There’s this phrase that’s often associated with Andy Cohen: ringmaster. Bravo’s circus leader. The person providing some semblance of order and, importantly, containment, to this wild world of screeching Housewives, debauched bartenders, and other various Bravolebrities. What is the circus if not its own little world inside of a big tent?
This year, however, marked the year Bravo’s circus broke free from its tent. It went mainstream.
For the longest time, there have been people like me: Bravo fans well-versed in the backstories, petty fights, full-on hatreds, and seasons-long character arcs. The lore, if you will.
In a way, Bravo fandom was a bit like Marvel fandom — deep-seated lore, a dedicated audience, and its own universe of characters and stars. Yet, Marvel is the closest thing we have to monoculture. It is unavoidable. Bravo inspired intense fan fervor, but the fandom was relatively siloed. That is, until 2023 and a little thing called the Scandoval rocked the internet.
You likely didn’t miss it, but in case you did, I previously explained the whole saga for Mashable back in March:
“In basic terms: A reality star from the Bravo show ‘Vanderpump Rules,’ Tom Sandoval, allegedly cheated on his longtime girlfriend, Ariana Madix, who is also on the show, with yet another Vanderpump star, Raquel Leviss, who is the ex-fiancée of fellow Pump star, James Kennedy.”
Those were the broad strokes…a reality star…cheated…with another reality star. Knock me over with a feather, no?
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But this just happened to be the moment Bravo broke containment. The internet has, slowly but surely, turned Bravolebrities into normal, if somewhat C-list, celebrities. Stars from the Housewives franchises — Cohen’s original brainchild — have long haunted the digital pages of TMZ, Page Six, People, and other such outlets. Housewives and the numerous spinoffs and other franchises — Vanderpump, Southern Charm, Summer House, Below Deck — have spawned other stars raking in brand deals and cash for shilling stuff on Instagram. In short, Bravo was once a cable television channel, but it’s now inhabited by a legion of influencers and personalities.
Even if you don’t care about Bravo, its stars are everywhere. In the lead-up to the Scandoval, we had hard news documentaries about not one but two separate Housewives and their legal troubles. Things were already growing. ABC News didn’t make a hurried doc about New Jersey Housewife Teresa Giudice going to prison in 2015. Now they jump at the chance.
When the Scandoval broke it was a holy shit moment for Bravo fans. But in some ways no more holy shit than numerous other Bravo scandals throughout the years — I mean, hell, I’d need a book-length word count to detail the many indiscretions and lies of Vanderpump castmate Jax Taylor alone. Soon enough, there was a detailed breakdown of the Scandoval in the prestigious pages of The New York Times. Respected broadcast journalist Anderson Cooper, longtime BFF of Cohen, was forced to address it on CNN’s airwaves. Even the typically staid NPR had to address it in a 27-minute segment.
Madix was on Dancing With The Stars, and soon enough she’ll be starring in Chicago on Broadway. Sandoval was on The Masked Singer. Madix was at the freaking White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where host Roy Wood made a joke about the scandal. A reality TV joke at something lovingly dubbed Nerd Prom. The President was there.
That’s about as mainstream as mainstream gets.
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I’d argue the Bravo fandom was building toward that end. In our era of loving influencers, it was only a matter of time. The powder keg was only missing a spark, and hell if the Scandoval wasn’t a fire-starter. It was the perfect scandal for 2023: It played out in the public eye, as the season aired, and even required some emergency filming. It was novel in that the people involved were life partners we’d watched for years, not new reality stars messing around and cheating.
Even if you didn’t know the lore — the very fact that Vanderpump itself was borne out of a cheating scandal on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, for instance — you, as in pretty much everyone, now had a vague idea that these people exist. That would’ve been hard for me to imagine even five years ago.
Bravo fandom has long had an obsessive aspect to it. True fans know the tangled web of crossovers between Southern Charm, Winter House, Below Deck, Summer House, and various Housewives franchises. Fans can quote Bravo on command: “I’ll tell you how I’m doing…not well, bitch!” or “It’s Turtle Time.” They know the various rap sheets of current and former stars.
But just as something like the NBA has hardcore fans and casuals, there are now casual Bravo fans. Hell, there were even actual, IRL watch parties for Vanderpump as if it were a live sport.
Scandoval IRL: The wild fun of a ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Reunion Part 3 watch party
Bravo fandom used to be sort of like my favorite band The Hold Steady — they’re either your favorite band or you have no clue they exist. Bravo fans manifested their own version of a celebrity, a homegrown Bravolebrity, who used to be able to live entirely anonymously. Now, there’s no way to put the genie back in the bottle. The platform has outgrown that fandom. This year, Bravocon got so big that it decamped from an NYC convention center for the glitz of Vegas. That’s because it’s no longer a fan convention. It’s a news-creating event and an influencer meet-and-greet.
There’s no turning back for Bravo. Even if you don’t tune in, there’s a strong chance you’ll see the stars on TikTok, or in the pages of People, or even on CNN. Vanderpump‘s Scandoval was the final thing that made everyone notice Bravo had gone mainstream, but it was already heading that direction.
That’s not all entirely good for Bravo and Cohen, its ringmaster. Remember those docs about Housewives’ alleged crimes? Or how things that once might’ve been minor new stories, like a recent DUI arrest for a Housewife, are now major headlines? And there’s also an apparent “reckoning” from current and former Bravo stars who’re angry about how they were treated. Going mainstream means even bigger problems.
A plot point during the now-airing season of Southern Charm, for instance, involves People reporting cast member Austin Kroll hooked up with fellow cast member Taylor Ann Green, who is the ex of, you guessed it, cast member Shep Rose. This article came out as the cast filmed the season, meaning the show wasn’t just being recapped, it had its gossipy news broken well before the season even aired.
So sure, maybe Bravo fandom still is an eccentric carnival of sorts. But we’re going to need a bigger tent.
