The Real Housewives of Potomac. Amons says she knows Charisse Jackson and Robyn Dixon. She’s only seen a few episodes. She is shocked Robyn took the job, she is one of the last people she would have thought would take it - she is very unassuming, very laid back, very quiet, very down to earth, and works hard. She was shocked when she saw she was on there.
She added that she believes that if RHODc was on now during Trump administration, she thinks it would be the TOP rated show in the whole franchise based on how politically divided the country is. She thinks the show would be "bat s**t crazy." In this time, people are so politically polarizing in their beliefs, she thinks it would be the top-rated show in the franchise. Through the roof in the ratings.
Listen to the full episode below courtesy via Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef.
Photo Credit: Bravo
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