January 1, 2026 • 40 mins
Mary Payne sits down for a chat with the executive producer (Deniese Davis) and the director (Julian P. Hobbs) of TLC's The Cult of the Real Housewife. We discuss the role of social media and content creators in the investigation into Mary and Robert Cosby's church as well as the myriad of former congregants featured in the documentary. And we pose the question - is Mary Cosby a victim or a willing participant in the shenanigans of the church?
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Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ts9KXq7uPkQ
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hey, everybody, welcome to Pink Shade. You guys, this is
a bonus episode. I'm so excited that I'm going to
talk to the producer and the director of the Cult
of the Real Housewife. You guys know this documentary is
a three part series airing on TLC starting January. First,
you can binge all three I did you guys. It's
really really good. It crosses what we're all interested in.
(00:38):
We all love TLC like it's our beating heart, but
of course we also love.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Bravo and we also love Mary Cosby.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
So this documentary was very eye opening, very well done.
So thank you very much to Julian and Denise for
joining me to discuss Now, Julian, you're the director and producer.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
And Denise you're the executive producer.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yes, yes, and not joining us as Ellie. She's the
other director.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I know.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
She is your partner, Julian that does these documentaries with you,
and she's not here, but you're here to represent.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I am thank having you.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
And by the way, love your accent. Love wherever you are,
I'm very jealous. It looks better than where I am.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Palermo, Sicily is where I am. I know White lotus,
come on.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Really, Oh my gosh, Italy is on our bucket list
to go in twenty twenty six, and we have a
family friend that's having their child's wedding in Italy.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So we're just going to like make a whole time
best excuse excuse, like we have to go.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
We have to know some tips. I'm happy to provide them.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yes, I would like all the tips. I would like
all the tips. I'd like to stay in that house.
It's gorgeous. So first of all, if you guys are
watching a video, then you understand what I'm saying. So
thank you guys for being here. I'm excited to chat
about this documentary. When I saw that TLC was doing this,
it warmed my heart because I'm a huge TLC fan.
I cover all most of their shows, but I'm also
(02:10):
a giant Bravo fan, and over the years, Mary Cosby
this documentary sort of reminds.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Some of us Bravo fans what we.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Forgot about, right the first couple of seasons where you're
like this is interesting and everybody questioning it. But now
Mary is so light and bright and airy and breezy
and funny. We're like, huh, forget it. She wants a cult.
It's fine, nobody look over there, right.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I wouldn't know.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I actually don't watch the show, so okay, all of
my information is hearsay, Internet chatter, all of the like.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Okay, So that was my first question. Do either of
you watch any of the Housewives? Are you familiar?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Oh? Absolutely familiar, and watched all of Housewives of Salt
Lake City just as as a matter of research and
getting up to speed with the arc. But but I
was not at Bravo call. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I was.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, I was looking out for Mary Gosby every.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Quell and by the way, I should just say, way
up from tallows ellie me, Denise. We have no beef
with the Real Housewives. It's obviously beloved by many. It's
a gigantic television franchise, which we love. We love TV,
we love you know. All film is focused on the
Mary Cosby and the Bishop of it all.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yes, yes, the bishop is the interesting part to me.
That's what I came away with. So how did this
come to your radar for you to think like, you know,
we've seen a Ginshaw documentary, We've seen you know, one
about probably Teresa Judice. There's lots of housewives over the
years that and most recently Windy Spho that have done
(03:58):
things illegally and people are always like, nobody's talking about
this perhaps cult. So how did this come to you?
Speaker 4 (04:07):
Yeah, well, I'll speak so a couple of years ago,
and once again, we weren't watching the Housewives franchise when
it first aired. But Yanne Rowntree, whose incredible journalist who's
also featured in our docu series, released an article with
The Daily Beast, right, I think it was after season
one that was too many, the first I think set
(04:29):
of allegations around Mary Cosby and this cult like allegations.
