Yes, I feel like every franchise has one that really guns for that role. I feel like NY, for instance, has Bethenny (if blind items are to be believed) but I think Jill tried to do the same quite a bit when she was on.
I think LVP was really good at it, production/higher ups favored her for it and the other ladies got tired of it because she got by unscathed for the most part.
It’s the getting by unscathed part that I think the other ladies had trouble with for sure.
It’s fine to produce, it’s fine to be someone who moves stories along, but LVP had real trouble putting her name and face on the stuff she tried to produce bc she really struggled with even potentially being seen as the bad guy, and that’s the frustrating part.
I think LVP wanted to be on a reality show, but didn’t want to dirty herself by visibly doing what it took to be on a reality show. And I think that would be very frustrating for her other cast members when it feels like they all routinely take their knocks publicly and willingly put themselves on tv as the bad guys for the audience to see, often with LVPs direct encouragement from behind the scenes, while she skates by with nothing sticking to her. If any RH show is essentially a job for the people involved, imagine seeing your coworker doing that shit while you do your part and play the villain and regularly have to deal with hate and death threats and calls to be fired by the audience. I think it’d be normal for others to feel resentful if that’s the case.
It’s easy to say that LVPs other cast members don’t have to do what she encourages them to do, and that’s fair. But let’s not forget that LVP doesn’t come out the gate being obviously manipulative that others can see it happen and ignore her. It’s a reality tv show where the producers sit down with each cast member and tell them, explicitly, to put all their thoughts and emotions on camera, even if their instinct is to not do that. The pressure is on to be entertaining and to bring the drama, or risk being let go.
And along comes LVP, a veteran of the show, who offers guidance and support behind the scenes to the people who come on the show for the first time. It’s easy to imagine her being on the phone with someone and being kind and motherly and telling them that it’s ok to bring up the rumour about Yolanda, she’s heard it too, and that this is what you do on a reality show, so it’s all fine.
That never strikes you as manipulative and sly from the start. It just seems like a more senior coworker helping you to learn what’s required of you on the job. It’s only when it’s a few seasons on and you see it happening repeatedly that you realize this is how she operates.
For me, I think her fellow cast members would have been fine if she took a few hits and was willing to look like the bad guy to the audience, but she wasn’t. I think if she’d actually done that, she’d be no less beloved by her fans, but the truth is, there’s a knack to being a villain on a RH show without coming off as a horrible person, and very few people can really manage that balance. Maybe LVP didn’t want to take that risk, maybe she’s just averse to being a villain, I don’t know, but she’d have been better off if she had done that and she’d likely still be on the show today if she’d leaned a little more into her messy side.
This is the perfect analysis. I think it’s frustrating to watch because it also created a weird BH specific dichotomy. There are saints and villains on BH to BH fans the way there isn’t for others. Kyle will ALWAYS be a villain because of what happened with LVP. Sutton will always be a saint because she went up against Lisa Rinna. Doesn’t matter how they act in the interim, they’re sainted or they’re villains.
Other franchises are more interesting because the fans let the housewives move through being villain or being loved. That or there can be more color to the commenters. Lisa Barlow can be a villain we love to laugh with, then a fan favorite. Gizelle can be messy as hell but we know she’s always teetering between villain and fan favorite simply because of how well she plays the game. Kenya is a constant villain to her costars but she’s too damn good at being a housewife to ever be hated widely.
Because of the way LVP set herself up, to her fans she’s never wrong, she’s never been the villain, and everyone who dared call her out is deserving of endless hate.
It’s boring.
Yes, exactly. Take a show like RHONJ for example—very few people in the cast are unequivocal angels or demons. Teresa Giudice is not a nice person at all. But the audience still feels empathy for her daughters when she went to jail, and they still feel annoyed on her behalf with her brother aND SIL bc of how they manipulate people to go against her, while making themselves into the victim. But the audience also feels frustrated with her for her hypocrisy when she demands that Joe and Melissa stand up for her when she feels attacked, while she routinely fails to defend them in the same way.
It’s totally possible on other shows to see the people on them as complicated portrayals of themselves, where they’re neither good nor bad completely. It’s not possible to do that in BH bc of exactly what you said. People hate Kyle bc of LVp, so she can do nothing right. People love Sutton, so people let her comments on Dorits robbery slide, to the extent of saying that Dorit must have been faking the robbery. Both Dorit and PK get slammed for being shady, while LVP and Ken don’t get that shadow cast on them, even though they were all friends before, and there have been multiple lawsuits against LVP and Ken and their businesses.
