Paternity tests, prison time, racy photos,
and divorces from hell: these are just some of the biggest scandals to ever hit Bravo.
The Millionaire Matchmaker didn't get nearly the same attention as Bravo's revolving cast of Real
Housewives, but it's not without its own scandals. In March 2018, the show came under fire after a
California businessman who appeared on the series in 2011 was accused of sexual assault. Michael
Leslie Bernback was arrested in 2015 in connection with the alleged rape of two women at his home.
"It's every casting director's worst nightmare to have something like this happen."
At least eight women had come forward with allegations against Bernback. LAPD Lt. Jim
Gavin accused the businessman of running a "house of horrors" where women were allegedly
drugged and raped. In one instance, Bernback made a woman sign a waiver stating that their
interaction was consensual, but she felt like it wasn't. Lt. Gavin told People,
"Most of these girls were going there with the idea they were having sex with
him. There is no argument there. The problem is he went over the line."
Bernback was charged with eight felonies, but his case was dropped in May 2018.
For a show that doesn't have much drama beyond undercooked chicken and scorched sauce,
Top Chef had one doozy of a scandal in 2007, when a Season 2 contestant was assaulted during
an impromptu haircut after judging hours. Marcel Vigneron's hair grew rather shaggy during filming,
and he asked production if he could chop his locks. Producers repeatedly denied his
request because they didn't want any continuity errors, but they eventually told him he could
get a trim as long as one of the other contestants did it. Vigneron declined.
"Seeing as how it is our last elimination challenge, we thought
it would be a good idea to try to shave Marcel's head."
What transpired started as a joke and quickly turned aggressive when a group
of contestants, who had been drinking that night,
pinned him down while he was asleep and tried to shave his head. Vigneron called
out for help. Judge Tom Colicchio addressed the incident in a Bravo blog post, writing,
"In a flash I understood how frat pranks can morph into
ugly acts of hazing, or how a rowdy bachelor party can become the scene of a crime."
Colicchio wanted to send the entire group home and let Vigneron win by default. However,
producers vetoed that option; only one contestant was given the ax.
He threatened Vigneron, which is against the Top Chef rules.
Vanderpump Rules stars Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix ended their nine-year relationship in
2023 in the wake of what fans have dubbed the "Scandoval." On March 3,
Madix found out Sandoval was in the throes of a months-long affair with costar Raquel Leviss.
"You want anything?"
"For you to die."
VPR fans have seen their fair share of cheating scandals over the years, but this was the most
stunning one yet. Not only did Sandoval and Madix seem like an unbreakable pair,
but it complicated the cast's relationship web even further. Leviss was previously engaged to
James Kennedy, who first joined the show as Kristen Doute's boyfriend.
Before Sandoval was in a long term relationship with Madix, he was with Doute. Though he denied
anything happened while he was still with Doute, he would later admit to cheating on Doute with
Madix. But Doute cheated on Sandoval with his former best friend Jax Taylor, and Taylor has
a whole wild cheating history of his own. Needless to say, it's mess on top of mess.
Since the news broke, VPR Season 10 resumed filming, and Sandoval and Leviss
issued separate public apologies. Madix waited a bit before she commented via Instagram, posting:
"I am so f**king lucky to have the best support system in the world and I hope I
can repay every single person for the love you have shown me. What doesn't kill me better run."
If we had a dime for every time a scandal broke in the Real Housewives universe,
we would have one heavy piggy bank. Viewers were shocked when revealing photos of Real
Housewives of Orange County alum Gretchen Rossi came out. And we're talking the racy kind. At
the start of Season 5, several intimate photos were published of the television
star without her permission. The compromising snapshots showed Rossi posing with a vibrator,
topless inside a vehicle, as well as sitting on a toilet seat with her pants slid down.
Rossi's lawyer sent a cease and desist letter ordering the photos be removed from the site,
but not before the ladies of Orange County spilled the tea.
