Brian Moylan - The Housewives: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewives

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For the woman who gave me life and is the greatest person Ive ever known:

Jill Zarin, I couldnt have done it without you.

You really do travel with a fabulous circle of people.

Rewatch the very first episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County (RHOC) and youll notice a few things. Like Vicki Gunvalson taking pictures before her daughters prom on a camera with actual film. What will really stick with you, though, are the Sky Tops.

Manufactured in LA and designed by a husband-and-wife team, these were tank top or halter top blouses cut to accentuate the ample chests of the 85% of women who have fake boobs in the area, as a quote running over the RHOC opening credits informs us. They were always embellished with sequins, rhinestones, or even giant medallions around the wearers silicone-enhanced dcolletage. Vicki wears several in the first episode, including a canary-yellow number with ruching just below the boobs that flares out toward the waistband of her low-rise denim. She looks like shes dressed as Britney Spears while chaperoning her kids to the pop stars concert. Later, she rocks a baby-pink top where the straps are chains of sequins that travel along the neckline to meet in the middle as if kissing her breasts good night.

In the artwork used to promote the shows premiereMarch 21, 2006, on Bravoall five cast members are wearing Sky Tops. Vicki wears her most spectacular version of all, a champagne-colored satin halter with a keyhole cut out near the neckline and a print of a vase with flowers exploding across her chest.

Looking back on this episode as a snapshot of the George W. Bush administration with America on the precipice of a financial crash, its easy to look at this like a relic, like some sort of cave painting depicting the fall before a terrifying future. We should think of it more like the mosquito frozen in amber in Jurassic Park, because this strange little episode, barely watched in its premiere, contained all the DNAwomen baring it all, a look inside an affluent lifestyle, a bit of interpersonal conflictto create a menagerie of monsters who would take over the world.

For me, it didnt start with Sky Tops but a topless man. I was sitting on the floor of my sparse apartment when the lithe, sculpted body of eighteen-year-old baseball player Shane Keough appeared on my combination TV/VCR. Shane was square-jawed with at least as many visible abs as the leanest Hemsworth brother, and just the kind of guy who would have been an asshole to me in high school. Exactly my type. My, my, what is this? I thought, suddenly paying attention to the screen. Turns out it was The Real Housewives of Orange County, and it would change my life.

My love for the Real Housewives wasnt immediate. When I started watching the show in 2006, it was simply because Bravo was my go-to channel. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Project Runway had debuted three and two years earlier, respectively, starting Bravos golden age along with shows like Top Chef, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, Flipping Out, Being Bobby Brown, and Blow Out.

Real Housewives of Orange County wasnt appointment television, as we would call it at the time. I would catch it during weekend marathons, while putzing about the apartment, folding the laundry, or just lounging on my twin mattress on the floor, chain-smoking Marlboro Menthol Lights.

The show grew on me, little by little, until it was an all-consuming passion. It was a perfect trap for me at the time, toiling away as I was at two low-paying jobs in Washington, D.C. Instead of focusing on making ends meet, I could watch Vicki and her crew prowl their sprawling, antiseptic homes, shouting at their children, their spouses, each other.

It wasnt that I wanted to live like these middle-aged women across the country, so much as I felt a certain kinship with them. There couldnt have been a more opposite lifestyle from mineand yet. They traveled in a pack, fighting and gossiping among themselves, just like I did with my crew. As mothers of a certain age before MILF was the most popular Pornhub search term, they were also marginalized from society in a similar way that gay men were. If they were not aware of giving a camp performance of American affluence, they were still giving it to us with both manicured fists.

My career as a professional Real Housewives chronicler started shortly after I started at the gossip blog Gawker (RIP) in 2009. I filled in for my colleague Richard Lawson when he couldnt do the recaps and then took over entirely once he left the site. In 2013, my recaps landed at Vulture, New York magazines pop culture website, and have been there ever since. As the president and founder of the (entirely fictional) Real Housewives Institute, Ive written about the franchise for The New York Times, The Guardian, and other publications I was surprised were interested.

When I started recapping, I thought people just wanted to have their opinions confirmed. I imagined my readers wanted an expert to tell them that, yes, this season Jill Zarin was behaving like a crazy person, or maybe we shouldnt make too much fun of Gia Giudices songwriting ability because shes only a minor. (Though her birthday song for her sister is an all-time classic and went viral on TikTok years later.)

But the more I interacted with fans in the comments sections, on social media, and for hours cornered by gays in bars, the more I learned that they didnt want to agree; they didnt want to be told. People just wanted to talk about the Housewives. These women were like the popular girls in high school that everyone hated and were jealous of at the same time. We all wanted their version of privilege, and we all wanted to grind it under the boots of our Doc Martens. (I obviously went to high school in the 90s.)

I like to call the Housewives, even those I dont particularly care for, my TV friends. Ill never meet most of them in real life, but I talk about their latest tantrums, dating habits, business failures, and outfit choices at brunch as if each is a part of my extended circle. We all know when Luann filed for divorce from Tom or when she headed into rehabboth times. Its not just passing the news along; its sharing concern, or joy, for the experiences the rest of us are living vicariously.

There is no one with whom I talk more Real Housewives than my partner, Christian. We met at a Gawker party back when I worked on the site. Christian, newly single, was a friend of a friend and liked my recaps enough that he decided to introduce himself. He started by telling me about some project he was working on that, honestly, sounded like a huge bore. I was about to exit the conversation politely when he said, But I really love the Housewives. He didnt have me at hello, but he did have me at Sonja Morgan is my favorite.

In all our time together, the Real Housewives are a constant source of conversation. Christian loves to watch along with me, making jokes and keen observations that he hopes Ill repurpose for the recap. Without credit, of course.