On the premier episode of Rewives, I had to start with a bang, So today I'm reliving the Scary Island episode. Yup. It is one of Andy Cohen's favorite episodes ever. I remember like it was yesterday. It was a complete, crazy shit show. It's one of the most iconic Housewives episodes of any city ever, period story and film. At eleven. It's the episode where the conflict between myself and Kelly ben Simone really bubbles up to the surface. There are complaint pads, photo shoots, gift bags, coco puffs, jelly beans, gummy bears, sleep discussion, and a whole lot to talk about. And joining me in this deep dive is Emmy Award winning actress Elizabeth Moss, And this is why I'm obsessed with the show. Nowhere else will you hear one of the greatest actresses of our time have a serious conversation about ho bags. This is one of my favorite podcast episodes. I've We're done, and I hope you love it as much as I do. Let's mention it all. Hi, Hi, got so nice to see you and I'm so excited about talking to you. Well, this is obviously gonna be the most important work you'll ever do in your career. I have to tell you, though, that I have done more research for this podcast than I have done for most rules. And it's not a joke. So when I found out what episode we were talking about, first of all, I freaked out, and it was like, I felt like it was a personal gift to me from you. And then I rewatched all of season three, including the reunions and the lost footage, and then I kind of took it into season four and then I was like, Okay, I think we're good now, but I really have researched this. My daughter believe it. I know it's not appropriate, she's twelve, but like when I was immersed in season three of Handmaid's Tail and she just saw some of it. And you carry to carry a show like that only reminds me of like Claire Daine's Homeland, like a woman with the with the that carries such an intense, amazing show. It's so good, you're so amazing. You're just really extraordinary and rare, but more more important than the oppression of women. I guess it is scary, scary, scary island. I feel like there's there's a tie in there. Somewhere. Absolutely, there's Gilead and there's Scary Island. They're the same. They're the same. So you watched Housewives in real time in life, or you were a person who found it later, or you were back then, you know I was. I was back then. I watched in real time, and then in later seasons I would sort of lapse and then binge like two seasons to three seasons back to back. Um, I've fallen off a bit. I haven't been watching as much lately because I've been kind of busy, although apparently not busy enough to not rewatch all of these three in the past few days too much. Yeah, And I guess there's a message in this show, which is funny because to be learning from the Housewives and me having conversations with intelligent people about this show, which was an idea for the this show rewives was because I wanted to do some people were doing rewatches, and frankly, the truth is, this is the truth. Paul said to me my fiance, like people want to hear Tom Brady talk about football, like they want to hear from him. So you've got all these other derivative people that are sort of talking about this garbage and they want to hear you, and I'm like, but I don't want to go back into the garbage dump. And you know, it wasn't feeling right. Let's talk about housewives. So I thought, what if I have an elevated conversation with smart, successful people about this, because there are definitely things that you can learn about dynamics from talking about the show. But still entertained, that's how this show came to be. And I think it's also interesting. I think Paul's absolutely right, and I think it's also interesting to hear your perspective so many years down the road, having had different life experiences, you know, having become such an incredible success, how your perspective may have changed on those events. Okay, so let's get into it. We start about the hoe bag scene. You know, a risk that you don't take in playing a character June Osborne. You know you're not No one's ever gonna surprisingly call you a hoe back to your face? Right? What was I mean? You can very clearly see the reaction on camera, But I have questions. I have more questions for you, go, did you going into that experience did you think it was going to be anything like what it would be was suspicious that it was gonna be something like would it ended up becoming or did you just go in blind and think I have I'm going on this trip, It's probably gonna be okay, maybe something interesting would happen. How surprised were you by how scary it got? Well, what's funny is the island of of St. John was not happy, like the house owners always taking a risk that we're not like this is a ship hole. But it was great because it was a really nice house. But the island is taking a risk too, that we're gonna name it scary Island because St. John from a branding perspective, doesn't want to become known as scary island. It's always so funny, and I used to get it. I'm I was not I was always on time, and I always was like, you know, professional and and reliable the most on time. But I'm not easy in the sense that I don't just go along like, let's pretend this is your trip, Elizabeth. You bought, you rented a two fifty dollar house, and when we're pulling in on the boat, you're gonna tell everybody this is the wonderful gift you got for them, paid for are by a Bravo and production company integration. Like it's so fair, Like it's okay, we just all are on vacation together. We don't have to Nobody cares to t for it. Nobody cares. Thank you, thank you. But you don't know how the fights ensued between housewives where one person will be like, everybody wants to own the trip. I mean we don't think it's a real hat. Yes, people want to own. In this case, this was quote unquote Ramona's trip. I mean she invited everybody, right, and she gets very very very excited in a very funny and cute way when she's revealing the house on the hill. Um, she's right, so excited. So in this case, though, was she just did she have the idea for the trip? Did she what's the truth and what's the reality of it? Or she just the reality is that, you know, and people wanted to be their trip in the finale party and like there's people want I don't want more work, I don't want more want I don't I don't want more work. Yeah. Now, so unless you're like it's your launch and it's you know, it becomes like a bidding war, like if it's your launch and it's the best pitch. So so everybody at the beginning of the season sits down with the producers and what's going on with your life? And I've got this, and I've got that and most of the thing. And people want to pitch my restaurant up. This is my friend's restaurant. You know. Everyone wants to pitch where they're gonna be by the couple of years. And I'm just like, I don't just tell me where to be, but because you don't want all the responsibility of all that, but people like that. It's just the thing. So really, I know, yeah, I'm not the producers just I mean I would. I'm with you. Producers should just arrange everything and take care of it. That's their job. Just tell me where to be. Well, they