And so this article came to Julian and Ellie, who
then shared it with me and they were like, have
you read this?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Have you seen you know? Do you watch the show?
Speaker 4 (04:42):
And I immediately read this and was like, I have
no idea who this woman is.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I don't watch this show.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
However, what Chyenne did in her initial reporting was pretty
groundbreaking and fascinating, and as a fan of just documentaries,
my first words were like, if this was a documentary,
I would eat this up because I no idea who
this woman is. But this is a fascinating, I think
approach to you know, hearing so many of the initial
victims stories and what was really going on. And that's
(05:09):
kind of what initially sent us on this journey because
then we you know, started contacting Cheyenne and doing our
initial research. But I think her article really was that foundation.
Would you say so, Julian.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Completely yep, her article for Dailybes. She's now a reporter
at Rolling Stone, So Cheyenne was central to this. She
was the foundation of the work. We then cast more people,
talked to, more people, expanded, but the initial remit was
her core reporting. I also find it interesting though, after
reading that, I went and going back to watch season one,
(05:44):
and this is the phenomenon a lot of documentaries that
we make at Tallos, is that the churn on this
was happening online during season one. It was people after
the tape was released saying that Mary was shaking down
a congregation of berating them for not giving enough money.
That then you get the chatter began to go wait
a minute, sounds a little cultish. And having directed and
(06:05):
produced before House of Hammer on Arnie Armie Hammer, that
started online as well. So the initial question actually was
self generated, and then of course it merged into the
series and Andy Cohen asked at the end of season
one directly to Mary Cosby, are you running a cult?
And then in season two it emerged as a storyline.
(06:28):
So actually we didn't pose the question is you know,
is Mary Cosby running a cult? That was posed organically
within the series itself. We just decided to investigate further
and talk to the people who would never talked to
during that when that question was raised. Was actually siblings,
you know, fellow family members, congregation members. No one ever
(06:51):
went out and talked to them. That's what Cheyenne started,
and then that's what we accelerated in the documentary.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And the social media part is interesting because in the
documentary there are a lot of kind of quick quick
cuts of this person on TikTok, this person I saw
lots of people that I knew. I was like, Oh,
my goodness, there's my friend. There's my friend, there's my friend.
All these content creators and up in Adam is someone
I know as well, and he was featured heavily, and
I completely had forgotten that Adam went and interviewed Mary's mom.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, it's an amazing. We exok the piece of that
in the film. It's the most and she unfortunately passed
away earlier this year, so that's an important piece of
archive in the film to get her perspective.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
It really, it really that to me was fascinating because
and also the story that Mary told this season and
what's in the documentary is sort of it all somewhere
in there is the truth, right, but what is it?
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Well? And that's when I think the docuseries kind of
posts the question once you devour it, whether you're a
Housewives fan or a non Housewives and don't know anything
about this story, I think through the investigative research and
all of the all of the different participants and sharing
their sides of the story, I think that is the
question that we pose, right, which is like, what is
the truth there? Other than just presenting the facts as
(08:14):
we know it through our everyone else's experience. And I
think it was really important for us to include the
bloggers and the influencers and the people on the internet
because in so many ways, to Julian's point, they were
also uncovering the story in real time as well, and
so it felt like if we were going to help
draw out the timeline of events and incorporate any clips
(08:34):
and things around the housewives, you know, people like yourselves.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
You guys do such a good.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Job in this S fandom world of being able to
speak on this and being able to have reached out
to participants like Adam having interviewed her mother right, Like,
it was like, how could we not include them as
part of this larger narrative as we're you know, taking
everyone's accounts into this. And I think that that's something
really unique in this docu series that I don't find
(08:59):
a lot of people do you normally in a documentary
that it was it was.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
It's the world we live in, right, So it's it's
it's relatable and familiar. As you're watching it, you're like, oh,
I may have seen that. I know who that person is.
I remember three years ago when this person said that.
But because our world is so fast, like like I said,
a lot of it I had forgotten and I devour this.
