Bravo is the home of some of the best reality TV shows on the air right now: the Real Housewives franchise. Fans of the network (and those with a Peacock subscription) will recall Candiace Dillard Bassett's iconic tenure on Potomac, where she was known for her quick wit and ruthless reads. And it turns out that she was fined a ton of money by NBC for liking certain tweets, as that was an apparent breach of contract. Let's break it all down.
Prior to making A+ TV as part of the cast of The Traitors Season 4, Candiace starred in RHOP for six seasons. She and Lisa Rinna were both Traitors this season, and bonded while filming in Scotland. In Rinna's book You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It, she wrote about being fined for her social media presence, and during a recent episode of the Undomesticated podcast, Candiace shared a similar experience. In her words:
I remember I texted her and I was like, ‘I feel really seen by that.’ I always kinda felt like I was alone in that. I, too, have been fined. Not quite $50,000. Maybe somewhere around $35,000.
Ouch. This helps to peel back the curtain on what it's actually like being a Real Housewife, and the rules that the women are expected to follow while starring on the Bravo franchise. That includes very specific rules about what they can and cannot do on social media. It looks like breaking these rules have financial consequences, rather than simply earning the ire of the network and producer Andy Cohen.
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So what exactly did Dillard Bassett get fined for? Later in the same podcast, the Housewife turned Traitor revealed that it was actually about tweets she was liking while starring on Potomac. As she put it:
There are rules. There are rules that come into play when it matters. There was definitely a paralegal or somebody in business whose job it was just to watch my Twitter. And this was back when you could see people’s ‘likes.’ And I would ‘like’ s--t. If something sat well in my spirit, boop. Like, like, like. I was liking left, right and center. And that went against the rule.
Honestly, I find this fascinating. While it makes sense that Housewives might be restricted on what type of content they're allowed to post on social media, the fact that their likes are similarly monitored is another level entirely. And those likes cost Candiace tens of thousands of dollars. Ouch.
It's always interesting to see how the sausage gets made with the Real Housewives, and I've loved having Candiace back on screen in The Traitors. Her return to TV has some folks hoping she gets invited back to Potomac, but only time will tell if she ever returns to that show.
Candiace Dillard Bassett's time on both RHOP and The Traitors is streaming over on Peacock. She's hoping that she gets to return to Scotland if an all-stars season is produced.
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