The Wildest Real Housewives Dinner Parties, Ranked

Not all the news, but all the news you actually care about.

ORANGE YOU GLAD IT’S A MESS?: There’s lots of drama swirling around the upcoming season of Real Housewives of Orange County: It’s going to be good, it’s going to be awful; Gina Kerschenheiter is gonna be a friend-of, the only drama is her fight with Taylor Armstrong; Heather Dubrow is cheating on Terry Dubrow, no wait they’re making out at Disneyland. It’s conflicting reports all around, except there is one thing everyone can agree on: No one misses Dr. Jen Armstrong.

According to anonymous wish-fulfillment blog Bravo and Cocktails (so grains of salt bigger than the enema Shannon Beador got stuck in her chocolate starfish), it’s going to be an amazing season. The biggest drama is between Shannon, Heather, and Tamra Judge, who is back in the franchise. Apparently Heather and Shannon got close and Tamra is trying to reignite her feud with Fancy Pants and will probably flip her over in another dune buggy or something. This is where we heard that Gina probably won’t be holding her orange this year.

This conflicts with Radar Online’s report that none other than Victoria Denise Gunvalson Jr. had to be brought in to film with Shannon and Tamra, the other tres amigas, because the season was off to a “slow� start. Apparently Vicki is going to shake things up, but how is she going to do that when she only filmed that one scene and without any of the people in the cast who can’t stand her?

The Heather-and-Terry rumors are in full effect, and Heather finally gave them credence. On a post on @deuxmoi claiming she was skipping filming because she didn’t want to address Terry’s affair, Heather replied, “This is not true, on any level.� Someone needs to teach these ladies about the Streisand Effect, and fast. Isn’t it convenient that the paparazzi caught them snuggling up at a theme park to put those rumors to rest? I wonder who called the cameras, because this looks as staged as one of Braunwyn Windham-Burke’s million girlfriend reveals. We have no clue what is real or not at this point, but with this much smoke, let’s hope the season is fire.

NEVER MISS A BAG: Apparently Kandi Burruss just signed a big fat contract for the next season of RHOA that will give her more than $2 million for the show’s 15th season (which will be her 14th). According to my research she was making just north of that figure before, and if you ask me, she’s worth every penny. Housewives now get paid by episode, so the exact figure might change based on how many episodes the drama warrants, but that would still make her the highest paid in the franchise, even if Lisa Rinna gets the $2 million she’s supposedly asking for. (She won’t.) Damn, Kandi. Aren’t your 1 million businesses and “No Scrubs� and “Shape of You� royalties enough?

According to LoveBScott.com (Kenya Moore’s preferred blog to leak to), the whole cast of last season is returning and beauty entrepreneur Janell Stephens is joining them. Damn, does that mean we’re stuck with Drew Sidora being useless for another 20 episodes? They started filming earlier this week at the birthday party for Sanya Richard-Ross’s husband.

DUSTER DUSTUP: Ur-Housewife Bethenny Frankel is suing TikTok for damages after a company used a video of hers to help sell their sweaters. She claims someone took a video of her talking about a cardigan, edited it to make it look like it was their cardigan, and is erroneously using her likeness to advertise their crappy products. She says that brand as a media personality is now damaged because of the association. A crappy sweater is going to take her down when shouting “Life is not a cabaret, Luann� in public did not? Apparently this is a common practice on the app, and if it takes Bethenny to stop it, then that is some change for good in the world.

Between this and her self-identified shadowbanning, the skinny girl has a real problem with your teen’s favorite time-wasting app. Apparently there’s a market for Bethenny-endorsed sweaters, though. Maybe she should call up Lisa Rinna and get some of that QVC money?

SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER: Looks like someone finally stepped up to buy Erika Jayne and Tom Girardi’s old mansion in snowy Pasadena. The buyer coughed up $7.5 million to live in reality-TV infamy, which is a steep discount from the $13 million that was initially being asked. The money will go toward paying Tom’s outstanding debt, which is estimated at more than $100 million, so it will barely make a dent.