I mean it literally is not not like my job.
It is my job, and so I it's so much
(09:27):
of it I had forgotten. So I was glad that
the documentary sort of reminded me. Season one, Season two,
and how when Robert Sr. Which is what we call
him because there is a Robert Jr. Robert Senior came
on the reunion. It was so combative and nasty and
she was it to me, came across a little father
(09:47):
daughter ish not.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And so there's there's it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
That's the right intersection. Dare I say with with with
Mary's mom, which is unpacked in episode two, which is
you know, this is a story that goes back generations
and dozens and dozens of years, so you have to
dial back into nineteen ninety seven and nineteen ninety eight
when Mama, the founder of Faith Temple, passed away and
(10:12):
the inheritance was up and air. Now, normally you would
assume it might go to her eldest daughter, which is
Mary's mom, and in the shakeup at the church, instead,
what Harriet happened is this is well known of course,
is that Mary married her step grandfather, right, and so
the line of secession was turned in a different direction.
(10:35):
And without giving away a lot of information that's in
the film, we really dived deep into what happened in
that moment and the breakup of the church, which was
a very beloved Pentecostal church. Mama was an icon in
Salt Lake City, did all these great things, and then
(10:55):
it became something very different once Mary and Robert c
Year took over. And that's that's kind of episode two
unpacks that I think a lot of people may view
and think, Oh, this cool thing just happened when Real
Housewives came on, or a couple of years before. Yeah,
much more complex and interesting and I think compelling story
than that one thousand percent.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
And I also feel like people in some ways when
the trailer dropped were concerned that this docuseries is just
retreading information you might have already seen or that.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
People have already talked about.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
And you know, one thing I'm most proud of is
to join this point the second episode where we also
talk about the origin story of this church and what
Mama came in and built in the late nineteen sixties
and so much of that to understand Mary and a
lot of these allegations. It felt so important to us
to be able to pull back and say, Okay, well
where did this all start? And I think you have
(11:46):
to have a full picture understanding of this family, of
this church and how things were and then what they
became eventually under their leadership, and that to us was
very important because that part, I think doesn't feel like
it's ever really been out there. I think people have
found clips of Mama preaching and whatnot. But her story
was very important to our participants as well, who really
(12:07):
wanted to shine a light on just how beloved, you know,
Rosemary Cosby was to all of them.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
That that was something I did not know. I didn't
quite understand the journey of how the church was created
and how blood she still is and the people that
still talk about her, and how sort of Robert came
in and with Mary they sort of like ruined it.
Before it had been this loving, inclusive place. And then
Robert and Mary would get up on the pulpit and
(12:34):
sort of break people. And it was interesting too with
Adam's interview with Mary's mom saying that, you know, Mary
here was a victim. Now, many other people in the
show didn't agree with that. They said, no, she was
like this from the jump. She was materialistic. She was
always trying to go from one guy to the next,
(12:56):
the one that could provide. So we've seen, you know,
a lot of a lot of it's sort of like
up to the viewer to decide, right, And it's also
kind of up to the viewer to decide, like are
you just going to accept this like fun like Mary
that's on our screen, or are you going to look back?
Or And if you guys don't watch a lot of housewives,
you don't know a lot of times they call housewives
(13:16):
shows lily pads because people go on to jump off
to something else, mostly leaving their husbands. Usually usually it's
like you can see on TV they have this terrible
spouse and they leave them. Now, if this is in
fact what happened with Mary and Robert, then we hope
for her that she does leave him. The church has
not been active for years.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
She says that it was just rebooted in the last month,
right after Bravo com So the latest episodes have the
reopening of Faith Temple, which we didn't look at that,
you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
But yeah, well it was pasted.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
Yeah, it's interesting to see, like will we I don't know,
it's interesting that she rebooted it because it seems to
me the best idea would have been to shut it
down and let those members go with some other congregations,
you know, I mean, I mean.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
To your point, I think it's a really it's important
to say that that not even what they've Yeah, people will,
by the way, just to talk about Adam for one moment,
to give him a lot of props. He is a
huge fan of the Housewise.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Fred Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, bread and butter,
that's what he is. I met him at Ravo con
so yes, and he.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Chose when he witnessed this because it wasn't just Mary's mother.
