As the Real Housewives of London prepares to land, we give you a beginner’s guide to everything you need to know about its sister shows. Brace for chaos
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hether you’re a devout worshipper at the altar of The Real Housewives (like me), or simply aware of it by osmosis, there’s no denying it’s one of reality TV’s most wildly successful franchises. Since it debuted in 2006 with a peek into Orange county’s elite, the franchise now spans more than a dozen US cities and has extended internationally from Sydney to Dubai. Now, nearly 20 years later, London is calling.
Despite its title, the show isn’t really about marriage (most of the women aren’t married, and those who are usually at some point during their tenure experience a messy divorce). What the franchise captures is something far more compelling: a specific sort of midlife reinvention. We watch as women (mostly over the age of 40) navigate divorce, grief, success, self-discovery and the pursuit of fame. As the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Brandi Glanville put it: “Andy Cohen [the show’s executive producer] is the only man in Hollywood who hires women over 40.”
One of the most enduring qualities of the Real Housewives is that it doesn’t produce throwaway reality stars – it creates cultural icons. Unlike much of reality television, which sees contestants flare up and burn out within a season (or even a few episodes), the Housewives universe invites long-term investment. We follow these women for years (and in the case of Beverly Hills, Atlanta or the OC, for well over a decade) as friendships fracture (always with a healthy amount of drama), marriages begin and end and children grow up (and we can now watch the housewives’ offspring on the spin-off Next Gen NYC). In a genre built on instant gratification and rapid turnover, Housewives rewards patience. It feels less like disposable content and more like weekly event television – something to savour and return to, season after season (and rewatch obsessively).