There was also a successful auction of the house’s furniture, decorations, and even a basketball signed by Michael Jordan. The auction racked up a total just shy of $500,000, which, yet again, is just a drop in the bucket. On the same day as the auction, a judge signed off on another auction of all the gifts that Tom gave to his mistress as well as the infamous $750,000 earrings (or $1.3 million for the pair, it’s still unclear) that have caused so much drama on this season of RHOBH. Even as the things go away, this story is still very much with us.

HE SHOOTS, SHE SCORES: Speaking of Michael Jordan, he might be entering into the Housewives firmament sooner than we think. His son, the very handsome Marcus Jordan, has been spotted with Larsa Pippen once again, and this time they were not only out and about but also hot and heavy.

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• We have officially awarded Yolanda Bananas Foster a Webby for the completely unhinged video of her eating a bowl of almonds all over her property going viral. (Bonus good taste points for the Rosalía soundtrack.)

• I am sorry to report that Teresa Giudice has been booted after week two on Dancing with the Stars. I believe this is the shortest tenure any Housewife has had on the show, but I don’t care enough about Tre to actually look it up.

• Remember when David Beador filed for divorce from his new wife and then took it back and she was all on Instagram telling us how happy they were? Yeah, well now she filed for divorce. If two people have ever deserved each other …

• Leah McSweeney is officially referring to herself as a “former Housewife� and is done with the show.

• Lisa Barlow pop song when?

• Check out this amazing clip from an old episode of The Jamie Foxx Show where future Housewives Garcelle Beauvais and Kenya Moore get in a fight on a fake talk show. Can we get a reenactment of this at BravoCon?

• Apparently British women have been hopping on the Real Housewives bandwagon hardcore since 2020. I moved to the U.K. in 2019. Coincidence?

The 10 Wildest Real Housewives Dinners of All Time, Ranked

Evan Goldschneider, husband of Real Housewife of New Jersey Jackie Goldschneider, once said on a group visit to the Jersey Shore that everything is fine with the women until they sit down and eat. There is something about sharing a meal, especially dinner, for some reason, that compels the Housewives to bring up the “elephant in the room,� and next thing you know there are factions shouting across the table, accusations being hurled, and sometimes even flatware becoming missiles or weapons.

In preparation for my upcoming Vulture livetweet of the Dinner Party from Hell on October 11, the Real Housewives Institute has compiled the ten most insane bread-breaking moments in the history of the franchise. Several were on trips and the rest were in the Housewives’ homes, but no matter where they took place, calamity ensued.

10. A Sushi Smackdown (Real Housewives of Orange County, Season 16, Episode 2)

Fancy Pants’s dinner featuring $36,000 worth of sushi was supposed to be her coronation upon returning to the series after a four-year absence. However, when she convened everyone at a Duty Free perfume store that turned into her home, all hell broke loose. At the center of this one is Heather herself, who found out her friend Nicole James (whom she recruited to be on the show) actually sued her husband, Dr. Terry Dubrow, for malpractice more than a decade prior. This West Coast Anna Delvey had been friends with Heather for years and never brought up the fact that she sued her husband? Insanity. Next thing you know, Heather is shutting down the cameras, Noella Bergener is accusing her of manhandling the crew, and Nicole is trotted into a room to apologize to Terry and then … never seen or heard from again. Worst of all, no one ever eats the sushi!

9. Ranting for Dessert (Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Season 2, Episode 19)

The second season of this show was largely about Jen Shah getting arrested on-camera, but since that happened on a sprinter van (Note to self: Do 10 Craziest Van Moments next) and not at dinner, it is ineligible here. Luckily we have a dinner to blame for the other most iconic moment of the season: Lisa Barlow calling her former bestie Meredith Marks a “fucking whore� when she thinks she’s alone but still has her mic on. And not just that, she also rages about “Meredith and her stupid family that poses� and screams about how her husband changes jobs every five minutes. This all kicks off when the crew is at dinner and Lisa feels that Meredith is backing up Mary Cosby more than she backed her up. As everyone barges away from the table, it’s Lisa who’s serving up venom for dessert.

