Bravolebs past and present descended on Las Vegas for BravoCon over the weekend, where there was no shortage of gossip flying around the glittery, merch-clad halls. One of the loudest rumors (and nastiness!) circulating was that the future of Tamra Judge — Bravo’s current longest-running Real Housewife, with fifteen full-time seasons under her belt — hangs in the balance. Judge’s presence throughout BravoCon weekend was met with mixed reviews: she received both cheers and boos when she appeared at tapings of Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live! And on the final day, at the “Ask Andy” panel, there was loud applause when a fan asked: “Which would you rather have, happy fans or Tamra [Judge] on Real Housewives of Orange County?”
Cohen used his best media training to swerve the question, but it’s not difficult to see why so many fans concur. I’ll say it: Judge was a hot mess during this past season of Real Housewives of Orange County, which concluded Thursday with a reunion episode where she floundered in the face of allegations that she had been leaking storylines to the press. Despite starting a “therapy journey” at the beginning of the season — where she worked through past traumas and tried to build bridges with her fellow ‘wives — Judge spent most of the time embroiled in screaming matches, or engaging in some truly shameless maneuvers. She even quit the show mid-season on numerous occasions. And with former allies like Heather Dubrow and Emily Simpson tiring of her antics, she was left on shaky ground.
But I’m here to say that, actually, the loudest fan voices are wrong on this one. Despite her (many) flaws, Tamra Judge deserves a spot on RHOC’s upcoming 20th season.
Over the last eighteen years, we’ve seen Judge fall down and pick herself back up again and again. When we first met her in Season Three — as the self-proclaimed “hottest Housewife in Orange County” — she was a stay-at-home mom with young kids. Her early seasons on the show followed the unraveling of her marriage to Simon Barney, whom she has described as being mean and controlling. When the recession hit, the couple was forced to short-sell their home, and they eventually split after Judge famously screamed, “I want a divorce!” in the back of a limo. This raw scene would be unheard of today, when most reality stars tend to be more guarded, but Judge wasn’t afraid to lay it all out there. After her divorce, she found love again with Eddie Judge (via that bathtub scene), and even when she was fired from the show in 2020, she somehow hustled her way back. Like the very best Housewives, she’s a survivor.
Judge isn’t just one of the longest-running Housewives — she’s someone who can reasonably claim to have shaped the wider franchise. When she arrived in Season Three, she brought a new, troublesome energy, and would often say what viewers at home were thinking. Then, in Season Four, all hell broke loose when Gretchen Rossi was added to the cast. While the earliest seasons of RHOC more closely resembled a fly-on-the-wall docu-series, Tamra vs. Gretchen was the first official feud of the franchise. It kicked off when Judge — horrified that Rossi left her cancer-stricken late fiancé to go on a weekend away — asked the now-iconic question: “Did you go to Bass Lake?!” The resulting beef was electric, partly because it seemed to be fuelled by such deep dislike, and also because, in a court of law, you could argue both sides. As someone who was never afraid to stir up trouble (or throw wine in someone’s face), Judge helped build the drama-filled Housewives franchise of today.
This Bravo History™ lesson is a long way of saying that it would amount to cultural vandalism to fire one of the women who is most responsible for getting us to RHOC’s 20th season. With the return of the “OG of the OC,” Vicki Gunvalson confirmed at BravoCon, it’s a moment to reflect on the show’s legacy. And whether you love her or (more likely) hate her, Judge is at the heart of it.
Casey Durkin/Bravo
Now that Gunvalson finally has her orange back, I’m intrigued to see how the returning veteran might shake up the cast dynamics — especially because she and Judge seem to have buried their years-long feud. If the “tres amigas” are reunited on our screens, will Gunvalson be able to do the impossible and mediate a truce between Judge and Shannon Beador? (If anyone can do it, it’s Orange County’s hardest-working insurance broker.)
Looking back at this past season of RHOC, I can’t help but feel like Judge is being held to an unfair standard. When Bravo brought Rossi back as a “friend-of” after 12 years away from the show — a messy move that, let’s be honest, was clearly designed to antagonize her — she appeared to be genuinely keen to move on from their fractious past. In fact, when they first encountered each other, Judge even said, “Allow me to reintroduce myself.” Instead, the pair have spent the current season exhaustingly rehashing their feud from 15 years ago. And I’m placing most of the blame for that on Rossi and her meddlesome fiancé, Slade Smiley.
