Live on stage at BravoCon in Las Vegas Friday night, “Real Housewives” executive producer Andy Cohen offered Vicki Gunvalson her old job back for the upcoming 20th season of “The Real Housewives of Orange County.” During a taping of “The Bravos” — BravoCon’s biennial awards show, which will air on Nov. 16 — Cohen told Gunvalson he wants her as a full-time cast member on the show for its historic Season 20. “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” which premiered on Bravo on March 21, 2006, was the inaugural series in the franchise that would change Bravo, and popular culture writ large.
Gunvalson, seemingly surprised when Cohen handed her the show’s symbolic orange, immediately said yes to the offer.
Gunvalson — who in her Season 10 tagline iconically declared, “I’m the OG of the OC, and everyone else is just a copy” — helped create the template for “Real Housewives” cast members. As the owner of a successful insursance company in Orange County, she’s a professional woman with two kids and an incredibly messy personal life.
Season 19 of “The Real Housewives of Orange County” is set to conclude on Nov. 20, with the third of its reunion episodes. As the first of the “Real Housewives” shows to reach a 20th season, a rarely achieved milestone for any television show, Bravo is expected to plan celebrations around this landmark. After an inwardly focused 19th season — during which the cast argued excessively about off-screen events, such as illicit conversations with Bravo “bloggers” — “RHOC” is expected to have a shake-up of its lineup.
Enter, Vicki Gunvalson. At the start of “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” Gunvalson was married to Donn Gunvalson (her second husband), but after she told him that her “love tank was empty” (due to his lack of romantic gestures) they split, and divorced in 2014.
Gunvalson’s divorce set the stage for one of the best seasons in “Real Housewives” history: Season 10 of “RHOC,” which showed that the series could go from being a docusoap about women’s lives to being a riveting true crime thriller. Brooks Ayers, Gunvalson’s boyfriend, faked a cancer diagnosis, and it took a village of women to expose Brooks, led by Detective Meghan King, with assists from Officers Shannon Beador, Tamra Judge and Vicki’s own daughter, Briana Culberson (who hated Brooks most of all).
Rarely has there been a more satisfying mystery on television, as the truth about his faked diagnosis of stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma — including him forging medical records and bills — unfolded as the season came to a head. Gunvalson never broke, though, and never spilled exactly what she knew, and when she knew it. As another real-life “Dirty John” narrative, Brooks-faking-cancer forever expanded the pleasures of what “Real Housewives” can do.
Gunvalson was a fulltime cast member through Season 13, but was demoted to “friend” status the next season, after Cohen said they wanted to “freshen” the show. She’s appeared occasionally since, since she and Beador remain close (though the erstwhile “tres amigas” — Beador, Judge and Gunvalson are no more).
BravoCon, the fourth edition of the NBCUniversal network’s fan convention, is taking place in Las Vegas from Nov. 14-16.
