Braunwyn Windham-Burke announced that she is an alcoholic at the end of the season 15 premiere episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County.
“I don’t know if it’s divine intervention. I don’t know. But for the first time in my life, I can say, ‘My name is Braunwyn and I’m an alcoholic,',” she said on the Wednesday, October 15 episode of the Bravo hit reality series.
Windham-Burke’s drinking was brought up by her co-stars throughout the episode.
Emily Simpson told her husband, Shane, that Windham-Burke “drinks so much that whenever you’re around her, you can’t even have like a normal conversation … If Braunwyn is always drinking the way she is, you can’t have anything but a superficial relationship with her. You can’t have a deep, meaningful conversation with someone who can’t stand up,” according to Page Six.
During a hot yoga session, Kelly Dodd told Gina Kirschenheiter that Windham-Burke lost control at a party they both attended in Miami.
“She drinks too much,” Dodd said in the episode.
The episode ended with Windham-Burke offering a tear-filled apology to Simpson.
“You called me out on my drinking last year, and instead of taking it to heart, I really pushed you away. Basically, I just got angry at you and then I came up with reasons to be mad because that was easier,” she admitted. “I have had not the best last few months. Miami was bad. I didn’t stop drinking for four days. Everyone else would end their night, no one noticed, even [her husband] Sean didn’t know, I kept drinking. So every hour, because I would start to shake, I would just keep doing a shot, a shot, a shot. I was drinking so much, I was scared I was gonna die.”
The mother of seven continued, “Sean basically said, ‘You’re going to rehab if you have one more drink,’ because he didn’t know I’d been hiding alcohol, I’ve been refilling bottles, I’ve been doing all the things that you know that everyone does.”
“I’m honestly scared of who I am without it. It’s much easier for me to be the fun, crazy one than to be myself,” she said.
When she was asked if it was a lifetime commitment, she replied, “I don’t think I can ever drink again. That scares the s–t out of me. But yeah, it has to be forever.”
The episode ended with her confessional interview, where she revealed, “I can say, “My name is Braunwyn and I am an alcoholic.”
Photo Credit: Bravo/NBCUniversal
