The Real Housewives of Today, Explained

Sam Sanders: Hey, I'm Sam Sanders, and I'm guest hosting Today Explained.

Sam Sanders: Seeing a reality star on social media is not that unusual. But a reality star on Instagram calling for her colleagues to unionize? Well, these are the 10 terms that I propose subject to modification. I did not buy the idiot guide to starting a union in 24 hours. That's Bethany Frankel, OG Real Housewife. and now labor agitator.

Bethany Frankel: The minimum should be $5,000 per episode. Well, go off, Bethany. Talent should receive a 10% raise each season.

Sam Sanders: Now, to be clear, Bethany is just one star, and that does not make a revolution. But a giant lawsuit calling for major changes to the way reality TV treats its cast and crew members, that could end up forcing some big systemic change. A reality TV reckoning.

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Sam Sanders: Today! Today Explained! NBCUniversal received a letter. It was from two high-powered Hollywood attorneys with scary reputations. They were talking about a lawsuit, and they were lobbying some pretty gnarly accusations. In the letter, they allege that NBC has this pattern of, quote, grotesque and depraved mistreatment of its reality stars. They say, quote, that these individuals have been mentally, physically victimized by NBC and threatened with ruin if they speak out about their mistreatment.

Claudia Rosenbaum: That's Claudia Rosenbaum. I cover pop culture for Vulture, New York Magazine. In addition, I'm an attorney. Claudia has been following the twists and turns of this case very closely.

Sam Sanders: And there's more in that letter. They accused NBC of attempting to manufacture instability by applying cast members on the show with alcohol while also depriving them of food and sleep and denying them mental health services and covering up acts of sexual violence. There are allegations of revenge porn, fraud, false imprisonment.

Claudia Rosenbaum: Yeah, they're pretty severe allegations. And, you know, they haven't gotten into any specifics and they haven't said what shows they're referencing or what reality stars they're talking about. They've been pretty vague.

Sam Sanders: They've been pretty vague. They're just saying, you know, we're doing an investigation. But these lawyers could be talking about any number of reality stars. because NBCUniversal makes a lot of reality TV. It owns Bravo. So, you know, they've got the entire Real Housewives empire.

Claudia Rosenbaum: How do you know what's good for me? That's my opinion!

Sam Sanders: They've also got the below-deck diaspora. I've never heard of any yacht ever having a phone party. Phone parties should probably just stay where they belong in 1997.

Claudia Rosenbaum: They got Project Runway. Make it work. Go, go, go. And like a million other shows. Also, NBCUniversal is a parent company of E and Oxygen and Telemundo, and you get it. Lots of networks, lots of shows, lots and lots of reality stars.

Sam Sanders: So far, NBCUniversal is not saying much about this, but they have released a bit of a statement. NBC has said that they're committed to maintaining a safe and respectful workplace for their cast and crew around the reality show. They say they've taken appropriate workplace trainings in place and any complaints have been brought to their attention. And they've investigated them and, you know, situations have been dealt with and they provided medical and psychological support to cast members if needed.

Claudia Rosenbaum: But the thing about reality TV is you can watch it, which means you can see some of this stuff play out. Like how an endless stream of alcohol might put cast members in dangerous situations. There was this one recent episode on an episode of Below Deck Down Under. It's a Bravo show. This scene got a lot of attention.

Sam Sanders: The first thing I thought about when I got out of bed. Money and alcohol. So in this episode, a crew member named Margo gets trashed. She's literally passed out in her cabin. Another crew member named Luke walks into her cabin naked, gets in her bed, and producers, they intervene.

Claudia Rosenbaum: Open, open, open. We can't do that. We can't do it. We can't do that. They kick Luke out of Margo's room and kick him off the whole show. You need to get up, mate. You need to go. You need to get off the boat tonight. Really? Yeah.

Sam Sanders: Like that night, he was asked to leave the boat. And when he came back the next day, he was told that he was fired. You know, they did take swift action in that situation when, you know, there was something so wrong happening in front of their eyes. They, you know, took immediate action.

Claudia Rosenbaum: So yeah, the producers stepped in here, but cast members getting wasted is a big part of this show. It's baked in. It's like there's a yacht, there are crew members, there's booze, which means dangerous situations are maybe almost baked into the show. This is the kind of thing these lawyers are talking about.