take they take care, they'll they'll talk to each person. And you know, I'm like, well, I'm taking a pottery class, and I think it'd be really interesting if we all go to the pottery class together and the producers fall asleep because it's boring to watch people do pottery, and then someone else is like, oh, I'm going to therapy, So we could do you know, Oh, how about we get you getting plastic start whatever that thing is, so then you find out whatever, but he's got going on. In some cases, they really want one person to own the trips, so it'll be like, how about we renew your vows Ramona, or she might have pitched that because she wanted to do that. And then sometimes you know someone really wants to go somewhere. Oh that's competition to wait. No, we should be going to Turks and Caicos. We should be going And Ramona, well, no one that's ever been on reality television that I've ever met has loved those trips more than remote. Like she thinks she's going to real vacation. For me, it was torture, Like Derenda would think it was torture. I would think, this is not me really going to Morocco. This is me going to Morocco on like a scheduled, shackled itinerary. But so Ramona thinks it's totally like real vacation, and she doesn't care she's getting to go to so she'll hard pitch her places and wants to go where she's pitching. So sometimes the people are pitching and winning, and then sometimes the producers are pitching the places or they have a relationship. We can get a villa here, we can get it that there they have. You know, we were always the step children, so we always had the shittiest budgets. Like Beverly Hills is going to lave amazing places and we're going to like de Moi, you know. So so I used to like when we were going to Miami because it would be like, it's not a vacation anyway, it's two hours, not stop direct flight. Let me burn the place to the ground again. I can probably don't need, you know, I don't need to be on an eleven hour flight to fight with people, like a fight with them in Jersey. Just keep us trapped together. That's why the burg Shears is great. And that's the thing is if it's if the show is good, the content is good, if the relationships are interesting, and then it doesn't matter where you go. You can totally go to the right. But riddle me this. An apartment that's a thousand square feet in New York City could cost three million dollars, and that's what a twenty thousand squarefret house in Atlanta would cost. And where they live in the suburbs, so you have to find stuff to show because we all look like we're living like you know, I had a four thousand squareft apartment, and I had the best department, and it would be a house the size of you know, Lisa Vanner Promp's house, but it still doesn't look the same. So the Beverly Hills has a lot of the clothes and trappings and cars and houses that do a lot of the story. Like other cities, have to rely more on the actual meet because we can't show a gorgeous estate for long, you know, and have the entertainment of just looking at that an expensive car. We don't have the cars, we don't have the homes that are that big because it's New York City. So that's just something to mention to you think about the visual. The first season, Andy Cohen called me the Greek Chorus because he felt that I was sort of explaining to the audience something that was going on, and I was like with them in the narration unintentional narration of the show. So this season, Kelly comes in and I meet her, and I had met her previously and she had sort of acted like she didn't know me unless I was with someone famous or like there was just a nuance in the hampts because I was a nobody who was like a guest of a guest of a guest when she was more elevated. So I had a pre existing feeling about her um, but I didn't know her and I had met her at different times. It was totally superficial. But when we sat down at this meeting earlier in the season and she was like, I don't put my name on anything, because people come into this show and they want to show everybody either how rich they are, how elevated they are, how not like these trashy women they are, and somehow water always seeks its own level. It just it ends up whatever is gonna it's gonna be. So you can't beat the game trying so hard. And I never there was no game. I was just a person showing my studio apartment. I bounced checks. I was like poor, it was what it was. So she was coming in and she was up here and I was down here, and I had been feeling this stuff all season. But it was like a Threes Company episode, that sitcom where like things are happening in other rooms and no one's seeing and you're like, no, this is a good this person and they're like no, I think she's Swede and nor you know, so you're seeing stuff and no one else has seen. So this trip, we're trips. That's where trips are good. All the ship pours out like whatever is bubbling, it comes together and it all comes out on the trip. So for me, I I was so happy at the end of what we were going to discuss because I was like, I told you all, this is what I've been seeing. Yes, That's one of my favorite moments of the episode is when you're like f you and F you, I was right. It's so great because everyone has felt that way. When you're like, see, she's crazy, and it's very gratifying. You feel very like you feel with you as far as like, yes, this is reality, this is what's happening. This is vindication. So what's happening is that you know in your normal life, like if someone and on TV, if someone's calling you a hoe bag, it's gonna be on television. You're one day gonna have a twelve year old daughter that's on the couch when you're watching and see that like someone called you a hoback and said you slept your whatever, and you're in the moment trying to keep your ship together because you're the wheels are turning about the fact that that's like being set to you because anything can be said to you, and so you have very little I think, visible response to her to that word, I think, and what Currantine is like, Well, she's also engaged in pregnant, so this is a very funny time to be calling her a bag exactly exactly, and some people don't show this is too tish. But she had a lot going on off camera with you know, men and whatever. But that's not the point of it. But you know, in a situation, I don't know about you, but I'll talk about things that are polarizing, but only like what they mean for society. I'll never call someone a name, Did that make any sense? Like I will character assassinate. I'll talk about like what's the message in society or my opinion of someone's actions, but I will be like that person's an asshole, Like it's just it's low hanging fruit to to call someone a name or sexually promiscuous, or a terrible mother or a bad wife, Like you won't go like that personal I feel I did once and I called her, I called her a horse, So I have to take that caveat. I took the bait or something that had been bothering me, so that I did do that one time, but I always owned my But I did do that, but I don't typically and especially now, it's just not where I go. I want to talk about the issue, you know what I mean? How do you handle when you're called a hoe bag? What are