He also interviewed on his on his show, Dan Cosby,
you know who's a big part of our film. So yes,
he went. He decided to become a Gumshoe detective because
in his opinion, something was suspicious, something was off here,
and he was one of the early people, just like Cheyenne,
(14:44):
to really begin to dig into the story, which was
kind of everyone felt was in the rear view mirror.
But one thing we say about this is in people's lives,
they don't work like reality TV. So just because a
character may evolve on a reality TV show doesn't mean
that the damage that had been done to these people
who are part of this church isn't long lasting and
that they still don't suffer and have grievances against being
(15:07):
within this, so we're just giving them that platform. They
haven't had that platform before. And of course it's up
to the viewers to decide what they think about Mary,
what they think about cult allegations. Again, we didn't make
the cult allegation that came up organically within the show.
But I think I'll say this, for people who are
die hard fans, I encourage them to watch the show
(15:30):
because they may have a change of heart, you know.
And at the same time, I encourage people who aren't
fans of the Real Housewife franchise to come and watch,
you know, the Cult behind the Real Housewife because it's
actually a case study of how a cult might be created, right,
It's kind of like a textbook example. That's why we
have our expert talking to that. So I think that
(15:51):
it's it's you know, I think a lot of the
fans will turn up and watch because there's a curiosity
point there. But I think, you know, these days, people one,
you know, people want to hear about colts, they want
to hear how they operate. So I think it's built
for both audiences.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
The the cult expert was great because he was explaining
and I've covered a lot of documentaries about cults as well,
but I think that you know the power, the sex,
the control, the financial right. And so when you look
at this and granted this may be on a small scale,
you know, it's not a wild wild country, it's not
the Rajishes, it's not like a large sale cult, but
it is on a small.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Scale a little bit of a cult.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
And them talking about being locked in and you don't
get to leave until you donate or you know. The
guy I think it was Ernest said that he was
there that day with the famous I only got fourteen
birthday cards, and he was like, mine was one of
the fourteen, and I gave her a thousand dollars. So
you're thinking, I'm just thinking growing up going to my
(16:50):
Methodist church, and what world am I giving my minister
a birthday card? Much less one thousand dollars? Like what
I'd be like given my five dollars in the offering?
Like it's wild to me. And this is kind of
what I want to talk to you guys about. How
do you think that Robert and Mary have explained their lavish,
(17:11):
very like luxury six homes everything designer lifestyle in a
church of people that are just very middle class, regular people.
How was that explained?
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Well, to be honest, we don't know. Because we asked
Mary to an ambishop Robertsenia to be part of the
film and to answer some of the allegations and they
chose not to, which is their right. So it puts
us in a position where we can't speak to their motivation.
We can illustrate what people have experienced firsthand. And it
(17:41):
should be said that that was done journalistically, so everything
the show is double fact checked. There were some things
that was said in the documentary that didn't make the
final cup because we couldn't verify it. So honestly, I
would love to know an explanation from Robert Senior or Mary,
but that is not part of wall film.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, it's interesting when you see on the show, probably
the first season, maybe the second season, when you went
to her house and she did have people working in
the house, that seemed to be like, this was my cousin,
this is my sister in law, and it's like ordering
people around in her home, bringing me this, do this,
And I was like, that's your sister in law, that's
(18:25):
your cousin, and you're speaking to them. And there's a
cousin that appears on the show quite a bit, who's
a contractor who was helping with this remodel of the church,
and he just calls her ma'am. Yes, ma'am uh huh.
I was like, this is like your first cousin you
grew up with and you're calling her ma'am. It's very
it is very called like and very strange. And I
(18:46):
did really like how you included her sister in the documentary.