"There's a picture of her with a vibrator laying on a bed with a cord, I'm like,
'Holy Mother of Gynecology! Who has a vibrator with a cord?"
Rossi confessed that she took the photos when she was going
through a difficult time after her fiancé's death.
It was the "Bravo, Bravo, Bravo" heard 'round the Real Housewives universe. Denise Richards
reached her limit during Season 10 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
over allegations of an affair between her and former cast member Brandi Glanville.
"Denise, Brandi Glanville – she said you two had sex, okay?"
As viewers would later learn, she shouted the network's name in the middle of the
scene to signal to producers to cut the tape. Alas, they didn't stop rolling.
The scandal began in 2020 when Glanville alleged that Richards had an open marriage
that allowed her to be intimate with other women. She went on to admit that she visited
the Richards star for two nights while Richards was filming in Northern California.
"We got really drunk; we were just so f***ed up, and we kind of hooked up."
Richards has repeatedly denied the affair, while Glanville is sticking with her story.
Season 10 was Richards' final season. And on a 2023 episode of Watch What Happens Live,
Glanville confirmed they were no longer speaking.
In Season 12 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Lisa Rinna and Kathy Hilton hit a major
rough patch during a cast trip to Aspen. The drama began when Hilton got upset that
sister Kyle Richards didn't encourage the other Housewives to order Eva Longoria Casa
Del Sol tequila. Hilton and her daughter Nicky Hilton Rothschild are investors in
the brand. The drama escalated when Rinna chose to order Kendall Jenner's 818 tequila instead.
"What was I supposed to say to her? You're not allowed to order a different tequila?"
Things boiled over that night after the cameras stopped rolling. In the
second installment of the Season 12 reunion, Rinna alleged Hilton threw
a fit upon leaving a nightclub after a DJ refused to play her requested music.
"Kathy [was] screaming and yelling and venting,
and saying things that I have never heard in my life."
Rinna went on to allege that Hilton directed a homophobic slur at the DJ,
then threatened NBC, Bravo, and the Real Housewives franchise on the way home. Oh,
and according to Rinna, Hilton claimed she was going to "destroy" Richards' whole family.
Hilton denied using homophobic language,
making threats, and saying hurtful things about her costars and family members. However,
she did acknowledge that she was frustrated in the moment, saying,
"I recall venting, thinking that we've known each other a long time,
this is not being filmed, and I felt like I could trust you."
Rinna parted ways with the series after the season.
After she left The Real Housewives of Atlanta,
series superstar Nene Leakes made some serious allegations against Bravo. In April 2022,
Leakes hit the network with a lawsuit. According to legal documents, Leakes sued because:
"NBC, Bravo and True foster a corporate and workplace culture in
which racially-insensitive and inappropriate behavior is tolerated – if not, encouraged."
The suit dug into years of past drama between Leakes and her former co-star
Kim Zolciak-Biermann. Leakes claimed the "Tardy for the Party" artist used racist slurs toward
her and regularly made offensive comments about her costars. Leake's lawyer said in a statement,
"From the day the series began filming,
NeNe was the target of systemic racism from co-star Kim Zolciak-Biermann,
which was tolerated by Bravo executive producer Andy Cohen and other executives."
When Zolciak-Biermann was asked about the allegations on The Nightcap with
Carlos King, she claimed they were untrue.
Leakes ended up dismissing the lawsuit in August
2022 but is allowed to revisit the case in the future if she chooses.
When Season 2 of Below Deck: Sailing Yacht was airing,
cast member Dani Soares announced on Instagram that she was expecting. Fans
quickly began speculating about the identity of the father, as the stew
had gotten close with deckhand Jean-Luc Cerza-Lanaux during their season together.
"The more I get to know you,
I like you more. Let's have sex tonight. And if I get pregnant? That's God's will."