you going to do? Because you could easily become wrong when someone calls you a ho bag with what you do, people forget where it's started based on a reaction. The fact that you didn't actually really even reply to the hoe bag comment, which is I think true. I don't think you really had that much of a reaction at the time, right what what is the right thing to say? No, I'm not a hold yeah exactly, but I'm going to take the receipts out of my vagina. Tell you let's really dig into this, Kelly. But the fact that you didn't say anything to your point of being able to receive language, received comments, receive even criticism, and perhaps use it to your advantage. The fact that you didn't say anything, just made the comments stick out even more like the sore of thtuff. Thank you. And in life, if you don't know what to do, sit still. And I teach it to my daughter because my daughter sometimes in school, something will happen and she wants to get on the phone and say it and text it. I'm like, first of all, everything in writing is for the rest of your life. Second of all, whole stay at keep the bus at fifty five, like take a break. You know you don't have to get every home run. Absolutely you take a second, think about it, think about what you want to say, think about how you feel, and reply thoughtfully, absolutely exactly. On the chef, yeah, you know that was even that bothered me even more for some reason because and it was bothering her. She wanted to like take me down up here, I'm up here, you're down here. Was bothering her than anybody might even like use that word, like, I didn't think I was John George. I went to culinary school, and I was a natural food chef. I didn't say I was an natural food cook. And the problem is, first of all, if you're gonna take a shot at this, be a better not miss, Like, you can't come in here with me. You can't play checkers when I'm playing chess over here, Like you just can't. So like, you better get your act together, go do a thesis, come in here, have copious notes, have a lawyer on hand, Like you can't come in here because you're not gonna beat me at the words game. So she's coming in and she's like, well, you know you don't work at a restaurant, Like there's a woman serving us our lunch here, and I think you said at one point, I think you asked her for explanation, what do you mean tell me what you think a cook is and what a chef is? You you asked some sort of like clarifying follow up question, which is to to Andy's point about you being a recourse is exactly how you feel as a viewer. You're like, all you want to do as a viewers go what are you getting? Like, what's the point? What do you think a cook is? What do you think a chef is? And what is what are you trying to say here? Right? This is a thing. You notice this in I'm sure you notice it in Hollywood and meetings and lunch is like when people don't know the tem but sure the room. And it happens with successful, smart people, like we're both on the same show. She's an elevated woman in New York. She was married to bet all the stuff I said before. She's sitting at a table and she's not aware of the temperature of what's going on. She's telling me I'm attacking her, and we're all like, you're not in the same meeting. We are, Like, what's what is that about in life? Why does some people understand the temperature and others don't have a room of a meeting, of a scene. Why? I mean, I think it has to do a lot with somebody just being too much inside themselves. They're not looking out, not observing the people around them. They're not in the moment, they're not being present. They're on some path that they have pre sort of decided that they're going to. This is what I'm going to do. Yes, that's so smart. And as an actress, I remember taking acting classes and it was Meisner where you you're not supposed to know the punctuation or anything. You're supposed to listen to the other actor and respond that way, versus what you how you want to say ha ha ha with a laugh. You know, you're you're you're actually, I'm sure in scenes for you, you think it's gonna go one way and then something happens in the moment or someone drops something and you do it totally differently. No, I don't know that all the time. All the time, I think there's this there's this old thing of there's three versions of the scene. There's the version you do that you think you're gonna do, there's the version you actually do, and then there's the version you do in your car on the way home. Oh that's amazingly But you're absolutely right. It can totally go it differently, And I love that as an actor, just as a side tangent, right, Like, I think that is where the joy is. That's where it feels alive to me. That's where my heart starts pounding and and you know the mic on my chest starts picking up my heartbeak. That's where I feel like I am fully you know, in the pocket as they say, and the gift, Yes, like it feels like it's I'm really really there and when you come in with okay, this is how I'm going to do this scene, and this is how I have decided this scene is going to go, and I am going to say the line in this way, and it's just going to do waning that often is kind of just bullshit. And the best version for me, anyway, is when you throw that out and you're listening and you're reacting to the other person who's now doing something in front of you that's potentially incredible, and so you want to kind of give something back to them in this in this tennis match, you know, because you couldn't even the game is moving too fast. There's no way you could even hold. Please, I'd like to react to you in the way that I decided I was going to do it yesterday, like it would be that's how people are in their head. But that was the gift of that scene, like me not being in my head and be you know, just responding to what was happening in front of me, like who could prepare for that? You can? And the dinner and diner, So it's not that different. I'm not even making a joke like us. If you're true to the if you're true and self aware, that's what I was going to say to you. If you're self aware. You you probably understand the temperature of the room better than someone who's not self aware. And if you're true to the art of what you're doing, even reality TV, that's where it's like joy of the shell's joy. Sometimes it's just like that was insane. And that's what's so one of the one of the many, many interesting things to talk about about that dinner in this episode is you can see and feel the temperature change during the dinner. You feel it change, and you can see all of you around Kelly realizing the temperature is changing and going through this trajectory of sort of confusion and trying to figure out what she's saying and trying to clarify things too. Something's run here and I think we need to actually back away from this. This has gotten to the moment, yeah, like yes, the lightbulb of like this is more serious than we thought it was. And then just icely just frustration and just you know, with the gummy bearers and all of that. It was just like what you do precisely for all of the things that are let's just say, sort of interesting and surprising that Kelly does in this hour, I felt like her reaction