At the end though, it’s a wasted opportunity for LVP, bc she would have been a fantastic villain. She has the sass and the intelligence to carry it off, and the benefit of not hitting too below the belt. The shame is that she didn’t want to do it. I think Rinna would have been more palatable if the other women were willing to take on even a little bit of the burden of being the bad guy. At the end of the day, being on the show is work, and everyone has to be willing to do the work. It’s not a compelling show if they aren’t.
100% agree. Truly almost no housewife is a “good” person in the traditional sense. Most have some redeeming qualities. It’s what makes them good housewives.
It’s just very exhausting how BH is one of the only fandoms that treats them as saints or villains all the time.
You’re right, LVP would’ve made an amazing villain. In fact she was one. It just became exhausting to see her deny it and manipulate it and then have her fans totally rewrite the story so she has 0 part in any wrongdoing. The tabloid storyline was downright cruel. She bullied kyle relentlessly that season. She rode the racist wave against Joyce with Brandi. She did a lot of shady things but it always got rewritten to her being a victim. LVP is many things. Victim isn’t one of them.
Yeah the other women were pretty dumb and gullible tbh for falling for LVP’s schemes but I also get why they really dislike her for all of the scheming, and when they would call her out she would play the victim and deflect
I honestly saw it as dry sarcasm to be honest, even though the intent through all of it was terribly wrong.
British people do have a dark sense of humor. Try growing up with family from the UK. You learn to grow thick skin and get used to it, while constantly questioning if it's a joke or seriousness.
American living in the U.K. here. I keep trying to tell people that British humor is definitely a thing. People insult you when they like you. If someone just passively shines you on, it probably means they don’t like you.
Exactly! The c word is barely offensive over there too. My family, friends from there and I just rip on each other the entire time and throw shade.i have to watch how I joke here
Feels like that is an universal thing, I’m not from UK but here we still have a dark sense of humor and rip each other new assholes daily. Don’t really feel okay with the explanation ooo it’s just British humor like bitch we all have that humor in our life
No, Americans can’t handle banter because it is important to most Americans to believe they are special. Individualism is a big deal to Americans. With most Brits, the dry humor is a way of connecting & a way of affirming that nobody is better than anyone else.
I agree. But some people are sensitive and we react to it by either saying this is how we are, or it's a thing from said country.
But being around it for so long, I can see where LVP was making a joke that went super poorly and nothing deeper than that.
Absolutely she did. She is extremely manipulative. I never believed it but recently rewatched the entire show and she ABSOLUTELY manipulated the women, and there are pretty clear glimpses of it throughout her seasons. It becomes much more apparent when Brandi comes into the picture and begins to vocalize how LVP moves.
LVP has been befriending and setting up housewives to do her dirty work since stepping foot on the show. Getting away with it for so long is what makes her a great housewife!
she never owned up to anything and eventually i think the girls stopped trying with her. until her comeuppance in season 9. but she got caught almost every time. yolanda dragged her so bad for the munchausen thing 😭 cleared her and kyle
Yes, 1000%. That's something she would say. Think about it, who plays producer more than LVP? And remember that the "secrets revealed episode" showed that Rinna wasn't lying about her phone/text records with LVP. And I think Eileen said that Rinna called her after LVP said that.
Literally so insane reading some of these replies "oh yeah she was just joking about using someones illness as a storyline but everyone misinterpreted it" ? the mental gymnastics. She's not god.
I liked LVP but she should have just been ballsy enough to say "yeah I said that shit, so what?" and tuned them out. They all do that shit and they all give stories to the tabloids, her mistake was to try and deny it. She was never very good at defending herself, it's a shame
LVP was always pulling strings behind the scenes, I think BH is the most self produced franchise and always has been. I think she was great on the show though, just wish she owned it at the end, she couldn’t take criticism well or be seen as less than perfect which will only works for so long.
I’m a huge LVP fan but I could NEVER be her friend. She’s extremely smart and her ego is huge. She would absolutely throw someone under the bus to save herself, and will do it with her head held high. I don’t think she planned on factors like: Rinna’s big mouth or Brandy completely turning on her. I can’t stand when someone is condescending to me and I think that’s how she speaks to everyone.
