Certain levels of drama and turmoil are sure to be expected in the ecosystem of reality TV, but in the case of some of the cast of RHOBH, things spiraled a little out of hand into the realms of potential legal battles during 2013’s third season. The particular incident in question involved Adrienne, Paul, and Brandi.
Adrienne and Paul were potentially going to sue Brandi over defamatory comments that she had made regarding their children. The status of the legal proceedings is unclear, though Brandi alleged she received notification of a lawsuit.
The ever incendiary and provocative Brandi has managed to get herself into legal hot water more than once during the course of her stay on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, apparently finding it borderline impossible to keep herself out of trouble.
In the case of Adrienne’s grievances with Brandi, the trouble all stemmed from Brandi stepping over the line by bringing their children into the argument. She revealed that a surrogate had been used to give birth to their twins Christian and Colin, sparking the legal battle.
Adrienne v. Brandi
Stars of a reality television show go into it with a fair expectation that the majority of their lives will be aired for all to see, dirty laundry included. There’s an equally reasonable expectation, however, that your peers on the show will exercise some restraint when it comes to the information that they reveal.
Unfortunately, when tensions are running high some of the rules of common decency get tossed to the wayside. In the case of Brandi’s ongoing frustrations with fellow cast member Adrienne, she dropped the bombshell that Adrienne’s twins were in fact conceived through the use of a surrogate.
The revelation came off the back of a series of arguments that the pair had been having, culminating in that final bit of explosive rumor-mongering. Adrienne was justly furious, and some kind of legal action is an understandable result of the feud reaching such a personal level.
The situation snowballed from there, with multiple tabloids running stories on both Adrienne and Brandi, the entire situation became so severe that Brandi even ended up mentioning it to one of the other stars of the show, expressing worry about the impending legal battle that may take place.
Despite all of the buzz around the controversy, Adrienne herself claimed that there was no legal action being taken against Brandi, so the truth of the situation remains a little fuzzy.
Adrienne v. Bravo
Livid that as of yet unrevealed and deeply personal information regarding her children was at risk of being revealed not only to the public but to the children themselves, meant that Brandi wasn’t the only one to end up in Adrienne’s legal sights. If she was to ensure that nothing would be leaked, then Bravo was the most logical choice to be targeted.
Though the legitimacy of Adrienne legally attacking Brandi is unclear, all accounts indicate that she sent her lawyers in full force against Bravo. There were threats of all manner of legal action if any mentions of the surrogacy were not removed from the show.
This directly coincided with her being let go from the show, although not simply for the fact that she threatened to sue the producers. Despite the showrunners agreeing to remove the scenes and going to the effort of doing so, Adrienne told the entire story of the surrogacy in an interview anyway, rendering all of the edits and spent manpower pointless.
Perpetual Troublemaking
Brandi’s spat with Adrienne isn’t the only time that things looked to end up in the hands of lawyers. It’s no secret that Brandi is particularly good at getting on the bad side of her cast members, but even outside of the show she has a hard time staying out of trouble.
She also ended up in a lawsuit with Joanna Krupa, thanks to some obscene comments that she made not once, but multiple times. That one did end in a definite lawsuit, but thankfully for all parties involved the dust seems to have settled reasonably peacefully.
Drama and viewership is one thing, but let’s just hope that everyone involved can stay well clear of turning the spectacles they are involved in from reality TV into a courtroom drama.