to the gift bag was huge and very telling that something bad was coming, that something bad was about to happen when I rewatched it, which I did today again, by the way, because they really wanted to be I'm telling you, if you know me, if anyone knows me, they know I do very very little research for any role. I'm not a method actor. I'm very bad at doing like homework, like I'm not like that. So I when I rewatched it again this morning, her reaction when she opens the door and sees the gift bag, she actually jumps. But I also couldn't tell if that was pre sort of she was making that up in the moment, or if that was a real genuine reaction for her to jump when she opened the door and see the gift bag and then she starts crying on the bed, which did. I don't know if it's about the gift bag or not, but I think that she's aware that I'm marketing my brand under the guise of a gift bag, and it's annoying her because it's all about me. And what I will say about housewives is it can be never about what it's about, Like you can get frustrated and react in a different way in a scene because you're dehydrated and you drank three drinks because seem like a good idea and you just wanted to have a drink to take the edge off. And then and she doesn't, really she didn't, she didn't drink a lot. I'm just saying like things can be disproportionately played out because of something else that happened before. You know, Ramona was always the best because Ramona doesn't care. Ramona could literally say the most egregious thing to someone and in the next scene hit a pinata and dance like it's New Year's even clean up that mess two weeks from Thursday. If I do something one word sideways, I'm in my head about it later, So I don't know. You know, Kelly probably realizes like this is getting out of control and she can't sense what's going on, and and this girl's here again, haunting me with this gift bag, and it's an absolutely irrational, disproportionate response. But being fairness to the genre, it's like things tick up, you know, and then you're you're just you're just off, or it's just you can't handle the game moving so quickly. Whatever is going on and we're talking about the complaint pad and then I, oh, yeah, I felt something. This is something I noticed. We never was never really talked about about the episode. There was a way do you ever have friends who want to like shroud a compliment in some sort of insult or instructive like Kelly. She told Alex that she was channeling the devil, but she asked this way to like, you know what, you're great, and you know what's great, It's really great when you smile. It's so nice when you which means like it's yeah, yeah, like you know, or someone like you know, it's just nice to see you like relaxed like this, like so much. So she has this way of each time talking to sound like no and it's okay, Sonja. I get not as much as I used to, which is maybe not a good thing. But um, when I was on Madman, because my character was like, so it looks so different than me, and she was, you know, it was the sixties, and so we had this sort of grandma hair no matter how old you were, if you were twenty five and you had this sort of grandma woffed you know, hair, and the costumes always made you look older, and um, and I was much you know, I was younger than I am. Yeah, but I would always get in person people would say to me, you look so much better in person, or you look so much prettier in person, or younger in person all the time, yes, And I always just want to say like, and I don't because what's the point of getting into it? But like no, I always say, like, do you know that? That's me too? Though, like that, like thank you also me and and so now I feel worried about how I look there. It's such a funny thing. Yeah, I call it like it's like a It's like an insult, shrouded and frosting. Yeah. What I found about this season and maturing now is that I feel like back then, alex and Simon was strange to me, and I was a little like either judgmental or didn't relate to Alex And and watching back, I feel like she was mature and like she poised and smart and like, you know, not like the coolest girl of all of us. And I have a different compassion and feeling for her, like an affinity towards her when I watch back, Yeah, like when I watch back now, I liked the way she was in this episode. I like the way she handled when Kelly told her she was channeling the Dell Devil, and she did sort of back me up. Alough she was of sound mind, she might have been a two sound mind for that show. In wait, I that it's so interesting because I totally agree, and having watch all season three again, I see that through all the throughout the season that she is. She may not be as quick with the with the one liner sometimes, and she may not be as as brutal or have sort of the ton and be able to sort of spar like some of the women can on the show in this like fascinating way, but she's absolutely probably like the calmst and the most normal. Yes, more Tea. She was going to be fired, and I told her to deliver that message that they're discussing that which I guess she was in like makeup that they thought like kabooky makeup. I told her, like I knew the producers that someone had told me, and I said to her to tell that message to Jail because and I was like, because I knew it would be like good moment moment And years later, Sonja, one of the producers, I will not say who in the car said, I think we have to let Sonya go. They couldn't find she was just a disaster and it was all about the bidet and the lage. It was the on the loop and all this stuff. And there was a scene at a restaurant called Cherry, a sushi restaurant where I just light a match about her and Tinsley, like where Tinsley started out living in Sonya's town house and was basically a nobody who had been like arrested and was living in and how buy up to that point she had this rich guy sending flowers and Sonja's like, you know, poor in bankrupt. I said something to like stir that up, and it like lit up Sonja and she launched and she did not get let go. That is an absolute fact. I have the receipt. Did they know this? I mean the girls, they wouldn't have cared, they wouldn't believe it. But the producers will back it up a thousand percent. Alex was going to be fired that season and Sonya was going to be fired later and I went in and just said, I said to the producer in the car, give me one night. And that was the night that Sonya resurrected herself. I forgot that. I don't even think Sonya knows that. I mean, she would totally believe me, she trust me, But that did happen that I forgot that. That's crazy. Yeah, it's totally true because it was so out of character for Alex to go do that. And she's clearly so. She is a great job. She certainly delivers the message, but she's clearly uncomfortable doing it. But she she knows she's got to, Like you believe it. It seems different. It's like an outlier, right, Like it's a funny outside moment where you're like, huh, and that's the behind the scenes literally yea. But Kelly tells Alex that she was channeling the devil. I just like that. And I also like, I didn't go to the photo shoot and they would always make you go now to something like that, Like