Prison, revenge porn and blush-pink villas: your ultimate guide to the Real Housewives franchise

As the Real Housewives of London prepares to land, we give you a beginner’s guide to everything you need to know about its sister shows. Brace for chaosWhether you’re a devout worshipper at the altar of The Real Housewives (like me), or simply aware of it by osmosis, there’s no denying it’s one of reality TV’s most wildly successful franchises. Since it debuted in 2006 with a peek into Orange county’s elite, the franchise now spans more than a dozen US cities and has extended internationally from Sydney to Dubai. Now, nearly 20 years later, London is calling.Despite its title, the show isn’t really about marriage (most of the women aren’t married, and those who are usually at some point during their tenure experience a messy divorce). What the franchise captures is something far more compelling: a specific sort of midlife reinvention. We watch as women (mostly over the age of 40) navigate divorce, grief, success, self-discovery and the pursuit of fame. As the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Brandi Glanville put it: “Andy Cohen [the show’s executive producer] is the only man in Hollywood who hires women over 40.” Continue reading...

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