Soares revealed her baby's paternity during the Season 2 reunion. Cerza-Lanaux is the father,
but their relationship is rocky, to say the least. In June 2021, Cerza-Lanaux shared on
Instagram that he wanted a paternity test done to confirm the child was his, posting:
"There will be one ASAP. No, Australia isn't open yet or I would have already gone so those of you
saying 'just go' must not know that. We are truly on different continents so easier said than done."
The DNA test proved Cerza-Lanaux is the father. He posted on his Instagram that:
"I'm happy and proud to say Sweet and beautiful Lilly rose is my daughter."
But he has yet to post any photos with his daughter
nor does any evidence exist that he visits her at Soares' home in Australia. He did,
however, go Instagram official with a new girlfriend in 2023.
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah found herself in legal trouble in March
2021 when she and her assistant Stuart Smith were arrested while Season 2 was filming. According
to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, Shah was charged with running a fraudulent
telemarketing scheme that involved recruiting victims and scamming them out of their money.
"What I have been accused of is absolutely
the complete opposite of anything I would ever do in my life."
In January 2023, Shah pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was
sentenced to 78 months in federal prison. The reality star traded designer clothes
for a prison jumpsuit in February of 2023. She took to Instagram to
release a statement the day her prison sentence began, writing,
"I am surrendering to serve a sentence in federal prison today. It is the price
I must pay for the bad decisions I made. [...] While incarcerated,
I will work to make amends and reconcile with the victims of my crime."
While it's nothing like an episode of The Real Housewives, Shah is updating fans with Instagram
posts managed by an administrator that detail her life behind bars.
Season 12 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills saw its fair share of controversy,
but nothing could compare to the online hate received by Garcelle Beauvais' son
Jax Nilon. As Beauvais' conflicts with her costars evolved throughout the season,
trolls went lower than low and targeted one of her kids on social media. A number of the
hateful messages the teenager received were threatening and racist in nature.
Beauvais shared Nilon's statement regarding the attacks via Instagram Stories, which read:
"It is currently my first week of high school and, instead of enjoying it like
most kids at my school, I have to deal with being attacked on social media."
Beauvais' costars spoke out and defended Nilon.
Beauvais suspected costar Diana Jenkins was behind the comments and even accused
Jenkins of paying for the bots cyberbullying her child. Jenkins denied the allegation and
launched her own investigation into who was responsible. In November 2022,
Radar reported that Jenkins' team apparently found the source.
Nilon, who was 14 during Season 12, also had an unfortunate interaction
with one of his mom's costars. At Beauvais' birthday party,
an intoxicated Erika Jayne propositioned Beauvais' eldest son,
Oliver Saunders and cursed at Nilon. Beauvais later confronted Jayne, and Jayne apologized.
The Real Housewives franchise has seen plenty of nasty divorces, but no breakup was quite as
bitter as the one between Bethenny Frankel and her ex-husband Jason Hoppy. Viewers watched Bethenny
fall for the businessman during Season 3 of Real Housewives of New York City. The two got engaged
just 11 months after meeting, then tied the knot and welcomed their daughter, Brynn, in 2010.
The marriage was short-lived, however, and the two split up in 2012. Frankel
filed for divorce the following year. In the midst of their divorce battle,
Hoppy was arrested after he went to his daughter's school and yelled at his wife,
"I will destroy you!"
He then fired off a series of email rants that led
to him being charged with harassing and stalking his then-estranged wife.
Frankel and Hoppy were able to settle their financial dispute in 2016 but fought over custody
of their daughter until 2021. Frankel opened up about the ordeal on her podcast, Just B, saying,
"I have spent millions of dollars, millions of tears. I have had a horrific, hall of fame,
nightmare divorce. Divorce has been my greatest struggle and
ultimately my greatest matter to survive. And it was torture."
Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute were once known as The Witches of Weho,
but their supposed magical powers were not enough to stop them from getting fired
off Vanderpump Rules. In a 2020 Instagram Live interview with MTV star Candace Rice,
former cast member Faith Stowers opened up about what it was like being the only
Black woman on the show. She said Doute and Schroeder once gave her name to authorities
when they heard a story about a Black woman who was wanted for a crime in the area, explaining,
"They thought it was me because it was a Black woman with a weave."
A week after the interview came out, Bravo fired Doute and Schroeder.
The two former SUR waitresses issued public apologies. While Schroeder lost some partnerships
and had to put her podcast on hold, she didn't leave the public eye for good. She released
her second book, Off with My Head: The Definitive Basic B***h Handbook to Surviving Rock Bottom, in
2022. Doute is back filming episodes for Season 10 of Vanderpump Rules in the wake of the Scandoval.
Little was known about Brandi Glanville before the media got wind of the affair between her
ex-husband Eddie Cibrian and country music star LeAnn Rimes. The former Real Housewives of
Beverly Hills star met her ex-husband out on the nightclub scene in Los Angeles in the early 90s,
and they married in 2001. The two went on to have two sons together.
In 2009, Us Weekly revealed that the actor was having an affair with his Northern
Lights co-star Rimes. Glanville filed for divorce a few months later. In an interview
on The Jeff Probst Show, she confessed to having considered Rimes a friend, saying,
"It would have been better had I not known her and they were just having an affair. We're
sitting there and she's pretending they're pals — and she's sleeping with my husband."
But Rimes wasn't the only woman Cibrian had been seeing behind Glanville's back.
In a Bravo crossover moment for the ages, Glanville sat down with Scheana Shay on
the 2013 premiere of Vanderpump Rules, only to have Shay apologize for having
an affair with Cibrian. In a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills after show clip, Glanville said,
"The good thing about her is that I thought LeAnn
was just the one-time thing. But when I found out about her, she saved me because I left him."
While the South may be known for its hospitality, the same can't be said for
the stars of Bravo's Southern Charm. Former co-stars Ashley Jacobs and Kathryn Dennis
were at each others' throats during Season 5 after Dennis's ex-boyfriend Thomas Ravenel,
with whom she shares two kids, started a relationship with Jacobs. In the
final episode of Season 5, tensions reached a high when Jacobs told Dennis,
"You're nothing but an egg donor."
Jacobs doubled down on the Southern Charm after show, stating,
"Just because you push something out of your vagina doesn't mean you're a mother."
Jacobs eventually backtracked via Instagram, writing:
"I'd like to apologize for how I treated Kathryn, and how badly I disrespected her.
I'm not sure what made me think it was okay to speak to a mother that way. It wasn't."
Dennis was less than impressed after her friend and former castmate Danni
Baird called her on FaceTime to share Jacobs' statement.
One of Bravo's most bewildering scandals to date had a fur baby at its center. A puppy
called Lucy Lucy Apple Juice started a feud between Lisa Vanderpump and several other cast
members. The drama began in 2019 when Season 9 of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills premiered.
At the top of the season, viewers learned Dorit Kemsley had adopted a puppy from Vanderpump Dogs,
but after the pup bit her children and husband, she gave her away to a
business associate. Much to the dismay of Vanderpump and her rescue organization,
the dog was later dropped off at a shelter – unbeknownst to Kemsley. This sparked "Puppygate."
Word got out, and Kyle Richards accused LVP of lying about tipping off the tabloids.
Before we knew it, Vanderpump was at odds with pretty much everyone
in the cast. She stopped filming in the middle of the season then left
the series altogether. But don't worry, Lucy Lucy Apple Juice found a new home.
Though LVP denied leaking the scoop to the tabloids, sources say otherwise. In his book,
Not All Diamonds and Rosé, executive producer Chris Cullen claimed,
"When Lisa lost the narrative in the show, and she realized that it wasn't
going the way she wanted, that's when she leaked the story to the press."
Yikes.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault,
help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network
website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).