Rice admits that she didn't watch Bravo or Housewives prior to joining RHOM. "I don't watch a lot of television. I just don't watch television. I like that person, like, like now, and these days to me, they're very normal because I normally would stay home. And like, if you stay home on a Friday night, I'm sure you turn on your TV. And you're like, Oh, I have nothing to do. I'm just going to watch a couple of flakes. I stay home and I didn't turn on the TV."
"I just like, I like silence and always around people in noise and be like, I, I enjoy science. I don't, it doesn't cross my mind. People are like, did you just sit in a room for five hours?"
Cristy then reveals how she was approached to join the first season of RHOM. "So when they had just gotten divorced, you know, we had moved back in 2004 in 2008, I got a divorce. And I think we did that show in 2009 or something. Right. I don't even remember, but it was shortly after the divorce. I do remember that," she explained. "And they approached me and the approach was that they wanted to do a show in Miami that had something similar to like Sex in the City now Sex in the City I had watched, you know, so I was like, that's, that's awesome because I'm from here."
"And I was like, what exactly is it going to be like? And they were like, well kind of, we want to focus on places in Miami, like, like show the world. Like another side of Miami are really like a nice side take from like that Miami Vice type image that it has and concentrate more on like new places and restaurants and things like that. I was like, this is great. And, and I mean, I'm from here my whole life. I have all my friends. I did meet new friends, but I thought it would have been cool because since I had moved away for almost 10 years, I never fully moved from Miami."
Rice then revealed that she was close to joining Basketball Wives and revealed how Bravo convinced her to stay on RHOM over the VH1 hit reality series. Rice revealed that she became the first one signed on the show as they feared she would join Basketball Wives.
"We know we want you and we don't want to lose you to basketball wives. And so, you know, you're on. So I'm like, okay. So then from that point on, they're like, Oh, can you help us? It's like scouting girls and stuff," she said. "I don't know if they knew that I was signed on or not, but at the moment it was already, I had already said yes."
Cristy revealed that she brought in Larsa Pippen and convinced her then-husband Scottie Pippen to join the Bravo hit reality series. "I called my friend Larisa Pippin, who is not a Miami girl, and Scottie and Glen go way back. And so I said like, I'll talk to Scottiey and see if he'll be okay with it. And they're like, but she's not from Miami. And I was like, who cares?" she told podcast host Yontef. "At least she, and I could relate that that's how Larsa got on the show."
Rice reveals that the ladies who auditioned for the casting call never made it on the show. Producers cast Marysol Patton, Alexia Echevarria, Leah Black, and Adriana de Moura on their own.
Cristy revealed that she knew all the ladies prior to Housewives with the exception of Adriana. "I brought Larsa and, and I knew all of them, except for Adriana. I had never met Adriana in my life. And I knew Lea was cool. I knew Marisol. I knew Alexa."
Rice revealed that she felt more comfortable once Pippen has signed on the show as a cast member. "Once Larissa came on, I felt more comfortable because again, I felt like, okay, I have somebody that understands like, and, and the producers knew them and that's why they kind of threw us together."
She continued, "We're not the best of friends. We're not even the same person remotely. However, we lived the same life. We understood what it was about. So that's, you know, and so that kind of brought us even closer totally at the time"
When asked if her relationship with Pippen brought them closer or hinder their friendship, Cristy said, "No, no. That's an idea. We kind of, I mean, we kind of knew from the beginning and like, okay, we're, we're in this together. And so I always had her back. She always had the mind, but again, I, when I found out halfway through our filming thing, they said to us, this is The Real Housewives of Miami."
She added, "So this show is going to be a Real Housewives. See, we didn't start filming as Real Housewives. We started filming as that show that was going to be about friendship and Miami and all these things."
She concluded, "And halfway through, we became The Real Housewives of Miami."
CLICK HERE to listen to Cristy Rice's full interview courtesy via Behind the Velvet Rope podcast.
Photo Credit: Bravo/NBCUniversal