8. Nipping It in the Bun (Real Housewives of Atlanta, Season 10, Episode 5):

When everyone shows up to dinner on the rooftop of a San Francisco hotel at least two hours late, it seems like that’s where the drama is going to be. Nope! Former friends NeNe Leakes and Porsha Williams start to get into it about something that Porsha said about NeNe on her show Dish Nation. We’re not sure what because NeNe won’t tell her; she just keeps shouting “Roll back the tapes� as if she’s an editor on the show. But there is one moment that launched this into the stratosphere. As the two are cussing each other out over apps, the bun on the top of NeNe’s head starts to fall out. Without NeNe turning away or even stopping yelling, her friend Marlo Hampton leans over and puts the hairpiece back in place so the fight can continue with NeNe looking as beautiful as she did when she arrived quite late.

7. Getting Naked Wasted (Real Housewives of Orange County, Season 4, Episode 8)

This is one of the darkest dinners ever, but, ironically, also one of the most sitcom-esque setups. Tamra Barney (at the time) has the cast and their significant others over for dinner at her place, including newest cast member Gretchen Rossi, who attends without her fiancé, who is ill with cancer. And not fake Brooks Ayers cancer, either. Actual cancer. Since Tamra and Vicki think Gretchen is a gold digger, they plan to expose her by getting her “naked wasted,� or so wasted she might take her clothes off. They then feed her to Tamra’s adult son Ryan to try to get her to cheat on her fiancé. Man, they really don’t make them like they used to, and honestly, thank God!

6. The Butter Knife Incident (Real Housewives of Potomac, Season 4, Episode 8)

Candiace Dillard and Ashley Darby have been enemies as long as both have been on the show together, but they never got as heated as the time Candiance had all the ladies over so her chef husband, Chris, could cook for the group. When Candiance starts to criticize Ashley and her husband for faking their emotions around Ashley’s recent miscarriage, Ashley makes a joke about the house being owned by Candiace’s mother. (I mean, it’s a solid burn.) Candiace gets up from the table and starts waving her butter knife at Ashley as if she’s about to slice the bun off the top of her head or something worse. You know a dinner party is good when the same guest has to be thrown out of the house not once but twice.

5. Cartagena Nights (Real Housewives of New York, Season 10, Episode 16)

The RHONY ladies’ trip to Colombia is an all-time classic — hello, Boat Ride From Hell! — but the highlight for me has always been this dinner, when we get not one but two great fights simultaneously at the table. On one side, Carole Radziwill and Bethenny Frankel are trying to rekindle their fractured friendship, or at least figure out where the strain is. (This was going on all season, and this seems to be when they finally stopped trying to care.) At the other end of the table, Luann de Lesseps tells old Dorinda Medley that “she’s startin’� after her umpteenth margarita. Dorinda does not appreciate the newly sober Countess coming for her, and she tells her to start drinking again and get another mugshot because she’s a felon. Cruelty to the left of me, animosity to the right, and we’re stuck here in the middle with an absolutely perfect scene.

4. The Beasts of Amsterdam (Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Season 5, Episode 16)

What we’ll always remember about this legendary fight in a too-modern and too-empty restaurant on the cast trip to Holland is Lisa Rinna lunging for Kim Richards, throwing her wine at her, and then crashing her wine glass into the floor. What we don’t always remember is Kim terrorizing everyone at the table. She takes umbrage with Lisa talking about her sobriety, but she calls Eileen Davidson a “beast,� tells Kyle Richards that she never backs her up, and then finally tells Rinna that she is going to talk “about the husband,� but makes no direct accusations. Next we have broken glass all over the floor, Kyle bolting out of the establishment, and absolute chaos everywhere. Not one waiter comes to check on them. In the words of Shereé Whitfield, whatever happened to customer service?