Sam Sanders: By the way, these lawyers, they're kind of a big deal. Mark Garagos and Brian Friedman. Just so you know a little bit about Mark Gargos I mean he represented Michael Jackson Winona Ryder Chris Brown Usher and Friedman has in the past represented Bethany Frankel Diplo and Chris Harrison when he was fired from The Bachelor Megyn Kelly when she was taken off her show So they both familiar with these type of cases

Claudia Rosenbaum: Now the backdrop to all of this is that TV networks and streamers like Netflix are having to lean really hard on reality shows right now. Because of the writers and actors strikes, reality shows are cheap and easy to make and not subject to these strikes. They don't need unionized actors or unionized writers to be made. If it wasn't for reality shows, I don't know what people would be watching.

Sam Sanders: We just had The Bachelorette wrapped up. In a matter of moments, I'm about to be the happiest person. It's just crazy. We've got new episodes of Below Deck airing. We've got new episodes of Real Housewives of Atlanta. I was shocked, honey. I was in tears almost. And it has a white refrigerator. I was like, oh, not a white refrigerator. Girl, please put your shoes on. Let's go find your home, honey. Real Housewives of New York, Real Housewives of Orange County. So there's like a constant slate of new reality shows, while the other shows have been basically taken off the air.

Claudia Rosenbaum: So if you want to watch something new, you're turning to them right now. So reality TV is very important right now. Maybe so important that the stars should get paid more? The minimum should be $5,000 per episode. Bethany Frankel, what are you doing here? Talent should receive a 10% raise each season.

Sam Sanders: She's asking to get paid. Frankel is about as big a reality star as you can get. She's one of the original cast members of The Real Housewives of New York. And she has a brand, Skinny Girl, for the gal, guy, they or them who likes their cocktails with a side of body shame. But her latest enterprise is labor agitation.

Claudia Rosenbaum: These are the 10 terms that I propose subject to modification. I did not buy the idiot guide to starting a union in 24 hours. A union for reality stars. Minimum pay, seasonal raises, residuals, a bunch of other things. But the message here is that these shows make a ton of money and the cast do not. You know, it's your life story. So it's, you know, your life that you're giving and exchanged. And they don't really have control.

Sam Sanders: Reality TV is heavily produced, heavily formatted, and it is a rough and tumble job. Just ask anyone who's been successful in reality TV. And you are not hiding behind the words of someone else where no one's going to bother you or cancel you if you say something in a moment of just being truly who you are or make a mistake. You are completely and utterly always exposed and your life and career could end in an instant by just one wrong word.

Claudia Rosenbaum: Frankl says that countless reality stars have called her up about the union, and they've told her they are so down. But we are not getting a lot of other manifestos on Instagram like Frankl's or outspoken support for the idea of a big lawsuit. This might have something to do with another boogeyman of reality TV, the NDA.

Sam Sanders: One of the things that could be preventing people from coming forward and talking is around three weeks after Garagos and Friedman sent their original letter, they sent a follow-up letter on August 20th to NBC Council demanding that there are these contract terms that are sort of like, in a sense, NDAs that are keeping some of these people from coming forward and talking to them. And so they demanded in their letter that NBC just make some broad sweep and release these people from these what they call illegal nondisclosure agreements that they said are in place to hide civil and criminal wrongs.

Claudia Rosenbaum: So is a reality show reckoning actually on the way? A financial glow up for cast members? Better protections for cast and crews? We'll know more when this lawsuit actually drops, if it does. And we'll see if Bethany can find power in a union. But the thing is, if reality TV does change, if it's fairer to the stars, safer for everyone, is that the reality TV that we, the viewing public, actually want to watch?

Sam Sanders: I asked my co-pilot, Claudia Rosenbaum, all about this. And I asked because I wonder what actually is the fix for some of the conceits of these shows. If the conceit of Below Deck is they're stuck on a boat for weeks at a time, living and working together, and there's alcohol. Is there any way to clean up that business model?

Claudia Rosenbaum: Yeah. And I don't know whether, you know, that's what people tune in to see. I mean, when you're watching The Bachelor, if someone's drinking too much and saying crazy things, that's going to make the headlines of the show. And that's going to be what catches people's attention. So it's part of what draws in the ratings. So it's a definite, it's difficult to figure out a fix.

Sam Sanders: Coming up, someone working on a fix. He is a guy who worked on a reality TV show you may have heard of, Love is Blind, on Netflix. He actually was a contestant, Nick Thompson. Yes, that Nick. He has stories.

Nick Thompson: Welcome to Love is Blind. The pods are officially open. A bunch of single people hang out in these rooms called pods. They talk to other single people from their pods. They date them from their pods. And the whole time, you don't get to see the person that you are ostensibly falling in love with. There's something about your voice. That's what everyone keeps telling me. Until you are ready to propose. You're holding my mother's engagement ring. Remind me, how long was it from the first conversation with this person to engagement? So it's about 10 days. Oh, my God.