That was fascinating. When the sister appeared on the screen,
It's like Mary Counsey's sister. I was like, whoa, We've
never seen her before. She had a lot to say,
she had a lot to.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Denise, Well, Denise, I know we shared the same name,
which was which was fun now, but Denise was was
was I think such such a powerful story for us
because obviously she was able to speak to so much
about the Mary's childhood and growing up together and again
the origin story of what it used to be. But
(19:24):
but I think with all of our participants, the most
interesting thing is that a lot of them were still
very active in the church even after Mary and Robert
took over in their leadership. And and did not actually
leave until right before COVID, right before Mary joined the Housewives,
And so they had this really intricate, deep understanding and
knowledge of just around all of the cult like allegations
(19:46):
that they themselves said, I felt like I was in
a cult, right, And so I think that was to
us very powerful to get their accounts because they had
been a part of this up.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Until so recently.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
And yet her sister is just you know, it's your sister,
someone who is represumably was close at one point.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yeah, this type of indoctrination goes beyond faith. This is
people who felt like and Denise articulates this like she
was going to write in Internal Hell if she left
the church. The indoctor nation at a level such an
extreme level that people could not imagine leaving. Their entire
worldview was being framed through Bishop and Mary and getting
(20:30):
out wasn't an option. And we're talking about people here.
So you have the Eenarchs, which is Rosy, and you
have Ernest Nark and you have Michael Enoch. Their relationship
that church goes back to their father joining in the
nineteen seventies and heading up the choir. These are people
who obviously Denise is Mary's sister. So these are people
who are deeply interconnected and people who still have family
(20:52):
members in the church. So it's you know, one, but
I think it's Michael says or Ernest. Mary divides, so
they die families, they divide, siblings, they divide. In the
case in all film when you see Dan Cosby and
his wife, that marriage is nearly ripped apart. And this
is either you're in and you're all in and your
true believer, or else any doubt, any questioning, You're out,
(21:15):
You're banished.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
It's very uh, you know, just another famous cult scientology.
You know, you think it's very similar when you and
it's very nexium. It's very similar. It's like if you
and your spouse are in, that's great, but they're going
to get try to get you to.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Turn on each other.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
And then this is you know, brings up the cult
aspect of you know, power, sex, financials, and we hear
a lot of allegations about Robert kind of maybe trying
to coerce his grandson's wife to sort of constantly be
at his house and testing her. Do you want to
(21:55):
go with me to Vegas? And all these things, and
you're like, what do we do here? This is so
much this is your grandson's wife. And the fact that
Denise kept calling Robertson and your gramps just killed me.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
It just killed me. Yeah, she kept because she was because.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
That's how she knows him as gramps. And you're like,
but it's married to your sister. It takes a little
bit to draw. And you guys did a great job
by the way, on the documentary of like the flow
chart of who was.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Oh, I mean, you had to at some point the
family tree because there's you know, so many of them,
and and and in some ways because they all grew
up together, they are like a family, right, Oh yes,
against the family members and the non family members. They
were a very tight knit group. And so I think
in order to just kind of understand the landscape, yeah,
we had to do the family tree and the chart
(22:44):
just to be able to really to to allow yours
to understand who was speaking into what regard right, So
that way you understood exactly where they fell within.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
It was helped a larger content. It was helpful.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
So, Okay, another issue on the on the show on
the Real Housewives, she has said or maybe she said
it on an interview, but she said when she first
married Robert, she kind of didn't want to didn't want
to do it, but you know, Mama had said they
had to, which is in dispute in the documentary. People
say that never happened, but she said, you know, when
she first married him, she did not want to have
(23:18):
sex with him, and she would sort of high from
him or say she was having your period and things
to kind of avoid it. Now, eventually they obviously did.
