Andy Cohen Weighs In on Gay Housewives Franchise

Getty Andy Cohen.

Andy Cohen is mentioning it all!

If fans had to put a face on Bravo, many would instantly picture Cohen. Cohen first joined Bravo in 2005 in hopes to revamp Bravo’s involvement in the reality television world. In 2013, Cohen stepped down from his executive roles to start his own production company, Most Talkative.

Cohen no long serves a senior role at Bravo, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t any regular guy. Cohen still hosts the Bravo talkshow “Watch What Happens Live,” and he is also an Executive Producer for many series, including the “Real Housewives” franchises.

The author recently sat down with “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Garcelle Beauvais on an episode of her podcast “Going To Bed with Garcelle” on Thursday, May 20. Beauvais brought up the idea of having a gay Housewives franchise.

“We’ve talked about that,” Cohen responded. “It was something that we were really into many years ago. We’ve almost cast several lesbians. I think when you start casting gay men, it just, it’s ultimately a show about women. And which is why, the guys have always been in the background, like the husbands have typically been more in the background.”

He added that Bravo has definitely considered it saying, “And so I think the answer is we’ve been open to it. We almost cast a guy on Jersey who was Dina Manzo’s brother and Caroline’s brother as the first gay housewife. This was years ago. This was like 2008 or nine or something like that. But we wound up just not doing it. If the right person smacked me in the face, yeah.”

Beauvais Also Asked About Hiring More Black Housewives

As RHOBH fans know, Beauvais made history when she starred as the first Black Housewife on RHOBH. The “Coming to America” actress asked Cohen, “why it took so long to have a Black Housewife on Beverly Hills?” Cohen replied on the “Going to Bed with Garcelle” podcast, produced by MGM and Audio Up, “Because we had to wait for the perfect one. There was no excuse we had to wait for the perfect one.”

He continued saying, “I think that it was a bad cycle, because then the longer you waited, the more you wanted to get it absolutely perfect when you did cast a woman of color and bring them into the group. You wanted that person to succeed. Over the years, there have been people that we did not cast that were people of color. We really wanted to get it right, so that we weren’t casting someone that would be a one season housewife or like, ‘oh, well she’s boring’ or that people said didn’t fit. I just think it was this vicious cycle of wanting to get it absolutely right. The true answer is, there is no excuse. It’s bad and there is no excuse.”

Cohen Revealed How Much Power He Has When It Comes to Hiring & Firing

As the unofficial face of Bravo, many people have assumed that all “Real Housewives” franchise decisions, hirings, and firings, and more, come down to Cohen. But the talkshow host recently set the record straight.

The 52-year-old author answered some popular questions from Bravo influencers during an episode of WWHL in March 2021. Ronnie Karam from the “Watch What Crappens” podcast asked Cohen, “How much are you apart of casting still with all the Housewives shows? Do these ladies come after you when they get fired? I saw on Instagram Live where you were just hanging out on Instagram Live and Tamra Barney came on there. And she was like, ‘But ya fired me, Andy Cohen!’”

Cohen laughed and nodded saying, “yeah.” He continued, “The hiring is a collective group. And the firing is a collective group. So it is a group conversation.”

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