I didn't guess and it's okay, Like different things happen. It's being real. I like I used to say to one of the producers on my own show Bethany ever after, when one of the people was like, we're gonna have you in a big giant dress, like Carrie Bradshaw on your bed and whatever, and I said, let's do real, Like I just like doing real, So I like that. I didn't go to the photo shoot, and I really was with you on that one. I was like, oh God, it goes to a photo shoot on vacation. That sounds awful. There's a moment in the episode where you laid down on this chair on that sort of outside and you can just tell just speaking to the realness, you can just tell like kind of exhausted, like there's a lot going on, pregnant, The way you sit down in this chair, it's just so real. You're just I felt for you in that moment. I was like, oh, it's been a long trip. I feel that all right. Well, it looks like we're gonna be at the dinner now. So I felt the pressure of cooking, which is weird because I cook the crap as you volunteer, Did you want to cook or where you asked? No. I think they made this thing up of everyone's going to give their gift, and I guess and that was giving, right, and so mine was to do that. And the producers are probably thinking, like they got the big white board out and well, now we had that comment. So now let's get Bethany to cook, you know, which is again you're on this vacation and you're working, but you've got to clean up what happened in that other scene for them and for you, because you don't know what it looks like the whole you're working as a off then you don't make a lot of money. What if the world thinks you're a fraud and you don't know how to call like So so we cook and I picked that simple menu and the crab cakes were amazing. I made a lot of leftover. Ramona was obsessed with the crab pack. She's she will talk about the crab cakes of this day. And Ramona, like me, get cares deeply about her food and she she eats well, she cooks, but she's like cares about her food. So that night off off camera and when the producers were like eating their feelings and stressed out. And usually the producers don't like get into our food our like Jacuzy, like they've got their own thing, but it was a very outlier night. It was crazy. The wheels came up, so the producers all went into the kitchen and ate all my leftover crab cakes, and Ramona had a ship it over the crab cakes. She cursed out. She cursed out the crew about the crab cakes. Asked Matt Anderson and Darren Ward, because Darren Ward is very passionate about it, asked if she did not have a ship fit about the crab cake. I didn't leave a single one. I don't know if I'm a cook going on promonas is like priorities. You guys ate their grabs, Yes, your monster, and she meant it, and I were like, and that's Matt Anderson and Darren Ward ate the crab cakes. And they also they may call me a chepherd cook, but everybody was eating my crab cakes. It was definitely not a normal night. So um so we started off with Kellie talking aloud. Oh, she starts in on the salsas. I had to I didn't remember that. Did you make the salsa like a derogation? Because and by the way, I don't normally make salsas like I like, I literally love toastino salsa. I just have a weird thing. I don't usually make fresh salsas. The pressure was definitely on. I don't even like mango salsa. A trio of salsas like, who are you you fraud? I don't ever make salsas press, so I couldn't believe it. I made maybe the enormous amount of pressure you're in there trying to figure out to read different. Never never in my life. Besides, then did I make a trio of sal says, who do you think you all? What are you crazy? I'm not making a So I know that I was feeling it because I saw that last night and I was like, what the bitch made sauces? I mean crazy, incredible? And then she seems to enjoy the crab cakes as everyone did. Now she left it on the plate. Oh that's right, what am I talking about? But she says it was good or she said the salad was good or something she she kind of throws out like some sort of compliment about something. Yes, which is good because Martha, now, Martha Stewart and Kelly ben Simone have said that my sala addressings are extraordinary. And I'm in the sala addressing business and I make a good sound. So that's the rest of my life. I will have Kelly ben Simone and Martha Stewart, two people who despise me, have said good things about my dressing. So literally only Martha and Kelly hate me more than anybody in the world, and they both have said positive things about my salad dressing. So then that would mean if your biggest enemy, So that's good more than compliment about you're dressing from a bread. Thank you, thank you, I appreciate you. Yes, So she I like the term now in current society that I didn't even know then microaggressions, because I feel like eating one fifth of Maybe I'm not I'm not Stephen Hawkins, but maybe one fourth of a crab cake is a micro aggression. And who is it that's very concerned about sending it back? Is it Ramona or someone's rama and a very concerned about sending it back? Now? Is she concerned about sending it back round? And she just wants the rest of you? Well, it's funny you say that because in the scene it really looks like she's concerned about sending it back. It doesn't track personality wise. But given crab cake gait that happened later with the producers, we can never know. We can't be very suspicious. And so and Sonya was lovely and always is um here. Yes, now we get into the string. You've seen those strings like around a tenderloin, and I definitely did not mean that, but I was like, oh my god, and it was hers was not very cooked. So the one person who for some reason it wasn't evenly cooked and there's a string, I'm dying inside. It happened to me one time on another show where I made a burger for Frederick on my barbecue and like it wasn't cooked. And I'm very self conscious, not about just cooking, Like if I do something, I want to look at it. I want to be perfect as the lighting okay is to me it's annoying that funny you're proud of what you do and you want it to be good. I wanted to be good. So that was something that you're thinking your mind again, Like it was much younger and I realized that like everything doesn't matter. But I was much younger and was probably like, oh my god, I'm gonna be thought of as I can't cook, and you know, this is this is my career at that point, that was my how I made my living. So I was thinking in my head like this is gonna air and it's gonna not be great for that, and that was not that was sort of stressed. Of course, So when are in the kitchen of all the people that this particular piece of meat should go to, and then when you're when you're in the kitchen, you are very one of my favorite moments of the episodes. In the kitchen, you're basically like, it's just a fucking dinner. It's a fucking dinner. Who cares to dinner? It doesn't matter, it's unimportant. So it's that kind of is that a bit of an act because since I you were secretly freaking out stress, right, you know, I I thought that was sort of like I didn't know if it was obvious or not that like I don't mean that like I'm saying, tell you, I don't thought maybe