Sam Sanders: That's Nick Thompson. He was on season two of Love is Blind. He got engaged and he got married on the show. Now Nick has a lot to say about what it's like to star on a reality TV show. And he wants everyone, the networks, the streamers, us, the viewers. He wants us all to do better.

Nick Thompson: So I began by asking him what it felt like to show up to the house where they all were staying on that first day. This is Nick. Who's this? It's Trisha. Hey, Trisha. It all happened so fast. well it's it's a set so it's not actually a house but you live in an apartment so when you're doing the pods you're actually just on set for like 18 20 hours and then you get sent back to a hotel room stop it no nick yeah they lied to me i know i'm ruining everything i thought y'all were all just in like an apartment building for the whole time so so like tell me about this set and tell me what that was like and tell me what it was like to go from a hotel room to a set for 18 hours a day exhausting. You don't even know what day it is. You don't really know what time it is. You're sort of shuffled around. You don't have access to any technology or the internet. It's very isolating.

Sam Sanders: So when you first arrive, you go to set. You're not allowed to talk to any of the cast members. So you're already starting to be isolated. You give up your phone, you give up your wallet, you give up your passport, you give up any money you have, you know, any real form of identification or ability to be a consumer and purchase anything, you're not given a hotel room key when you get sent to your hotel. So you're not allowed to leave the hotel room without permission. You can't really comprehend what it's like to be isolated like that. It's basically like solidary confinement. And you're just stuck there with your thoughts. So, you know, it's a slow build.

Nick Thompson: So when you get there, you're OK, you can't talk to him. OK, give us your phone. We knew we were going to give the phone. None of us knew we weren't going to have our wallet or any identification, which I mean, imagine that. Imagine it's like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You finally get away from Leatherface and then you get a car that stops you and you're like, oh, my God, I've been held captive by a reality TV show. Right. Like what's going to happen if you leave? You literally can't leave.

Sam Sanders: Did you ever expect before you went on to Love is Blind that you would come out of that show and that process comparing it to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

Nick Thompson: No, I didn't. That's probably the most thought provoking question I think I've ever answered. No, I didn't.

Sam Sanders: And they scare you into not wanting to leave either, because if you leave during production, you owe them 50K in damages. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Are you serious, Nick? Netflix is going to make you pay them $50,000 if you choose to leave your reality TV prison cell. Without a producer's permission, yes.

Nick Thompson: Did you have any idea that that was one of the stipulations of your contract when you signed it?

Sam Sanders: I read the entire contract. I had to have some amendments made. Oh, yeah. But when you're reading this contract, because it's so unreal and outside of the realistic life that people live that you really don't even comprehend what these contracts are saying until you look at them in retrospect. So like, for example, I knew I was giving my phone up. I did not know I was giving up my wallet. I did not know I'd have to give up all my credit cards and my IDs so that they don't tell you until you're already there.

Nick Thompson: What were the producers doing in the midst of this extreme isolation for all the contestants? From before you even go on the show, your producers are treating you like they're your friends and they're getting to know you. But what they're really doing is getting to know what levers to pull, getting to know your triggers, getting to know your insecurities, getting to know how they can get you to do the things that they have predetermined that they want you to do.

Sam Sanders: And so, you know, I think you get a little bit of the friendly vibe from that. They also don't want you to actually leave. So they try to tow that line of warden and line of I'm your friend and I'm here to help you find love and find out what's best for you. And, you know, I'm not going to manipulate you into saying or doing anything. And then that's what their that's what their job is, quite frankly.

Nick Thompson: What was the worst thing that producers did to you, in your opinion? They didn't do anything deliberately bad to me. They were very damaging to Danielle. I sat in the closet. I locked the door. I shut this and I sat in the closet and cried. They were saying things to her, asking her questions, like just killing her confidence and trying to exploit her insecurities. And I mean, she had a panic attack in Mexico. They made her look crazy. They didn't tell me she had a panic attack and told me to go talk about the party I was at with all the couples. And she was just coming down from it. I don't know, maybe an hour earlier. Yeah. I mean, it looked like you were having fun. Looked like? Yeah. What do you think I was doing out there? I was bored. You watched it Yeah Well I watched part of it No no psychologist no mental health expert no one just producers But we were all struggling We were all struggling as it was going on We were struggling in anticipation for an airing. I think most of us were a little uneasy at the very least. But when you're filming, like, you just don't realize it's happening because you're just slowly being chipped away from a mental and physical perspective because you're exhausted. You're not sleeping right. You're not eating right. You're not getting exercise. It just takes its toll on you because you start to wonder like what's real and what's not. And then you watch the show back and it's like you're getting gaslit because you're like, that didn't happen that way. I did not say that to that person. They left out the context of that scene. And that is that's a hard thing to go through.