While the origins of their feud are complicated and definitely two-sided, this season, it’s Rossi and Smiley who have slung the most mud. The biggest bone of contention has been a “who said what?” over “Naked wasted” — an infamous night way back in Season Four, when Judge and her co-stars conspired to get Rossi drunk at a party. This season, during an unfilmed dinner, it was allegedly suggested that Judge might have drugged Rossi that night. She vehemently denies this, and Rossi insists she never even said it, but that didn’t stop the damaging story from spreading. And in another grim turn, Smiley accused Judge of cheating on her husband with an unnamed “boyband” singer. He even gleefully claimed there was a secret recording of it. (The musician and Judge both deny all of this.)
If another Housewife was being continually baited with seemingly unsubstantiated, life-ruining allegations, they would get sympathy. (Hell, Heather Dubrow would still be going on and on about it when she’s in a fancy retirement castle.) But Tamra? She’s expected to sit there and take it.
That’s not to say that she is innocent here. The so-called “fatty photo” she shared of Jen Pedranti was straight-up mean, and mentioning that Beador’s dad once had a drinking problem? That was indefensible. Lately, she has even taken to referring to herself as a “villain.” And while it’s true that this type of conflict-heavy reality TV needs people that you love to hate, the most compelling villains — real or fictional — have something clear that is driving them. (World domination, revenge, money.) Judge, however, feels like she’s teetering towards villainy for villainy’s sake. Like Lisa Rinna, who was loudly booed at BravoCon before she left Real Housewives of Beverly Hills in 2023, her motivations aren’t entirely clear. Not being afraid to be the Bad Guy is a good thing, but it doesn’t give you the right to treat people however you want and justify it with the word “villain.”
Gina Kirschenheiter and Tamra Judge
Griffin Nagel/Bravo
With Judge, it can also be sometimes difficult to discern what is genuine and what she’s doing purely for the show. Her (un-)strategic alliance with Katie Ginella — a deeply untrustworthy person who is in an off-again, off-again relationship with the truth — feels both transparent and counter-productive. And her reunion with Vicki Gunvalson — the week before BravoCon, and just before contracts are agreed for the upcoming season — also seemed a little too convenient. But to Judge’s credit, she has continually shown herself to be one of the few cast members who understands that the Housewives is about resolution just as much as conflict. And when that delicate balance isn’t maintained, it plunges these shows into crisis.
The truth is that the Judge needs to rediscover her balance. It’s been a terrible year for her personally, with her best friend and podcast co-host, Teddi Mellencamp, battling cancer. And on the show, she veered away from her sweet-spot — as a troublesome truth-teller and pot-stirrer — toward cartoon villainy. She totally deserves some heat for that (and also for quitting the show during filming, which must have been a nightmare for production.) But even so, I’m not convinced that the reunion’s big revelation — that she’s apparently been leaking stories to the press, something Housewives have been doing since the dawn of time — is a smoking gun. And it’s nothing compared to Trump fangirl Rossi “allegedly” liking a slew of homophobic and transphobic posts, and following “hundreds” of hate accounts. At the reunion, it was weird to see Judge getting more heat for bringing up the offending posts than Rossi did for “accidentally” liking hate speech many times over — that’s the real problem.
Amid the carnage of the RHOC reunion, voice-of-reason Dubrow declared that the show is “not a game of Survivor.” It’s a characteristically smart comparison, because in recent years, the Housewives franchise has started to feel like a strategy game, where the prize is another season on the show. Judge is already an all-star player of this game, but it might make sense if RHOC’s historic 20th season were her final round. It would be a fitting end to a remarkable run — especially with Gunvalson’s return to the show, and their long history of giving us sisterhood, fireworks, and friendship.
With Judge clearly on the outs with the cast, I don’t know whether the OC’s “pint-sized, baptized, and highly-prized” Housewife can redeem herself. But I am sure that someone who has played such a huge part in shaping not only this show, but the entire Real Housewives franchise, deserves one more chance to try. That’s my opinion!