like you're trying to convince yourself it's not it's just dinner. It's fine, but yes, well of course it's your lively because well but no. But it's also the person has been saying the entire someone saying to you you are a shitty actress. I don't know that you're an actress even and I don't you were in a high school play. I don't. I haven't seen you in on Broadway, so okay, you say you're an actress, you'd be like, yeah, so, um, it was just a random outlier of a stick and just didn't I definitely didn't have a meet thermometer there, and I never want something to be overcooked, so I probably took it off to you. I definitely took it off to Earl and I wanted to be overcooked or or don't. I don't remember, and what the grill was and it's not my own wal and you know who who even knows? And I'm not cooking all the time. Maybe I'm a cook now chef, but um, and I'm not always making steak, and god who knows. Now we start to, like literally now we start to figuratively get cooking. Now we start to get cooking. And there's a moment not only when we all realized it had gone SI was, but when I realized that everybody else realized what I had been saying. It was like, I mean, I don't know what was going on with her, and that's the type of stuff I won't speculate about, but like her, I feel like you're trying to kill me. And I threw up last night, like what are we talking about? It became very strange. There was the bed and by the way she says something earlier when you guys are on the boat, like nobody ever explains or talks about. It's not brought up in the you know, one ever says anything. Which is one of my favorite things, which she says, statchels of gold. Please tell me you have an explanation for that, because it gets every time I'm like, what is it mean? I just want to know what I means die. We definitely have to do a production company together called It's just a great name for a production company, an you know, it is never no Alright, So here's the thing that I'm going to tell you, honestly and why the show could have been maddening for Kelly. And I don't remember all of it, but here's what I think. So I think she thinks in these non sequiturs, but doesn't isn't explaining like what she's thinking, Like there's like the synapses are going off inside, but they are not. I dreamed you killed me last night, like or maybe that's something she did dream, but she's making it like you tried to kill me last night. It's not saying the full thought. And I'm giving her a lot of credit here because I could just let everyone think she's batship. But I'm going to tell you that I think the first time I ever like show the skinny goll cocktail was that this guy Robert Verity a stylist studio somewhere, and maybe it didn't air. I think it did. But when I saw her in the scene, it might have been one of the first times I met her, or she was there. I don't remember. I gotta go back and look, but I think I said something about like, uh yeah, and a leprecn is not going to come out of a rainbow with a satchel of gold at the end or something. I think I said something to her at some point, And I also think somewhere along the lines, and I don't remember saying this, and I don't know I never talked about al Sharpton, so I don't know what context it's in, but it's like the way deep deep memory of my life that maybe somewhere something I said something so she like brought it up in the scene that I'm saying, you can't handle the truth is from a few good men as you know. But I think that maybe she thinks because I've referenced al Sharpton somewhere else that I said, like I'm giving her the credit for that. Those two things, you know, they were like confused here we are, I don't know, it's like these disassociated, disassociative thoughts. And she said something about I of myself. Sometimes I never remember the things that I say. So I'm watching this person talk and like sometimes I laugh at my own stuff, and I say, something's wrong with you? And she says, I don't, Like I said, that's not an illness. Very good, it's very very good. See, I don't think I played. I'd be much more like Alex. I think so or something in the in this In an episode like this, I don't think I could engage on on that level. You're so quick, Um, that's my level. I'm used to grow up with a crazy like house and everyone loved. It's funny that the more obvious lines of people love like your cuckoo for cuckoo for Coco puffs, that to me, like everyone loves that, and that's fine and funny, but that's not to me, you know, watching it, like that's just a throw away. You know, I think with the go to sleep, like, I think I was just reacting, meaning I didn't know that was going to be this iconic line, but it's you're screaming for the audience in that moment. I look at look at you. Wow, June. Okay, I like that very and so you are. It's the Greek for it. You are saying what we are all saying, because I think if I'm not, she goes away and that's and then she comes back, right, she comes back with the gummy bears, and I think it's after that that they go to sleep happens. And that is just how we feel as an audience watching just we just wanted to go to sleep. We just wanted to go and get some rest and stop because it doesn't seem to be going well, and she's gonna keep saying things and it's going to keep getting worse for her, and she's going to regret this tomorrow, and so there's a feeling from her like she's being forced to stay and talk. But that's not the case. Everyone else is like going to sleep, and so that's why it doesn't feel vicious. You're also laughing, you're kind of smiling when you say it, it's not It doesn't feel like an attack. It feels like you're speaking for the audience as far as like get some fucking sleep. So what's happening now in the scene? And this is again what I believe, but I this is what it really is. So we're in the scene, you are aware whether it's going well or not. You may not know how not well, but if it feels weird inside, So I believe that this is a woman who was crying over the gift bag now at dinner and is having some sort of agitation, some feeling, saying things about channeling the devil and you're trying to kill me and this stuff. So now you've got on some subconscious level or conscious realize like this isn't going that well as you said, So you can leave and know that the format of this show is going to be for other people to continue to talk about this. So if you leave, you know that you're just going to be continually talked about. So I my belief is that it was like she tried to to leave but couldn't control the scene, Like couldn't control what was going here. So so so I had to like wanted to stay. It was like addicted to staying in the thing and digging in deeper, and it started to go really badly. And this is where the fans, after hearing this will probably like demand that Bravo releases the Trump tapes. Like this is where she starts saying Matt Anderson as the producer, and she starts with the gummy bears. And I remember, like it was yesterday, and that's the thing, like I have, I literally built a career on not forgetting a godsamn thing. Was had the gummy bears and was going Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt to stop the scene, but