‘Real Housewives’ Star Accused of Fraud by Colleagues, Case Being Investigated by Authorities

As amateur scholars in the field of Real Housewives, some friends and I have settled on a loose set of reliable axioms that can help understand the bonfire of vanities that is most of Bravo’s output: “Housewives cannot compute queer women,” “Normal people make bad housewives,” and “All must have a side-business or perish” are just a few. Above all, there’s an axiom that rings the truest and is, in my humble opinion, indisputable: “All Housewives are scammers.” Let’s break it down and explore what this has to say about the nature of celebrity in general because if Real Housewives is anything, it’s my favorite lens to criticize the pop culture landscape.

Some stars of the reality empire are scammers in the most literal sense. Jen Shah, for example, is serving time in prison for running a telemarketing scam that fleeced thousands from vulnerable and elderly populations nationwide. Teresa Guidice committed fraud (in partnership with her husband) to wrongfully obtain loans that bankrolled their expensive lifestyle. Vicki Gunvalson straddled the line between “scam” and “scam-adjacent” when she participated in a mile-high parfait of a lie: Vicki’s beau Brooks claimed to have cancer when he absolutely did not. She went to great lengths to cover for him, even going so far as to create the “charity” (unregistered as a non-profit) called KillAllCancer.

Other Housewives are more scammy in spirit than in actual practice and are generally more benign. Erika Jayne might not have participated in her husband’s embezzlement of funds from his clients, but she seems to have pulled a classic in the realm of spiritually scammy behavior: getting your uber-rich spouse to bankroll your barely-existent pop career. Following the law that all Housewives must have side businesses, Kristen Taekman shills her Pop of Color nail polish, Shereé Whitfield released the clothing line She By Shereé after some very entertaining evasive manuvers, and the former countess Luann de Lesseps tours a “cabaret act” where she “sings” for $40-$60 per ticket. The professionally delusional Ramona Singer has Ramona Pinot Grigio and soap opera star/my beloved angel Eileen Davidson wrote four murder mystery novels set on a soap opera and feature such titles as Dial Emmy for Murder. Leah McSweeney has the clothing line “Married to the Mob” full of quite basic gear. These aren’t high crimes, but they’re spiritually scammy because I’d argue absolutely none of these products would sell without the audience these people have built on Bravo. I imagine most purchases are not made because buyers genuinely love any given product, as much as they love supporting the Housewife they’ve watched. Jayne is an exception as she was a “pop star” in “Europe” before she was cast on the show, but leaning on the rich spouse to keep the career afloat carries a scam aura.

“The scammer” as an archetype has enjoyed such popularity in the public imagination perhaps in part because of what they represent: someone who found loopholes and workarounds in our hostile, inhumane, and predatory system to not only survive but thrive. There’s an implied scrappiness to the scammer; in the scarcity mindset that enforces an “every person for themselves” approach, the scammer is smart enough to manipulate that system to their advantage. At the core of the mythologized scammer is an acceptance of capitalism and inequality as immutable and inevitable. The scammer isn’t altruistic though, they’re typically in it for themselves. The dream is not to use the wealth to better others, but simply to better the self. The enduring cultural relevance of Anna Delvey is a good example of this; yes she ripped off a bunch of silly rich people, but her goal was to become one of them and to become famous enough to get a terrible Netflix series made about her. The American ideal of the scammer is ultimately about the current shape of the American dream: to do as little as possible and get rich quickly. This makes the scammer aspirational and maybe that plays a part in how fans of Housewives love them even knowing about the scams, despite also knowing the Housewives are already famous and wealthy. Isn’t that in itself a sort of scam?

The real reason the Real Housewives are scammers, beyond any specific scam, is that celebrity worship itself is a scam. I’ve heard it said before that one of the big differences between a religion and a cult is that a cult is very typically formed around a living person who can actively use that devotion, and what could be more scammy than a cult? People give up possessions, money, energy, and time to someone who gives them in return fleeting, often false senses of community and love. This goes beyond Housewives. Fandom today is frighteningly dogmatic with a celebrity-centric morality; if they have done it, it cannot be bad. Think of the Ariana Grande/Ethan Slater scandal as a powerful and recent example. Slater’s ex-wife Lily Jay wrote about how the whole experience felt for her. Perhaps because that would imply that Grande is fallible, the stans went to work twisting this into some jealous revenge narrative wherein Jay is simply trying to squash Grande’s Oscar potential.

Within celebrity worship, celebrities like Grande or any given Housewife cannot do any wrong, no matter what wrong they’ve done. There’s the unspoken, but present request made of fans that they simply ignore any red flags so that they continue paying to consume their products. There should be space to enjoy whatever work a celebrity has done without feeling compelled to support them in these ways. Why worship a celebrity, a fallible human who does not know or love you, when you can simply enjoy their output? Wouldn’t it be easier to simply laugh when the Real Housewives do something ridiculous instead of feeling compelled to shove money in their pockets or defend their image? Why have we found ourselves beholden to celebrities, as if we owe them something more than we already give?