Heavy/NBCUniversal The cast of RHOSLC season 4 with Andy Cohen.
“Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” fans think Heather Gay needs to go.
Hours after Variety reported that Monica Garcia will not return for season 5, fans responded to Gay’s explanation of her long-unsolved black eye mystery—as well as the release of footage from the morning after during the season 4 reunion—and they were not happy. On social media, some fans called for Gay’s firing for lying about the situation and implicating others.
Gay’s black eye storyline dates back to the season 3 episode “White Lies and Black Eyes” when she stunned her co-stars by revealing a shiner she inexplicably woke up with. In a series of confessionals, Gay first said she had no idea how she got the black eye, but later teased she knew what happened to her and just didn’t want to talk about it. Many viewers suspected Gay was covering for Jen Shah, who was waiting sentencing her jail sentencing for her role in a fraud scheme.
During “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” season 3 reunion, Cohen revealed an investigation launched into how Gay’s injury occurred. At the time, he said Bravo found “no additional footage” from the night in question.
Here’s what you need to know:
RHOSLC Producers Finally Shared Footage From the Morning After the Black Eye Incident Took Place
In February 2023, Gay told Interview magazine production “told” her there was footage that would explain her injury. “I woke up with a black eye and I couldn’t explain it, but I was told there was footage that could, so I played coy because I didn’t know what was going to be presented to me,” she said. “Please, Bravo gods, resolve this. Resolve it quickly because I’m the one that woke up with the black eye and now I’m the one that’s responsible for explaining it.”
That footage of how the black eye happened never surfaced, but during the season 4 reunion that tired in January 2024, Bravo aired footage of Gay and Shah talking alone, allegedly the morning after. A title card read: “’Security footage from Heather’s room was reviewed immediately. The audio was unintelligible.”
In the clip, Shah entered Gay’s hotel room after a night of heavy drinking during an RHOSLC cast trip to San Diego. While the audio was hard to hear, Gay told Cohen that Shah saw her black eye and asked her, “I did that to you? I can’t believe I did that to you.”
Gay claimed she told an “upset” Shah, “Don’t worry about it. I got you.”
She added, “I knew I’d gotten [the black eye] from Jen–I didn’t know how, but I knew I’d gotten it from Jen.” Gay explained she was afraid of Shah and had been covering for her for three years. “I was not gonna stop with the black eye,” she said, adding, “I was still scared to say it at [the season 3] reunion.”
Gay then apologized to everyone for lying for the past year. “Let me just start by saying I’m sorry. I’m sorry to you, I’m sorry to [my cast mates], I’m sorry to the network. I’m sorry to the audience,” she said. “I didn’t know how to navigate it myself. I knew that it was becoming bigger and more than I could handle. It was a horrible situation. … I don’t know how to say other than, like, I was scared, and I did what I always do. I deflected with humor. It was in poor taste. It was horrible.”
Andy Cohen Called Out Heather Gay – And So Did Fans
BravoTHE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF SALT LAKE CITY — “Reunion” — Pictured: (l-r) Andy Cohen, Heather Gay, Whitney Rose, Lisa Barlow — (Photo by: Jocelyn Prescod/Bravo)
During the season 4 reunion, Cohen called out Gay for repeatedly lying about the black eye. “You went as far as to lie on your book tour and say you thought you fell into a bedroom cabinet,” he told her. “At another book tour stop, you said someone may have broken into the house and hit you, but production edited it out because of a non-disparagement clause between the rental company and production.”
Gay claimed her comments about production, including a quip that perhaps a good looking producer got rough with her, were meant as a “joke.”
“You lied to production, Bravo, and even at one point said that maybe a producer had done it to you, which is very serious because it puts people’s reputations and jobs at risk,” Cohen said. “I have to say, it’s not funny to accuse the producers or the production company of covering up a crime and an assault.”
Fans reacted on social media to question why Gay is still on the show.
“Heather Gay is giving sleaze as well for lying this entire time about who gave her the black eye. What else is Heather lying about?” one Instagram commenter asked.
“She literally tried to pin it on a producer… fire her,” another wrote.
“Girlllll bye! Fire her,” another agreed.
“Petition to fire Heather Gay,” a viewer wrote on Reddit.
“I don’t believe for one minute she doesn’t remember how the black eye happened,” another Redditor wrote. ”We have had her self-righteous crap shoved down our throats every season. And then she has the gall to ‘suggest’ someone in production was responsible. Someone could have lost their job over this! That’s unforgivable and unacceptable. “
Another fan wrote that Gay should be “ashamed of herself” for lying and saying she was afraid to tell the truth.
Heather Gay Addressed the Black Eye Story One More Time on WWHL
BravoWATCH WHAT HAPPENS LIVE WITH ANDY COHEN — Episode 21013 — Pictured: (l-r) Andy Cohen, Heather Gay — (Photo by: Charles Sykes/Bravo)
Following the third part of the RHOSLC reunion, Gay appeared on “Watch What Happens Live.” In answer to a “Work the Polls” question, 97% of viewers believed Shah gave Gay the black eye.
On WWHL, Cohen asked Gay once again, “You still don’t remember how you got it?”
“It was a crazy night and that was just kind of the energy that we had,” Gay replied. “It was bad.”
Elsewhere, on the “Watch What Happens Live Aftershow,” Gay explained why she made so many jokes about the black eye. “We made a lot of horrible dumb jokes because we didn’t know. It was an awful crazy blackout drunk night. And if you understand Mormonism, you understand that drinking is worse than abuse. It’s worse than anything, it’s the worst thing. And for some reason, it just clouded my judgment completely.”
Gay also admitted that she worries that people may mistrust her now. “Absolutely,” she said. “When you evade accountability like that, you know, karma is a [expletive].”
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