Real Housewives Star Dishes on ‘Rampant Homophobia’ Observed On Set
Braunwyn Windham-Burke is proud to be the first openly gay “Real Housewife” in franchise history — but says her former “Orange County” co-stars made her coming-out journey more difficult than she anticipated.
In a recent interview with 19-year-old daughter Rowan (who is also part of the LGBTQIA+ community), Braunwyn details the “homophobia” she allegedly experienced from her castmates.
“Making off-color jokes about me being intimate with a woman, that’s not OK. Those are microaggressions,” says the former “RHOC” personality, who came out as a lesbian in December 2020 as her two-season stint on the show came to a close.
“After I came out, having to prove that I was gay, that should never have been tolerated. That is a microagression. That is homophobia.”
As viewers may recall, Kelly Dodd — who, like Braunwyn, exited the show after Season 15 in 2021 — frequently mocked her over speculation that she had been romantically involved with a woman throughout filming.
As rumors swirled on camera, the majority of Braunwyn’s co-stars seemingly cast doubt on her sexuality as she herself was coming to terms with it.
“It’s really invalidating that people were saying they didn’t believe it or they didn’t think it was true,” Rowan tells us, defending her mother. “Not just for my mom, but for other people who come out later in life. It’s insanely invalidating to hear people say, ‘Oh, she’s just lying. Oh, it’s not true.’”
Emily Simpson even called Braunwyn “selfish” for exploring her gay identity while still married to now-ex-husband and “best friend” Sean Burke, with whom she’s maintained a close relationship with as they co-parent Rowan and their six other children.
A comment such as Simpson’s should have never made it to air, says Braunwyn, placing partial blame on production.
“One one hundredth of what we film makes it onto the show. So you can choose what you want … It was not easy to be the first gay ‘Housewife.’ There should have been a little more grace,” she explains.
“At the end of the day, it’s a show about drama but you need to have some humanity at a base level and I didn’t get that with my cast members.”
Though she wishes her story played out differently on Bravo, Braunwyn feels fulfilled knowing that she ultimately helped Rowan discover — and wholeheartedly embrace — her pansexuality.
“[My mom] was a big part of me actually being able to find that identity and that label. I went by bi for a while but then I realized that it wasn’t actually bisexuality because I love every single different kind of gender and everyone,” says the teen.
“That helped me a lot, not just with sexuality but knowing myself as a whole, which helps along my journey of becoming a better person, a better me — better mentally, better physically, just knowing myself.”