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Leah McSweeney has opened up about her time in the spotlight on Bravo and its impact on her sobriety and her mental health in a lengthy Vanity Fair exposé about the network’s treatment of its reality stars.
McSweeney said she agreed to do the “Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip” season 3, which took place in Thailand, but that she wanted to maintain her sobriety on the show. However, the RHONY alum revealed that before filming started, her RHUGT co-star Marysol Patton texted her, “I support your sobriety obviously, and I could never do what you do because I don’t have your willpower, and I marvel at what you have done!!” the RHOM star told McSweeney. “But on that note I wish you were still drinking. That’s all.”
Patton admitted to Vanity Fair that she did send McSweeney that text message and explained, “There was a collective memory of the girl running around throwing tiki torches and skinny dipping, and that is who I was hoping to go on vacation with.” That memory was about McSweeney’s “Hurricane Leah” moments during a cast trip to the Hamptons.
Another co-star, RHOSLC star Heather Gay, asked McSweeney if she’d be drinking on the trip. Gay then said, “Let’s get Leah drunk!” Gizelle Bryant told the then-RHONY star, “Like if you drank this week, would that be a big deal?” McSweeney answered her, “It would ruin my life.”
Afterward, McSweeney said she texted co-showrunner Darren Ward to ask, “Did you guys push her [Bryant] to talk about this stuff with me? It’s so odd.” Ward told her they didn’t, to which McSweeney said, “I don’t need people trying to undermine my sobriety.” Ward simply said, “Get out of your head.”
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Leah McSweeney Said Bravo Originally Considered Her for RHONY Legacy
McSweeney revealed in the same interview that she only decided to take part in RHUGT season 3 after spending long hours in therapy. She said the producers told her it would be a different experience than her last season of RHONY and that she was offered $250,000 for the week of filming in Thailand.
McSweeney also claimed that at the time, Andy Cohen and another NBCUniversal exec told her she was in the running for a RHONY Legacy show. The designer agreed to appear.
During RHUGT, McSweeney had a panic attack and spent the night in a hospital. She shared that she begged the nurses to keep the RHONY members of production away. A few months after the trip, McSweeney said she learned from fellow RHONY alums Luann de Lesseps and Dorinda Medley that the Legacy show would be taking place but without McSweeney among the cast.
Gizelle Bryant Replied to Leah McSweeney’s Comments About Their Time in Thailand
Bryant responded to McSweeney’s claims and said she had simply been trying to get to know the RHONY alum. “We go on these girls trips [and] we don’t know the ladies. I was getting to know Leah. I didn’t know her sobriety story,” the RHOP star told Decider after Vanity Fair published McSweeney’s claims.
“What I did know was that I saw her on ‘The Real Housewives of New York’ drunk,” she shared. “And then I heard that she was sober. So I didn’t know whether, like, you’re sober for a week, you’re sober for a month. I didn’t know what the story was so I was asking so that I wouldn’t offer her a drink — so I could be respectful of her sobriety.”
Bryant added that she’s always come up with her own comments and questions on the show. “[I] don’t need a producer to tell me to do anything,” she added.
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