Bravo’s Real Housewives of D.C. Premieres With Bitter Cast Feuding
Human Events
The feud among the cast members of Bravo’s Real Housewives of Washington, D.C. escalated before the first show even aired Thursday night. Michaele Salahi, the most famous of the cast, cancelled her scheduled attendance at the official premiere party after a contentious interview on ABC’s The View.
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| Photo – ABC |
“None of our friends are going to Half Yards [official premiere party] anymore,” Tareq Salahi, Michaele’s husband and a contracted cast member of the show, told Human Events on Thursday. Mr. Salahi announced the party cancellation because his wife felt ambushed on the show.
“The Bravo executives did nothing to help Michaele with the verbal onslaught back stage on The View,” Mr. Salahi said of an altercation with Whoopi Goldberg. “They watched and did nothing to a lovely lady in tears and shaken up.”
ABC responded in a statement that “after being told she was being accused of hitting Ms. Salahi, Whoopi proceeded to defend herself verbally from this baseless claim in a heated exchange with the Salahis.”
“Whoopi Goldberg came from backstage behind Mrs. Salahi, shook her arm, and told her to move on and talk about the White House,” according to a statement released by the Salahis’ attorney Lisa Bloom.
ABC responded that “Whoopi lightly touched Ms. Salahi to get her attention and said to her ‘Excuse me, can you get back to the White House, please?’ meaning could Ms. Salahi return to the original subject of the conversation.”
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| Photo – ABC |
Housewives Stacie Scott Turner, Mary Schmidt Amons, Catherine Ommanney, Lynda Erkiletian and Michaele Salahi were interviewed Wednesday on the New York set the daytime talk show.
During the interview, co-host Sherri Shepherd told Mrs. Salahi: “You should be in jail!” The audience cheered Shepherd’s comment, but the Salahis’ attorney insists that ABC turned on “the applause light,” which coerced the crowd’s automatic reaction.
Michaele Salahi became the best known cast member after she and her husband somehow gained access to President Obama at a White House state dinner last November. Bravo cameras followed the Salahis preparing for the party and walking into the White House gates. Salahi takes issue with being called a “party crasher”, insisting she was invited to the dinner and used her name and legal identification to gain access to the White House.
The government has not alleged that they are party crashers,” Bloom says in the statement. “While a grand jury investigation, costing untold tax dollars and wasted hours of time, drags on for eight months, the Salahis have never been charged with any crime.”
Michaele Salahi did not cross paths with the other four housewives on Thursday night at the various premiere parties in D.C. Salahi attended her own party and after-party, both of which were open to the public for a fee. “We lost all trust with Half Yards/Bravo,” Mr. Salahi emphasized as the reason for the split parties.
The others –Amons, Erkiletian, Ommanney and Turner – attended the Half Yard/Bravo official premiere party and then their own after-party co-hosted by Washington Life Magazine. The four housewives did not invite Salahi to their after-party.