Sam Sanders: One of the things I've heard or read, and I want to say it pertains to the show that you were on, was the amount of alcohol always around and the absence of other fluids like water. What was going on there?

Nick Thompson: So from the moment you get there all the way until you're like on set when you're back home, like you have limited access to food and water. It's definitely not at your discretion. But there's just always alcohol. And if there wasn't alcohol, alcohol showed up very shortly thereafter. That was actually one of the policies was that if you're filming, there's alcohol available. Wow. Wow. All right. I hear you saying all of this. there are going to be some people who hear this and say, you signed up for it. This is a show about people being in pods, isolated to find love. You know, you saw the first season, they had alcohol there. People will say, since the days of the real world, reality TV has kind of worked with like alcohol and drama. What do you say to folks who are just like, you know what, Nick, you signed up for this?

Nick Thompson: Here's what I will say. You, again, don't know what you're signing up for, right? You don't realize what the isolation is going to do to you. You don't even know that you're not going to have adequate access to food and water. I mean, I'm also very keen on the fact that you cannot sign away your basic human rights, right? I don't even really have a lot of patience for the you signed up for crowd anymore because you don't know what it's actually like until you live it.

Sam Sanders: How much did you make from doing the show? $10,000 when you include after the altar, which when you're in the pods, equates to about $7.14 a minute or an hour.

Nick Thompson: Nick, I feel, you know, I feel like there needs to be a lot of change in this industry. And, you know, as you alluded all the way back to real world days, all the way back to, you know, and I've actually, unfortunately talked to people from like talk shows in the eighties who have had extremely similar situations where they're being put into scenarios or they're have no idea they're getting into. So I think we need change. And that's kind of where I find my fire. So I think we have to get some basic labor practices around these reality shows because they're making billions of dollars. Love is Blind is the most watched reality show in the world. And there's no residuals. There's no excess payment. They're pumping out two seasons a year now. First and foremost, there needs to be lawyers that can review these contracts. We have to get these contracts to not just completely benefit the production companies. I mean, if you read these things, there's like 30 pages, mine's like 30 pages long. And there's, like I said, 50K if you leave. I think one of the most important things we need to do is actually support people in their mental health and wellness, because no matter what the show is, it takes a toll on your mental health. You're making these insane life-altering decisions every day in a pressure cooker environment. And so I think we need to have independent mental health support before the show, during the show, and then after the show. People are dramatic in general. We'll still have the drama. It's just maybe we won't damage people from an emotional or physical perspective while we do it.

Sam Sanders: So you have a group organizing to help reality stars past, current, and future. And I'm sure you've seen by now this legal letter about workplace protections for reality show stars. Do you think we're on the cusp of some big change in the way these companies treat reality TV contestants?

Nick Thompson: I think it's coming whether they want it to come or not. More and more people are obviously speaking out. And I think all of us coming together is going to be what forces change in the industry. Because the time is now for a variety of reasons. But one of them is with Hollywood on strike, there's just more reality TV being produced. And if there's more reality TV being produced, that means there's going to be more people that are mentally and physically damaged coming out of these shows. We're in this moment where we need to stand together, understand that we have rights as human beings, understand that we are workers and we are making a plethora of cash for these production companies. And we deserve protections and rights and negotiating power and all sorts of, you know, typical labor laws that somehow reality TV production has escaped.

Sam Sanders: That was Nick Thompson. He got married on Netflix. Now Nick helps run an advocacy group for people who are about to star, are starring, or have starred on reality TV. It's called UCAN. U-C-A-N. They are pushing for a lot of the things that Nick has already talked about. Plus, a union. Nick, call Bethany. Trust me.

Sam Sanders: Also, we reached out to Netflix and the production company that makes Love is Blind, just to see if they wanted to respond to any of this. We didn't hear back.

Sam Sanders: Our show today was produced by Siona Petras, Hadi Muagdi, and edited by Jolie Myers. It was engineered by Patrick Boyd and David Herman, and fact-checked by Laura Bullard.

Sam Sanders: Also, listeners, I host another podcast I think you might want to check out. It's called Intuit. It's from Vulture, and we have an episode out right now with the novelist Brandon Taylor. We talk all about how you write a book in the age of book talk and Twitter X. we also discuss his new book and why the book discourse in general just feels off it's a fun, smart, good chat he's great, we're great go check it out, into it alright, this is Today Explained Thank you.