like repeally Matt Matt, Matt Matt. Because it wasn't the days where Denise Richards at dinner could say Bravo production and they would just air that. Back then, that was breaking the fourth wall, and you did not break the fourth wall, and you did not air that there's a camera or a producer or paparazzi, like because you've got paparazzi because of the show. So it's too meta. Like now they'll just show anything and show real and show a camera falling in Nini's closet or something like that, do really talk. So so then someone saying Matt to try to stop, like to stop the scene. She was like, stop the scene, Matt, Matt, Matt. He's like, I'm not going to stop the scene. So what also never happens on reality television is that they stopped the scene something was wrong, Like we thought that something had gone wrong and it was way worse than what was aired, so we stopped shooting. That's when everyone started eating crab cakes and like, it was crazy. Stop shooting, not right after the Matt thing, but like very very shortly thereafter, like it had gone pretty clear. Yeah, pretty closely after the Matt thing. Pretty closely it did work work. I mean, it was crazy, but it wasn't like she was just she wasn't just saying like production, but the way that she's like, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, like it was further to what had been spiraling. So we all were just a little unsettled. It was a lot of stress because if you see the previous for the next week, you see how Alex is crying and she's like, we've all been through a lot, Like we we were through a lot more than you saw, and I thought I was positive she Darren Wore took her on an airplane and he got to sit first class with her, which doesn't happen. Producers don't sit on the plane first class next to her to accompany her on the plane, and took her home. And I was under the impression that she would absolutely not be on the show anymore, because I felt that it was irresponsible for her to continue on the show. I was under the impression that she was going home right now. Yeah, yeah, But I was under the impression that that something was going to happen. Yeah, that's the impression that I had because what we had all seen, um and that happens a lot. Like years later in Colombia, we are on a horrible, horrible boat accident that we like literally almost died, and it was weeks of meetings with Bravo that don't make it to ship goes down and we're like that was not accepted, Like so this was really something for all of us. And so when I we were filming next week and she was filming, I was like, what where I was green and people hadn't yet gone to prison and had fraudulent husbands and been having Hansi schemes like it was early in the game. I thought that this was not a reason to keep filming with someone. But that's what makes these shows, I guess do well. But like there's a line for me, and that was the line for me. So how did you guys remember how the scene ends on the show and the aired version. I think it just sort of ends. The ends go to sleep and it's like it kind of ends, and then I guess you get us home the next time, like talking about it, I guess after it just sort of ends. So that's there's the note. Kelly leaves a note saying I'm going to go home. Yeah, exactly exactly, So that that was that. And also to give vindication to Kelly, she's not friends with Gwyneth Paltrow and she was asked by Andy Cohen on the show do you know Gwyneth? Do you know Kelly? And Gwenna said no, But I'm also going to put myself under the bus and for to be accountable when she's like and what you said about my friend Gwynneth years ago, when Gwyneth was like cooking going on a tour with Mario Batali when I used to say Synarchi things for the sake of saying them. And I don't know why I said I'd rather put hot pennies on my eyes than eat a roast chicken. For Gwyneth Paltrow, I don't know why I said it. I don't know anything about her roast chicken. I don't know why I said it, just like I don't know why I said it because I don't know Gwyneth and I don't know what her chickens like. And it probably was when you first started out and you didn't realize that, like this is before Twitter, before Instagram. You just thought you could just say something in a blog. It was in a blog or something. I have no idea. It just it makes no sense. So I'm just gonna say, but that's also it's based in something connected to something, if that makes any sense, because I want, yeah, wow, so meaning? And I do I do? You know, well, I do think they should show this actual footage. I think it's very interesting. I know they would ever will, but I'd love to see They probably will. They probably will. I think the fans will come. Yeah, because I forgot about it, so now I forget you this experience reminded me se a question as first crossing the line between reality television and reality? Uh was that? Would you say that that and then you mentioned the boat episode. Would you say those were like sort of the two kind of moments in your history on the show that were like, Okay, this is actually too real for reality television. Yes, that was because you're very like you always seem to be very much like, no, we should show what's real, like like, let's have the conversation on camera, that's why we're sucking here doing the show, Like why wouldn't we do this on the show. So it's interesting to hear you say like there's a point where it's like, no, I don't think it's right. Well, because the show is just add water to those gremlins, Like it's a concentrated situation. You're not quote unquote really friends with these people, but you're having discussions and friendly while you're filming their colleagues effectively, So you know, people always like is it real? Yeah, what is happening is real, but you know you're in the room with someone that you would not normally be in the room with. So this combination, which is you know, designed by casting and sometimes successfully and sometimes otherwise, you know, can be challenging, and like I said, I've I've felt before while filming this show that the game is moving fast, that you're you're you're not driving, you're like out of control with no breaks, you know, and that feels wrong, and we all get excited and into the whole thing. I felt that this was something going on with with someone else. And I've also felt that with substance substances, with wanting people to drink, and no one pushes anyone to do anything that's not at all, But I have felt there's been articles about it, like it's sort of dramas happening when someone who shouldn't be over consuming is over consuming and it's capitalizing on that, and it makes me uncomfortable. You and Kelly have never spoken about Have you guys ever talked about that episode and what happened there? Like off camera, like obviously there's the reunions, but you guys ever, like never, She's written me emails and texts of let's bury the hatchet and let's be you know, and then I've written a kind response back because you always think everything's gonna be fine and then but The problem is housewives always then have an opportunity to go back on in the press and then they just they want to like say something about you. And and she's really talked