3. The Table Flip (Real Housewives of New Jersey, Season 1, Episode 7)

Of course the single most iconic Housewives moment happened at a dinner and had to be on the list. (If we’re being totally honest, the rest of this list is a three-way tie.) When Danielle Staub brings up a book written by her ex about her, Teresa says many of the things in the book must be true. Danielle makes the mistake of telling Teresa that the only two true things are that she changed her name and that she’s been arrested. “Pay attention, puh-lease,� Danielle says. Then Teresa loses it, calling Danielle a “prostitution whore� who has been “married 19 times� before completely losing all verbal function, grunting and muttering as she is pulled into a corner by her husband. This is the most mocked and cited Housewives moment, but for very good reason.

2. Scary Island (Real Housewives of New York, Season 3, Episode 12) 

When we think of “Scary Island� we usually think of a troika of episodes of the RHONY season-three trip to St. John, which starts with “Turtle Time� and ends with Jill Zarin surprising her friends at their luxury villa. But the real highlight is a dinner that Bethenny cooks for (most of) the cast. Kelly has been after her for days, saying she’s a “cook, not a chef,� but nothing could prepare her for Kelly completely losing her mind. We all know the highlights: eating gummy bears from the bag, telling Alex she is channeling the devil, saying Bethenny is trying to kill her, “Al Sharpton,� “satchels of gold.� We have never seen a breakdown on television quite like this, and honestly, I don’t know that we’ll ever see it again.

1. The Dinner Party from Hell (Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Season 1, Episode 9)

If there were ever a bottle episode in the Housewives franchise, it would be this one. The whole episode is just about one dinner party at Camille Grammer’s house, the women getting ready for it, and the complete carnage of the dinner itself. Kyle Richards brings her friend Faye Resnick, whom Camille gives the label “morally corrupt,� and they talk about her posing for Playboy during the O.J. Simpson scandal. But it really pops off thanks to Allison DuBois, the inspiration for the show Medium, who sits at the end of the table drinking appletinis and vaping (waaaaaayyyy before it was cool) while she tells Kyle that her husband “will never emotionally fulfill you. Know that.� It’s as perfect as a Housewives episode, at dinner or otherwise, is ever going to get.

It’s no surprise Garcelle Beauvais looks amazing, but that ponytail better fucking work, queen.

Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Season 3, Episode 1: The big event of the episode is Sharrieff’s party, but don’t be fooled: This is yet another Real Housewives Roaring ’20s theme party — an epidemic the CDC has yet to step in to mitigate.

Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Season 3, Episode 2: This trial is just weeks away and yet Jen went and bought a 1,000-piece puzzle. As Meredith said last week, “Time is not on your side,� get a smaller puzzle!

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Season 12, Episode 20: This is what annoys me about Lisa. The queen of “own it� won’t own that she set Kathy up.

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Season 12, Episode 21: This entire episode was about Kathy Hilton but we didn’t see her, we didn’t get a confessional, nothing. She never showed, like Godot or Niles’s wife Maris on Frasier.

Below Deck Mediterranean, Season 7, Episode 12: Meanwhile, my nosy ass decided to research these watches. They tend to cost less than $100. That isn’t nothing, but I think — based on Natalya’s reaction — she thought this gift was a little pricier.

Below Deck Mediterranean, Season 7, Episode 13: I want to thank the guests for their time and energy! No other guests deserved a surprise performance from Eurovision’s very own Destiny like they did.

Southern Charm, Season 8, Episode 15: In the 19th hour, Leva finally stopped talking to her son in the kitchen and showed up to something. It’s a Christmas miracle!

Highlighting the best insight from our lovely Institute members. This one is from a recent RHOSLC recap.

MentionItAll: I need a shaman to release my confusion at Meredeth’s outfits. What in the big top circus ill-fitting hell was she wearing? Pretty much applies to any scene.

“Let’s be real, Kyle is gonna win this fight. Sutton has a skinny leg, she can’t run after Kyle.� —Crystal Kung Minkoff