They had a son, and in the interviews on the show,
they give off a very father daughter vibe. But did
you get from the interviews you did? Do you get
the feeling that we have on the show now they
live completely separate lives. She's at home with the son
(23:38):
and he's off to one of their homes, Like, what
is he still preaching in the church.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Honestly, that's another thing that we don't know because of them.
You know, the people we're talking to are the people
who have left and they're out of the inner circle,
you know, so they don't actually know what's going on
in that mansion up on the hill per se. And
you know, again, I'll leave it up to view is
(24:03):
to decide whether they think Mary's telling the whole story
there or not.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Right, both of them, Robert and Mary, the Bishop, Mary,
Who's did they come up with this plan together that
Mama said, But Mama died suddenly.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
So and then I do know from listening to a.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Podcast that I love the Bravo docket that says that
there was that Mary's mom did want to have Mama
exhumed at one point to see if Robert had murdered her. Like,
it's just so so many layers.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
I mean, you have you have Sam in the film.
He no longer goes by Cosby, but he was. He
was Mama's adopted son. I mean. The one thing he
says that may give you a clue, and again this
is his opinion, right, He says, Mary's kink is money,
mm hmm, yeah, And I think that's probably followed the
money has a lot to do behind a lot of
(24:55):
colts is also a con and I think follow the
money is an important part of the story. So some
people in our films say that it was a it
was a it was a marriage of convenience, you know,
and that's.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Fine, that's not the first person in the world to
do that, But they sweep under this was Mary before,
and you know, the.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
People in our church went with that for a good
many of them up into the last few years. They
went on that on that train for a long long time,
and they thought that's what was ordained, and the legacy
of the church is going to continue through Mary. A
bishop already was part of the legacy. It was, so,
you know, just to break down simply, Episode one looks
at the allegations in the first two seasons of Real Housewives,
(25:35):
and then it tells you the story you haven't heard
behind those things that were very buzzy at the time.
Episode two, as Denise laid out, rolls you back and
tells you the origin story Mama, the passing of Mama,
and how Bishop and Mary took control of the church
right then. Episode three looks at the years from nineteen
ninety eight up until the premiere of Housewives where the
(25:58):
church allegedly descend ended into a far different cultish organization
and it kept escalating. And so that's just so people
know when they tune in, that's that's kind of how
the arc is going to play out.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I was wanting a fourth episode. I was like, oh,
there's more, but.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
I don't know you. And by the way, if Mary
and Robert want to speak, the door's always open for
that conversation to happen.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
They showed a couple of scenes that were kind of
known on the show, which is one scene where Mary
goes over to Whitney's house and her children are there
because they're coming to make cookies or do something. And
Mary comes in and she's telling a story. This person
in my congregation was killed. She was ejected out of
her son roof and she rolled down the ditch and
she's telling this awful story. And you see Whitney and
her two young children going, oh my gosh, oh my goodness,
(26:49):
this is terrible. And the kids are like, oh my god,
this is the girl. Okay, and she goes, no, she died,
and she goes, wear your seat belt. Now, what they
didn't show on the documentary which was on the show,
which like two seconds later, And of course it could
be edited. She could have said this ten minutes later,
but the way it shows on the show is she
says wear your seat belt, and then she goes, whoo,
I'm here, let's make some cookies, like all in the
(27:10):
same and you're like Wait, what was heartbreaking on the
documentary is the family of this girl that she's referring
to that got ejected out of a son roof and died.
A young mother very known, very known to Mary.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Not a stranger who names Michel Mikel.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
But Mikel and the father and the aunt who would
raise her all very very close with Mary. So Mary
is not telling this crazy story about Wow, I read
this on the news. She's telling a story about someone
she knew very well, so callously, and that was shocking.
And I'm really glad that that was in the documentary
(27:50):
to see the family of that girl. To be like
this girl was like a punchline and people thought it
was funny. But this was our family member, This was
a mother, This was a young girl in the church
who loved to marry.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I think that was shocked.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Be one of the most affecting, uh pathos written, sad,
disturbing pieces of the film. That story, and it goes
further with with Michel's father, Michael. You know, it was
a big part of the film. He asserts alleges that
(28:23):
then there was a disruption by Mary of the go
fund meet Boushy. Michael had two young kids who that
need to be taken care of. And so it even
went further than say and inappropriate gaff or maybe that
was edited on the TV show to look that way.
