Real Housewives of Salt Lake City fans are eagerly anticipating the new season to see just how far it will unpack Jen Shah's legal problems. (Supposedly, Bravo caught her arrest for fraud charges on camera.) But the sideline drama will apparently be Lisa Barlow bringing to light that Mary Cosby’s church is supposedly a “cult.” Ahead of Season 2, though, Barlow is breaking her silence on the matter.
In the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City Season 2 trailer, Lisa Barlow discusses Mary Cosby and the church she leads with a friend, who claims that Cosby “calls herself God” and that it is indeed a “cult.” Later on in the clip, Barlow says she can “back up everything,” and Cosby retorts “you’re out of your mind.” In an interview with Digital Spy, Barlow defends the man in the trailer and calls the situation with Cosby “very complex.” She continued:
Being a good friend means you're listening to your friends. Relationships are dynamic. It would be unfair of me just to hear Mary's side of a story and not listen to a person who I've had a history with that actually introduced Mary into the friend group.
There's an interesting change of dynamic that's being teased here. In The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City's freshman season, Lisa Barlow and Mary Cosby’s friendship seemed solid, or at least, it appeared so in comparison to Barlow's rocky relationship with co-star Heather Gay. Now, Barlow and Cosby are also seemingly at odds.
Mary Cosby’s role as the leader of her First Lady of the Faith Temple Church caused quite a stir among fans in the first season of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. She claimed to have inherited a vast amount of wealth, businesses, properties, and even her own husband from her late grandmother, who first led their church.
At one point, we also saw Cosby lead a service with her congregation and (in typical form for a church that believes in physical/literal healing) she laid hands on co-star Whitney Rose’s father to supposedly help heal him. The new season will seemingly investigate (via Lisa Barlow) if Cosby’s church practices are in fact cult-like. On her friend who brings up the allegations, Barlow said:
I think you're going to see his perspective, what his feelings are. Everyone's entitled to their feelings. Just because someone feels a certain way, I might agree with them or disagree with them. That goes for Mary too… To me, it was just, hey, I'm listening to someone and their perspective and there's nothing wrong with that. It helps me to understand more of who Mary is and then I can assess my relationship with Mary, and figure out what kind of dynamic I want with Mary.
An alleged cult church is the least of Mary Cosby’s concerns, though. (She did in fact run into a little legal trouble of her own recently.) But the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star received a huge backlash after the first season due to Jen Shah’s allegations that Cosby avoided 7-Elevens if there were black people there. It only appeared to get worse when Cosby, as a Black woman herself, doubled down on her controversial comments at the reunion and even said that black men weren't her "taste."
We'll just have to wait and see how things play out for Mary Cosby on the new Real Housewives of Salt Lake City season. However, it seems certain that these “cult” church allegations could lead to some significant drama. Check out Season 2 premiere September 12 on Bravo.
