There are some small details that tell you everything you need to know about who a person really is. How they vote. If they give a nod of thanks to drivers who have stopped for them at pedestrian crossings. Whether they have a cat or a dog.
So it is unsurprising that a nationwide survey has discovered that more than half of British people lie about what they watch on television. A conclusive 54% owned up to “exaggerating, fabricating or downplaying” their TV truth, pretending to be into documentaries, crime thrillers and historical biopics to sound “smarter”, “cooler” or “more in the know”.
Hard relate.
I am – gulp – a Real Housewives superfan. If you don’t know what that means, you have permission to feel extremely smug – it’s an American reality franchise following the rollercoaster lives of ludicrously wealthy women. Think EastEnders but in mansions, and they aren’t actors (technically). I started with the one set in New York and it proved to be a gateway drug for every US city spin-off produced so far. A London version has recently launched. (The jury is out, but also hasn’t missed a single episode.)
Being a Real Housewives obsessive is a lonely life. Doggers somehow manage to find each other, but we Real Housewives fans are too ashamed to out ourselves in public, so I don’t know anybody else who partakes. These shows are the very definition of a guilty pleasure.
Once an acquaintance told me a sad story about her brother cutting off the whole family after their father died, and I replied that I thought this was quite common because I had a friend in the same situation, and began detailing it. Halfway through a sentence, I had the horrifying realisation that it wasn’t a friend this had happened to, it was a character on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills spin-off Vanderpump Rules. And not even one I liked!
That’s how deeply I have absorbed the Bravo channel multiverse into my soul. I’ve known some of the individuals on these series for more than a decade, laughed at and with them, cried with and for them, been by their sides for the most momentous moments of human existence. I’m not naive enough to believe reality TV is completely real: obviously producers are, shall we say, nudging the narrative now and then, but even the most desperate (to be on the next season) Housewife can’t fake deaths, divorce, infertility or imprisonment.
There are some brave ambassadors out there, unmasking themselves and making the rest of us a little less embarrassed about our proclivity. John Oliver has waxed evangelical about The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City on fellow late-night host Stephen Colbert’s programme. “It is a masterpiece, it is prestige television. Think of a show that you like in your head right now – it’s better than that show,” he said. “They’re both intentionally funny and unintentionally funny, they’re self-aware and they’re not … It’s incredible telly, it’s a rich text.”
Other unexpected admirers of the oeuvre include the respected actor Brenda Fricker (“It’s better than sex. It’s better than getting drunk. I just love it.”) and Michelle Obama (“[My family] razz me about my love of reality TV and the Real Housewives. I watch it all – all of it.”).
Most Bravoholics are more covert – apart from at BravoCon, a three-day event where fans congregate and let their freak flags fly in a safe space. At the most recent extravaganza, 35,000 of them descended on Las Vegas to meet 160 stars, or “Bravolebs”, if you speak the lingo. Presumably after bonding for life while they were there, they would ignore each other in the street if they passed by the week after, like the Freemasons, but extra mortified.
Funnily enough, the reason that some enjoy Real Housewives is exactly why they hide it. “People really like judging other people. It’s that simple,” Andy Cohen, the legendary executive producer and reunion host, told the Hollywood Reporter. “There’s a moral aspect to this – you see people behaving well or behaving badly. People like to sit in judgment and watch people get their reward or comeuppance.”
Almost needless to say, the reality of my reality secret – and of all those who lie about the small-screen entertainment they are consuming – is that everybody is far too busy worrying about what others might think of what they are watching to think anything about what anyone else is watching.
If the calibre of famous enthusiasts has made you even slightly Real Housewives-curious, there are rules. As Oliver instructed Colbert: “Go back to the start. Go back to season one. You wouldn’t tell someone: ‘If you want to read Lord of the Rings it’s fine to jump in on page 604.’”
Of course you wouldn’t – because you wouldn’t have that conversation. As if anybody would admit to another human being that they were geeky enough to be interested in Lord of the Rings.
Polly Hudson is a freelance writer