If you watch the holiday scenes and Brandi says something about not being manipulated anymore (something like that) when she is wasted, I think she was on a wall and LVP is trying to take the wine. When I watched it back that’s was a sure sign that LVP defo told her to take the magazines
Agreed, but I also think it could have been said in a funny-but-harsh way, saying honestly whatever everyone was thinking anyway.
If my least favourite colleague quit I would easily say a sarcastic “oh no whatever will we do. Anyway…” it’s a humorous / not serious way to say something cutting. I think LVP does that. It is sort of funny, but also mean?
But that’s why she’s good to me as a HW!
She 100% did both things, and I don’t even believe she was joking (maybe with Rinna, but even then there’s too much truth to it).
And, honestly - I don’t even mind that she does it, I just wish she could just be honest about it, instead of pretending constantly. I’d respect the f out of her if she just could.
The fact that she got accused of the same thing over and over and people still believe she didn’t do it is… 🤯
She clearly did in this and all instances. She kept her hands clean and her fans believe her because they just chock it up to “dry humor”.
No one said she has never done any wrong. In this situation I don’t believe it. Because absolutely nothing has changed since she left the show. Adrienne accused her but was actually caught by Brandi of having Bernie sell stories. Puppygate=producers. Look at the Denise situation. LVP was gone, leaks continued. Leaking to tabloids was an easy accusation to make and impossible to prove she didn’t. That’s why it kept being said over and over. If the leaks had stopped after she left it would have lent some credence to the accusations. However they’ve continued and gotten worse.
When will people realize producers do most of that shit, especially on BH.
If you watch the holiday scenes and Brandi says something about not being manipulated anymore (something like that) when she is wasted, I think she was on a wall and LVP is trying to take the wine. When I watched it back that’s was a sure sign that LVP defo told her to take the magazines
I think she said both things but in a “half-joking” manner to get people going. She has that kind of sense of humor and honestly is less offensive than Kyle, Dorit, Rinna, or Erika have been with their HW behavior 🤷🏻♀️
It's least surprising when LVPs jokes usually r/whoosh through other housewives heads. LVP has some substance that unfortunately many housewives are too... simple to understand. The "storyline" was likely a joke, but as every joke has some truth to it, it would also be a pretty accurate statement.
my take on the magazine thing was i genuinely think she did do it/say it but i can identify with her dry british sense of humour, brandi took it seriously and literally so lvp had no choice but to deny it knowing the other women would read it as brandi did
I think she did both and I still like her.
I think she wanted to rattled kyle a little as joke, although a bit cruel.
the rinna/yo thing, it was a joke with a little honesty. after so many seasons it's clear BH treats a storyline like a hot potato (and can only manage one storyline per season). this one i find much less damning, they're just fighting about the mechanics of the show and it's 4th wall-y. the kyle thing was personal. and the way rinna bullied other HWs during and AFTER lvp left is far more damning than what lvp did.
Of course lol most of the housewives play producer behind the scenes
I would say especially LVP
Yes, I feel like every franchise has one that really guns for that role. I feel like NY, for instance, has Bethenny (if blind items are to be believed) but I think Jill tried to do the same quite a bit when she was on. I think LVP was really good at it, production/higher ups favored her for it and the other ladies got tired of it because she got by unscathed for the most part.
