Bravo made a longtime dream for viewers come true with the crossover Real Housewives series, Ultimate Girls Trip, which streams exclusively on Peacock. In the premiere season last year, seven women from across the franchise (to include the likes of Atlanta’s Kenya Moore and New Jersey’s Teresa Giudice) vacationed together in the Turks and Caicos Islands, where they proved that they don’t have to be from the same city for the drama to be just as high as ever. Now, Season 2 is on the horizon, and the new lineup has teased the escapades in store for us. I’m here for all of it – from the booze to the ghouls and the hilarious “naked body parts.”
Season 2 is in fact being casually billed as the “Ex-Wives Club” due to how none of the stars are still main cast members on the Real Housewives proper, unlike the first season. Filmed in September of 2021 at the infamous Blue Stone Manor belonging to ex-RHNY’s Dorinda Medley, the reality show instead features Medley, New York’s Jill Zarin, Orange County’s Tamra Judge and Vicki Gunvalson, Beverly Hills’ Taylor Armstrong and Brandi Glanville, as well as Atlanta’s Eva Marcille and Phaedra Parks. Speaking to E! News about their girls trip, Judge admitted that she was “afraid” of hanging out with Brandi Glanville in particular, given how she once saw the 49-year-old make comedian Heather McDonald cry at a dinner. Whether or not there’s a repeat scenario at the manor is still unclear, because apparently, the OG of the OC can’t quite remember, saying:
[Brandi Glanville] is literally reality royalty. That girl is meant for reality TV. I can't remember if she makes anybody cry. There was a lot of alcohol involved. The memory is a little foggy. But she definitely shakes some people up.
I bet. Bravo fans know all too well how far the notorious star is willing to push the envelope. I mean, she famously claimed to have hooked up with Denise Richards during the actress’ second and final turn on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills in Season 10. Before that, she got into a lot of trouble when she decided to proposition Armie Hammer and his alleged penchant for cannibalism. It sounds like someone else will be on the receiving end of her notorious sharp tongue in Ultimate Girls Trip, only this time it’ll be more seasoned and equally sharp-tongued franchise vets.
The trailer for Season 2 indicates that Brandi Glanville and Tamra Judge do indeed clash at the onset of the series. But the latter told the outlet that they eventually sit down and hash things out before the end. Evidently, this entailed the RHOC alum getting down to her birthday suit once again. (Judge famously got so drunk and so naked during a girls trip for her former mainstay show that she slipped and broke her foot in a hot tub.) She shared:
I don't think there's any girl-kissing going on. Brandi insisted that we have a naked party. You will see some naked body parts.
A naked party we’ve seen before. What we’ve also seen frequently within the Real Housewives’ history is a bit of dabbling in the occult. There have been a number of psychics and seances brought in as entertainment during dinner parties and girls trips. The last of which occurred on the RHNY’s controversial Season 13, when the group met a medium in Salem, Massachusetts. Blue Stone Manor just so happens to be in Massachusetts, too, and Phaedra Parks revealed that not only did she see ghosts but that she’s a sort of medium herself:
I saw the ghosts at one of our outings. I saw four ghosts, I promise you. I work with the dead so I can recognize those. They know me and I know them because I work in the planes. I know the crossover spirits.
I doubt the spirits Phaedra Parks saw were caught on camera. If they did, the Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip accomplished what 25 seasons of Ghost Adventures has yet to do… So what I’m more curious to find out about is how Parks fares being among the Bravo elite again. (The lawyer exited the Atlanta spinoff on a wave of controversy back in 2018, after supposedly fanning rumors at the time that co-star Kandi Burruss and her husband had schemed to date rape Porsha Williams.) She shared with E! that she actually became very close to Brandi Glanville of all people after RHUGT Season 2, adding that she’s “like a sister” to her now.
She continued that people make “sweeping judgments” about her controversial co-star without giving her “a fair shot.” This sentiment rings similar to the first season of Ultimate Girls Trip, where many of the women vocalized misgivings about meeting Kenya Moore due to her villainous persona preceding her. Ultimately, Moore did clash with a few people in Turks and Caicos, but it was Ramona Singer who needed to be told to behave.
Perhaps, then, someone else besides Brandi Glanville is going to be the real Ramona Singer of the new season. Of course, I’ll be tuning in to find out myself when Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip, Ex-Wives Club edition, drops all seven episodes on June 23 via Peacock Premium.