about this experience ad nauseum over the years, and so I guess I'm doing this now, but it's it's been yeah. No, I just it was not the right combination. And I was going to say this to you too, that um. What's interesting is that she wasn't on the show much longer than I left because she was more entertained. She and Jill are better on the show. If I'm on the show, if Kelly is just with everybody who's like, oh she's dizzy and funny and who can't like the rub between Kelly is much more elevated when she's with me because of the way that she that I you know, she just got under my skin and vice versa. So like combination is better, you know what I mean? You need you need the two people in a scene that really you need you and and what Mr Waterford June and Mr Waterford? So are you? Von who plays Serena, said this past season. She said that Serena is nothing without June. From her perspective as Serena. Serena feels that she is ultimately nothing without June. You have to have the foe, you have to have the conflict, and they also have to be somebody who can, you know, provide that drama. You know that, And you're right whatever it is in season, which I think Kelly is right. I think Kelly is in season, yes, but she's in Morocco with them, and I don't. I'm out there. Yeah, you're not. It's not the same totally. Do you notice because you don't watch as much anymore? I don't watch as much anymore either. Do you notice the difference in um like glam and orchestrated outfits? And does it feel more scripted when you're watching housewives now? Like do you notice that we were literally just dressing like a wreck like you, like you would wear on vacation like me? You know, you're half a wreck. You're just like on vocation, trying to figure it out. Totally total. You can definitely feel that it feels very raw. And I've skipped ahead because I was wondering when you came went on my rewatch in my research over the past few days. I skipped ahead because I was like ringing Bethany come back. And I'm one of those people. There's many of us fans who like the Bethany seasons the most, and so I've seen it obviously, but I skipped forward and then you came back like three seasons later, right, And you can even tell, I feel you would know the reality of it. But I can tell a difference even between season three and like season seven of how even just like it's shot a little better, everyone looks great, there's a little bit more of a glossiness to it. Was the difference between three and seven. Well, there's a couple of things. Because the first, in the beginning, there was no glam. I mean, you know, if you went out to a major event, just like I guess in life, you know, I would go to the Bloomingdale's counter to shush McAvoy counter and buy ass and just say, let's not dance around. How many products do I have to buy on my seven thousand dollars salary for the whole season of Housewives? Do what do I have to buy to? Like for you to put makeup on me? Let's just get that out of the way. No foreplay, Like, what's the thing it's fifty seventy two lip glasses, just make up my face and it didn't matter who did it. I didn't know there was a difference in good glam bag lamp. Someone did your phrase, then you didn't went to one of the events. The idea that every day to be filmed, that you would be in makeup, hair and makeup was or clothing that you thought about was preposterous. I was in a Ralph Lauren like thrift store turquoise sweater in the interviews and no makeup on like so now Erica Jane and you know Dord and these costumes and it's totally different. But to answer your question coming back, I knew a friend this is T inside T so I knew a friend who knew christin Takeman, who was one of the new housewives, and he said to me, her husband, who's a friend of his, says, she's in hair and makeup every day scenes. And I'm like, well, that's not going to be good because then it's not about what you look like, like it's about what we're talking about in the content versus like if you're focused first season in on your shoes and your elaborate outfits, which you could see in the way they were dressing. Then you're not you're losing the plot. So I remember coming back and we were in the Berkshires and everybody had glam team, glam teams and big major outfits like we're in the Berkshire's. You're not going anywhere. Who's wearing a ball skirt in the Berkshire. So it was annoying because I remember calling Andy, I mean, like, what is this. It's not really but there's everyone's got a glam team or not, like oh yeah, And when you're in good one not doing it you then you look like ship like Denise Richards when she was on the show, coming in like a normal person in shorts, but everybody's in a massive gone at the wind costume. So you gotta don't hit the players. You gotta start put makeup on because then you feel the pressure. Well, I can't get up and just be a normal person and come down and get coffee as if I didn't go through hair and makeup, but these six other women have just gone through, you know, two hours of here and makeup. Yeah, Amazon, But in season three, like you have like even I think it happens in in scary Island. In that episode of the one right after Um where they wake Sonya up, you know, and she's clearly asleep, but no one's there's clear. It's very real. It feels everyone looks like shit, and I love it because it's yeah, yeah, But the Glamazons came in and the whole thing changed, and it's one of the things I like looking real, Like, let's be women are watching that that look real. That our home then of times, but their makeup on. So let's wearing jeans, people are wearing tanktops, people are wearing normal clothes. They're not constantly dressed to the nines. Even when you go to a party, it's like, you have a nice dress, but it's to get the feeling. We probably bought that dress somewhere. It wasn't like something a stylist getting you. Yeah, and it's it's a much better feeling. I prefer I prefer that. But I need to point out I'm very swollen. My best friend says, when you're having a girl, you like blow up and become like you don't even look like yourself. And I I noticed it. My my daughter was like, you look pretty. I'm like, I love you, but I look like a beating because I'm pregnant and we're doing that. You do not look at all. Well we're doing in you know, in the interview shot not the main thing in the intry, in the purple, in the purple, because that shot months later, when you picking pickups, you still do that looks like a beast. But it's not my best and I'm okay, it's so it's not my best. Um, well, I don't want to, I don't. I look, this is the longest project you've ever done, and the longest interview I've ever done, and I'm sorry it went so but I've most done. My public was texted me and she was like, good luck. She was like, have fun. It's all downhill from here with your press, and she's not wrong. I truly am such a huge fan. Thank you so much for listening to the first episode ever of rewives, a rewatch show unlike any other. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe, and follow the show's instagram at rewives with Bethany. There you'll find video clips from these conversations and sneak peaks at which episode I'm reliving next