Bravo Andy Cohen of Bravo TV.
“The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” will have a revamped cast for season 4.
Three women from the Utah-based cast could be replaced, including OG Jen Shah, who will begin a 6.5-year prison term in February 2023 for her role in a telemarketing scam, according to Page Six.
“They held auditions in the fall,” a source told the outlet of the RHOSLC cast. “They were looking to replace three of them. They hadn’t decided if some of the ‘friends of’ would be promoted or if they’d find new talent.”
Several Original RHOSLC Stars Will Return Next Season
BravoPictured: (l-r) Whitney Rose, Lisa Barlow, Jen Shah, Meredith Marks, Heather Gay.
For the third season of the Bravo reality show, Shah was joined by fellow original cast members Heather Gay, Lisa Barlow, Meredith Marks, and Whitney Rose. Angie Harrington, Angie Katsanevas, and Danna Bui-Negeret appeared as ”friends,” per BravoTV.com.
While Shah is out for now, Gay, Barlow, Marks, and Rose will all return next season. The insider told Page Six that the casting shakeup for the other slots is in response to a “dark” season 3, which included storylines about Rose’s past childhood trauma and Gay’s unexplained black eye. “They’re trying to bring in new women to lighten it up,” the source said of the upcoming season.
One RHOSLC star has already weighed in on the potential cast shakeup following a volatile season 3. “I think we need people who are going to help bridge the gap,” Meredith Marks told Page Six on January 20, 2023. “Obviously, we’re very divided right now. That’s a problem. So hopefully we have some people who can come in, lighten the mood and bridge the gap.”
Jen Shah Canceled Plans for a One on One Interview on Bravo
BravoJen Shah’s co-star thinks it was “risky” for her to film RHOSLC.
While Shah is on hiatus from RHOSLC, Bravo host Andy Cohen previously acknowledged that he was getting a lot of fan questions about her status on the show. Ahead of her sentencing in January 2023, Cohen admitted to Us Weekly, “I don’t know what to say to people who want her on the show.”
“I hope that she gets no jail time whatsoever and she can come right back … but I have a feeling that she’s not going to be available to be on the show,” he added.
Once Shah received her sentence and February 17, 2023 start date, Cohen said he hoped to interview her before she went to prison.
In a clip from his Sirius XM show, “Radio Andy,” in January 2022, Cohen told listeners, “I’m hoping to go talk to Jen this weekend. I’m hopeful that I can do that sit-down [interview] with her in front of some cameras and deliver that to you. I’m really hoping to do that.”
But the interview did not work out. Days later, Shah posted to Instagram to confirm that she will “not be doing” a one-on-one interview with Cohen for Bravo due to the network’s “unwillingness to remove contractual provisions.”
“This specific 1 on 1 interview was not part of my RHOSLC reality tv contract,” she wrote. “I promised myself and my loving family that I would not allow this portion of my life to be sensationalized or inaccurately conveyed.”
“I would rather remain silent and wait until I am able to accurately share my story than continue having complete lies and misrepresentations about me smeared across headlines,” Shah added. She also promised fans, “You will hear from me. I will share my story and this painful part of my life very soon.”
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