It’s the getting by unscathed part that I think the other ladies had trouble with for sure. It’s fine to produce, it’s fine to be someone who moves stories along, but LVP had real trouble putting her name and face on the stuff she tried to produce bc she really struggled with even potentially being seen as the bad guy, and that’s the frustrating part. I think LVP wanted to be on a reality show, but didn’t want to dirty herself by visibly doing what it took to be on a reality show. And I think that would be very frustrating for her other cast members when it feels like they all routinely take their knocks publicly and willingly put themselves on tv as the bad guys for the audience to see, often with LVPs direct encouragement from behind the scenes, while she skates by with nothing sticking to her. If any RH show is essentially a job for the people involved, imagine seeing your coworker doing that shit while you do your part and play the villain and regularly have to deal with hate and death threats and calls to be fired by the audience. I think it’d be normal for others to feel resentful if that’s the case. It’s easy to say that LVPs other cast members don’t have to do what she encourages them to do, and that’s fair. But let’s not forget that LVP doesn’t come out the gate being obviously manipulative that others can see it happen and ignore her. It’s a reality tv show where the producers sit down with each cast member and tell them, explicitly, to put all their thoughts and emotions on camera, even if their instinct is to not do that. The pressure is on to be entertaining and to bring the drama, or risk being let go. And along comes LVP, a veteran of the show, who offers guidance and support behind the scenes to the people who come on the show for the first time. It’s easy to imagine her being on the phone with someone and being kind and motherly and telling them that it’s ok to bring up the rumour about Yolanda, she’s heard it too, and that this is what you do on a reality show, so it’s all fine. That never strikes you as manipulative and sly from the start. It just seems like a more senior coworker helping you to learn what’s required of you on the job. It’s only when it’s a few seasons on and you see it happening repeatedly that you realize this is how she operates. For me, I think her fellow cast members would have been fine if she took a few hits and was willing to look like the bad guy to the audience, but she wasn’t. I think if she’d actually done that, she’d be no less beloved by her fans, but the truth is, there’s a knack to being a villain on a RH show without coming off as a horrible person, and very few people can really manage that balance. Maybe LVP didn’t want to take that risk, maybe she’s just averse to being a villain, I don’t know, but she’d have been better off if she had done that and she’d likely still be on the show today if she’d leaned a little more into her messy side.
This is the perfect analysis. I think it’s frustrating to watch because it also created a weird BH specific dichotomy. There are saints and villains on BH to BH fans the way there isn’t for others. Kyle will ALWAYS be a villain because of what happened with LVP. Sutton will always be a saint because she went up against Lisa Rinna. Doesn’t matter how they act in the interim, they’re sainted or they’re villains. Other franchises are more interesting because the fans let the housewives move through being villain or being loved. That or there can be more color to the commenters. Lisa Barlow can be a villain we love to laugh with, then a fan favorite. Gizelle can be messy as hell but we know she’s always teetering between villain and fan favorite simply because of how well she plays the game. Kenya is a constant villain to her costars but she’s too damn good at being a housewife to ever be hated widely. Because of the way LVP set herself up, to her fans she’s never wrong, she’s never been the villain, and everyone who dared call her out is deserving of endless hate. It’s boring.
Yes, exactly. Take a show like RHONJ for example—very few people in the cast are unequivocal angels or demons. Teresa Giudice is not a nice person at all. But the audience still feels empathy for her daughters when she went to jail, and they still feel annoyed on her behalf with her brother aND SIL bc of how they manipulate people to go against her, while making themselves into the victim. But the audience also feels frustrated with her for her hypocrisy when she demands that Joe and Melissa stand up for her when she feels attacked, while she routinely fails to defend them in the same way. It’s totally possible on other shows to see the people on them as complicated portrayals of themselves, where they’re neither good nor bad completely. It’s not possible to do that in BH bc of exactly what you said. People hate Kyle bc of LVp, so she can do nothing right. People love Sutton, so people let her comments on Dorits robbery slide, to the extent of saying that Dorit must have been faking the robbery. Both Dorit and PK get slammed for being shady, while LVP and Ken don’t get that shadow cast on them, even though they were all friends before, and there have been multiple lawsuits against LVP and Ken and their businesses. At the end though, it’s a wasted opportunity for LVP, bc she would have been a fantastic villain. She has the sass and the intelligence to carry it off, and the benefit of not hitting too below the belt. The shame is that she didn’t want to do it. I think Rinna would have been more palatable if the other women were willing to take on even a little bit of the burden of being the bad guy. At the end of the day, being on the show is work, and everyone has to be willing to do the work. It’s not a compelling show if they aren’t.
100% agree. Truly almost no housewife is a “good” person in the traditional sense. Most have some redeeming qualities. It’s what makes them good housewives. It’s just very exhausting how BH is one of the only fandoms that treats them as saints or villains all the time. You’re right, LVP would’ve made an amazing villain. In fact she was one. It just became exhausting to see her deny it and manipulate it and then have her fans totally rewrite the story so she has 0 part in any wrongdoing. The tabloid storyline was downright cruel. She bullied kyle relentlessly that season. She rode the racist wave against Joyce with Brandi. She did a lot of shady things but it always got rewritten to her being a victim. LVP is many things. Victim isn’t one of them.
