During the highly anticipated Season 4 finale of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, viewers finally got a reveal that's been teased since the beginning of the season. A flash-forward during the premiere episode of this season showed Heather Gay receiving an upsetting phone call during a cast trip to Bermuda. "I cannot believe it’s her. How could she do this to us?," the cast member said to the person on the other end of the line, while simultaneously trying to get the production crew to stop filming her. It was left ambiguous who or what Gay was talking about—until the Jan. 2 season finale, that is.
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In the finale episode, Gay got confirmation that new Housewife Monica Garcia is behind a social media account called Reality Von (Tea)se that had been spreading gossip about the cast of the show for the past few years. This revelation led to Gay and the three other remaining original Housewives—Meredith Marks, Lisa Barlow, and Whitney Rose—to come together and agree to confront Garcia at dinner that night. While Garcia admitted that she had worked with the Reality Von (Tea)se account, she claimed that she wasn't the only person running it.
She also said that the account was really meant to take down currently imprisoned former Housewife Jen Shah, and that the other women were "collateral damage." The furious fellow Housewives—who also included new addition Angie Katsanevas—heard Garcia defend herself and then kicked her off the cast trip. The episode ended there, with an update explaining that Garcia has not been in contact with her castmates since.
The entire group came back together in November to film a three-part reunion, which begins airing next week. But before fans get to witness that reality TV event, many are wondering whether or not Garcia will be fired from the show.
It's a fair question, because while the Real Housewives franchise is fueled by tension among cast members, the dynamic doesn't work when the entire cast turns against one person and refuse to film with them. Something like this occurred on The Real Housewives of Potomac. After Monique Samuels got into a physical altercation with Candiace Dillard Bassett in Season 5, many of the women did not want to film with her going forward. Samuels said that she left the show of her own accord, but it had been clear that something had to change.
Similarly, when the cast turned against Lisa Vanderpump during Season 9 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, she stopped filming with her co-stars, skipped the reunion, and eventually left the series altogether. The drama with Vanderpump revolved around an accusation that she had been leaking information about the cast to the public, much like Garcia.
More recently, during the currently airing tenth season of another Bravo show, Married to Medicine, original cast member Quad Webb was asked to leave a cast trip by her co-stars after which she received less screen time. This was because she had been spreading a rumor involving another cast member's home burglary.
It's not always clear when a Housewife has left the franchise on their own or been fired, but, either way, it wouldn't be surprising if Garcia does not return for another season. The cast has already been keeping their distance from her. At BravoCon in November 2023 it was clear that a rift had formed between Garcia and the rest of the Housewives, though they didn't reveal why.
When asked by TVLine which castmates she would be hanging out with, Garcia said "none of them" and added, "I'm staying a little separate." The RHOSLC women also didn't have their own panel as many other Bravo shows did, which Rose told Access Hollywood was because they were filming the reunion "right after." Additionally, Garcia and Gay are embroiled in an ongoing legal case involving Gay's business, Beauty Lab + Laser.
As for evidence that Garcia might not leave, first, she did attend the reunion. Also, while she was revealed to be feeding information to a social media account that trolled the other women, many fans enjoyed watching Garcia this season, thought she energized the series, and found the finale to be one of the best Real Housewives episodes ever.
"Sorry but running an account exposing these women then infiltrating their group, turning them against each other AND carrying the entire season on her back? Like you just have to stan," wrote one viewer on X (formerly Twitter). Another posted, "By the looks of the Monica support after the finale & going into the reunion, I fear Bravo & production have a serious dilemma on their hands. Whereas the women don’t like Monica, Monica is officially about to land this show their highest ratings ever!"
Another fan wrote, "Iconic for sure but I’m not understanding how Monica could even continue into a s5. She destroyed her credibility entirely and didn’t even get away with it." Meanwhile, another X user said, "Monica Garcia will go down as the most impactful one-season Real Housewife of all-time."
For now, Garcia is basking in the attention. After the finale aired, she posted a photoshoot of herself posing with newspapers covered in headlines about Reality Von (Tea)se being exposed to her Instagram.
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