Heavy/NBCUniversal Andy Cohen.
Areality TV veteran called out Andy Cohen for keeping her off of “The Real Housewives.”
In a September 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, former “The Hills” star Heidi Montag said she thinks she fits the mold for the mega-popular Bravo franchise. Montag, who was an original star on MTV’s “Laguna Beach” spinoff ‘The Hills,” blamed Cohen for blocking her from the California-based “Real Housewives” shows.
“He made a statement a while ago that he would never want me on it and that I wasn’t for their franchise, but I think that he’s so wrong,” Montag said. “I don’t know if he’s just a Lauren [Conrad] fan or what, because I would think that he would appreciate the reality star that I am. I completely make sense to be on one of these shows.”
“Maybe before when I was younger that didn’t quite make sense. But I’m 37 now, and as a mama too, I could easily go on Orange County or Beverly Hills,” the veteran MTV star continued.
Montag’s husband, Spencer Pratt, also chimed in to note that his wife has been described as “too polarizing” for Bravo. “I truly think she’d upstage all these basic ladies,” Pratt said.
On September 19, Cohen addressed the situation on his Sirius XM show, “Radio Andy.”
“There was a thing in the news the other day where Heidi of Spencer and Heidi was interviewed and they asked her like why she’s not on The Housewives or something and she said it’s because of me,” Cohen said. “I just gotta be clear: I don’t know them. I didn’t watch ‘Laguna Beach’ so I don’t even have much institutional knowledge of them.”
The Bravo host admitted that he had said it would be “weird” if Montag was on the franchise because she and her husband are so identified with another show and another network.
“They said that they thought it was because I was like a big Lauren Conrad fan,” Cohen said, adding, “I’m kind of not.”
Andy Cohen Once Called Heidi Montag ‘Trash’
History may have contributed to Montag’s call-out of Cohen. According to BravoTV.com, in 2011 Montag posted on social media that she wanted to join “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” but Cohen issued a harsh response on his late-night show. Not only did he call Montag “trash,” but he named her his “Jackhole of the Week” on “Watch What Happens Live.”
“I would sooner stab … knives into my own eyes than see her on this network,” Cohen said of Montag.
After Montag called Cohen’s response “tasteless,” he backed down, telling People magazine that he was at a “tipping point” with all of the “Real Housewives” casting rumors, according to BravoTV.com. “I guess I got a little carried away,” he admitted.
Andy Cohen Shut Down Another MTV Star
Montag isn’t the only MTV star that Cohen has associated with with another network. “Jersey Shore” star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi previously said Cohen doesn’t want her to be on “The Real Housewives of New Jersey,” despite the fact that she’s friendly with several of the cast members.
“I’m not upset that [Andy] doesn’t want me to be a Housewife, because I’m not cut out for that s***,” Polizzi told the “Behind The Rope With David Yontef” podcast in 2022. ”Like, it’s just too drama. And I don’t like drama. I just like drinking, having fun, and then going home.”
“I just feel like he’s a little nasty towards me and I don’t know what I did,” she added of the Bravo host. “He’s just like, so like blunt. Like, you can say no in a nicer way.”
On WWHL, Cohen claimed he was not in a fight with Polizzi and explained why he couldn’t ever see her on RHONJ.
“I love Snooki, OK?” Cohen said on his show. “The issue is I have been asked if we would ever put Snooki on the ‘Real Housewives of New Jersey.’ My only thing is that she is so identifiable with ‘Jersey Shore’ and MTV. She built MTV reality shows. …I just feel like it’s a different universe, with all respect.”
According to BravoTV.com, Cohen actually told Polizzi to her face why he couldn’t imagine her as a “Real Housewives” star.
“I said, ‘I don’t see it.’ I was like, ‘I don’t see it at all. Ever.’ Now here’s why I said it. I view you as, like, one of the faces of MTV and the face of ‘Jersey Shore,’” Cohen told Polizzi on a January 2023 episode of “Watch What Happens Live.”
“And so to me, it’s like putting Mickey Mouse in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It’s too different,” Cohen explained.
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Andy Cohen Responds to Claim That He Banned Reality Star From ‘Real Housewives’