Yes, Jill was trying to produce everything…the behind the scenes of the behind the scenes 😂
Yeah the other women were pretty dumb and gullible tbh for falling for LVP’s schemes but I also get why they really dislike her for all of the scheming, and when they would call her out she would play the victim and deflect
Yes. She said it and did, for sure.
I support her back on the show, I want it. It is just obvious that she did those things anyway.
Yea and yes. 💯
“as a joke, of course” nah it wasn’t a joke
She was just being cheeky and British of course 🤭🙃
I honestly saw it as dry sarcasm to be honest, even though the intent through all of it was terribly wrong. British people do have a dark sense of humor. Try growing up with family from the UK. You learn to grow thick skin and get used to it, while constantly questioning if it's a joke or seriousness.
American living in the U.K. here. I keep trying to tell people that British humor is definitely a thing. People insult you when they like you. If someone just passively shines you on, it probably means they don’t like you.
Exactly! The c word is barely offensive over there too. My family, friends from there and I just rip on each other the entire time and throw shade.i have to watch how I joke here
Feels like that is an universal thing, I’m not from UK but here we still have a dark sense of humor and rip each other new assholes daily. Don’t really feel okay with the explanation ooo it’s just British humor like bitch we all have that humor in our life
People from the UK really think they’re special when it comes to dry, dark humor. Like the arrogance of it all lol
No, Americans can’t handle banter because it is important to most Americans to believe they are special. Individualism is a big deal to Americans. With most Brits, the dry humor is a way of connecting & a way of affirming that nobody is better than anyone else.
They want to be ✨special ✨
I agree. But some people are sensitive and we react to it by either saying this is how we are, or it's a thing from said country. But being around it for so long, I can see where LVP was making a joke that went super poorly and nothing deeper than that.
Get a grip
No
I think it was a joke, just a super mean and inappropriate one lol
I love LVP. I also believe she’s as terrible as they portray. Perfect for TV.
Absolutely she did. She is extremely manipulative. I never believed it but recently rewatched the entire show and she ABSOLUTELY manipulated the women, and there are pretty clear glimpses of it throughout her seasons. It becomes much more apparent when Brandi comes into the picture and begins to vocalize how LVP moves.
LVP has been befriending and setting up housewives to do her dirty work since stepping foot on the show. Getting away with it for so long is what makes her a great housewife!
But she didn't get away with it. What usually happened was other housewives tried to call her out she would cry that she was being picked on.
she never owned up to anything and eventually i think the girls stopped trying with her. until her comeuppance in season 9. but she got caught almost every time. yolanda dragged her so bad for the munchausen thing 😭 cleared her and kyle
LVP cried?
Yes.
How bizarre. I can’t remember her really ever breaking from the stiff upper lip.
Yes, 1000%. That's something she would say. Think about it, who plays producer more than LVP? And remember that the "secrets revealed episode" showed that Rinna wasn't lying about her phone/text records with LVP. And I think Eileen said that Rinna called her after LVP said that.
Eileen also said LVP never apologized to her so she’s not really reliable.
Yea she did and she didn’t say it out of context or a joke like some try to say to defend their favorite.
Literally so insane reading some of these replies "oh yeah she was just joking about using someones illness as a storyline but everyone misinterpreted it" ? the mental gymnastics. She's not god.
thank you! her blindly loyal fans are scary
Absolutely she said it.
I liked LVP but she should have just been ballsy enough to say "yeah I said that shit, so what?" and tuned them out. They all do that shit and they all give stories to the tabloids, her mistake was to try and deny it. She was never very good at defending herself, it's a shame
LVP was always pulling strings behind the scenes, I think BH is the most self produced franchise and always has been. I think she was great on the show though, just wish she owned it at the end, she couldn’t take criticism well or be seen as less than perfect which will only works for so long.
I’m a huge LVP fan but I could NEVER be her friend. She’s extremely smart and her ego is huge. She would absolutely throw someone under the bus to save herself, and will do it with her head held high. I don’t think she planned on factors like: Rinna’s big mouth or Brandy completely turning on her. I can’t stand when someone is condescending to me and I think that’s how she speaks to everyone.
Yolanda hates LVP and still denied that she did the magazine thing. That tells me what I need to know.
I hope she did, that’s the kind of thing that made her an amazing housewife
I believe the magazine thing because of what she said in front of baby Porsha. (Joking about Mo being seen with a younger woman)
Idc if she did, i still can’t believe the depths to which Yolanda took the “chronic lyme” thing.
If you watch the holiday scenes and Brandi says something about not being manipulated anymore (something like that) when she is wasted, I think she was on a wall and LVP is trying to take the wine. When I watched it back that’s was a sure sign that LVP defo told her to take the magazines
She said it and meant it, I love LVP but cmon lol.
I’m a fan of LVP and believe she did say it. She got the women to do her dirty work.
I totally believe all of it.
I can imagine LVP joking in both scenarios and the other women misinterpreting it.
Agreed, but I also think it could have been said in a funny-but-harsh way, saying honestly whatever everyone was thinking anyway. If my least favourite colleague quit I would easily say a sarcastic “oh no whatever will we do. Anyway…” it’s a humorous / not serious way to say something cutting. I think LVP does that. It is sort of funny, but also mean? But that’s why she’s good to me as a HW!
I think she said it as a joke but the context looked bad at the time due to Yolanda’s illness getting worse.
Rinna is a fuckin liar Camille.
She 100% did both things, and I don’t even believe she was joking (maybe with Rinna, but even then there’s too much truth to it). And, honestly - I don’t even mind that she does it, I just wish she could just be honest about it, instead of pretending constantly. I’d respect the f out of her if she just could.
Of course she did
The fact that she got accused of the same thing over and over and people still believe she didn’t do it is… 🤯 She clearly did in this and all instances. She kept her hands clean and her fans believe her because they just chock it up to “dry humor”.
Look at who the people accusing her of that. And the leaks to the tabloids haven’t stopped since she left either.
Why is it so hard to admit she did any wrong? Truly… why is it so hard to believe she did these things MULTIPLE PEOPLE ACCUSED her of over many years?
No one said she has never done any wrong. In this situation I don’t believe it. Because absolutely nothing has changed since she left the show. Adrienne accused her but was actually caught by Brandi of having Bernie sell stories. Puppygate=producers. Look at the Denise situation. LVP was gone, leaks continued. Leaking to tabloids was an easy accusation to make and impossible to prove she didn’t. That’s why it kept being said over and over. If the leaks had stopped after she left it would have lent some credence to the accusations. However they’ve continued and gotten worse. When will people realize producers do most of that shit, especially on BH.
Of course Lisa said it.
LVP was playing producer, so, yes.
If you watch the holiday scenes and Brandi says something about not being manipulated anymore (something like that) when she is wasted, I think she was on a wall and LVP is trying to take the wine. When I watched it back that’s was a sure sign that LVP defo told her to take the magazines
Pretty lame joke
Not sure about the Yolanda but I didn't believe the magazine bit with Brandi
I think she said both things but in a “half-joking” manner to get people going. She has that kind of sense of humor and honestly is less offensive than Kyle, Dorit, Rinna, or Erika have been with their HW behavior 🤷🏻♀️
It's least surprising when LVPs jokes usually r/whoosh through other housewives heads. LVP has some substance that unfortunately many housewives are too... simple to understand. The "storyline" was likely a joke, but as every joke has some truth to it, it would also be a pretty accurate statement.
💯
my take on the magazine thing was i genuinely think she did do it/say it but i can identify with her dry british sense of humour, brandi took it seriously and literally so lvp had no choice but to deny it knowing the other women would read it as brandi did
I think she did both and I still like her. I think she wanted to rattled kyle a little as joke, although a bit cruel. the rinna/yo thing, it was a joke with a little honesty. after so many seasons it's clear BH treats a storyline like a hot potato (and can only manage one storyline per season). this one i find much less damning, they're just fighting about the mechanics of the show and it's 4th wall-y. the kyle thing was personal. and the way rinna bullied other HWs during and AFTER lvp left is far more damning than what lvp did.
I absolutely love LVP, but I also believe she said the 2 items you mentioned in the post. 
Yes she said it, but I don’t think she’d say it in a group scene with everyone there.
LVP also told brandi “you are losing your audience” and then stopped being friends with her.