It was much more thought through and punitive to that family.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
And and and why you know, yeah, well.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
And and I think Amery pay what was important to
us too is once again, I think on a show
like The Housewives, it is reality TV, they're not always
going to, I think, show the whole narrative, and that
is sal skew to Mary, right. And so I think
it was so at least for the Enochs and how
real and tragic this event was for them, It was
so important to allow them to tell their side of
(29:07):
the story to that clip that everyone has seen on
The Housewives. Fig yet there is a young girl whose
life was tragically cut short, and this family was very
devastated by her comments and what she said and how
she portrayed it, and they felt portrayed. And I think
for a lot of them, you know, you can talk about,
at least as at the time as members of the church,
(29:28):
how that made them feel. And I think it was
really really important to allow Michael and and Rozzie to like,
tell their side of the story of that impact and
how that impacted them. And because you don't get that
on The Housewives, you don't see I don't even think
they mentioned Mikel's name.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
You have no idea around.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
The truth of this tragedy and how that impacted the church.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I did like that.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
There were a lot of things that we've seen on
the show again that I've kind of forgotten about. You know,
the berating text that she sent to Whitney and Whitney's
reading them. I kind of like, oh, my gosh, she's
talking about how I look and this, that and the other.
And we've saw her many times on the show just
flat out tell Heather she was fat, or tell her
she looked inbread. Just like very blunt, very very cruel,
(30:12):
mean things to say to people, and it's sort of like, well,
she's whimsical.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
There are be times on the show and people said,
do you want to come and sit with us? She's
like no, or why are you wearing?
Speaker 4 (30:21):
That?
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Just mean and it's sort of kind of the Laura
that she's funny and quirky. But it was interesting to
have these real life church members say, oh, that's nothing
and it's funny when it's on TV, but when it's
directed at you, and this is somebody that is the
leader of your church coming at you this way that
you respect, And the story of the elderly woman that
(30:43):
died in anyone that works in her home and how
awful they treated her. And that girl's name was Susie,
and she was saying the way she treated my sister,
you know, and I didn't get to and I didn't
get to go to the funeral because they had kicked
me out of the church because I was I spoke up.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
There's just a lot of story, the guys.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
If you are thinking, like I don't know if I'm
going to watch this, there are so many stories there,
some that you see on the show that sort of
play into it, which I liked as a as a
Bravo viewer to kind of get the backstory, and some
of them like that is kind of quirky and funny
the way she is, But also if you're on the
receiving end of it, it's pretty terrible and devastating, especially
(31:20):
if it's a person in a position of power. And
that is sort of what your cult expert talks about
a lot the what cult leaders do, right, they bring
you up, they pull you down, you know, they pull
you in and they badger you, and then do you
feel like you can't live without them for some reason.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Of course, no cult leader ever says, hey, I'm a
cult leader, So I'm right. That's the point. You need
to look at it from the outside. You need to
break out of the bubble and the and the interesting
thing is is for some of these members who we
talked to until Housewives aired well one, they were outraged
by her behavior on the show. Some said that she was,
(31:56):
you know, hiding in plain sight by some of the
behavior traits you're talking about that they had witnessed in
even more extreme forms firsthand. But I also think for
some of them they did not realize the wealth that
had been amassed by Bishop and Mary, and the opulence
and the and the display of that opulence. They just
(32:17):
were slack jawed. You know.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
You see that house and all the luxury items and
the thousands of handbags, and she's and she's just bragging, saying,
I'm gonna have to get an apartment to use as
my closets.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I have so many things. She's living in a little.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
And she's a preacher, you know, and that's odd.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You know, it's odd, and you didn't see Mama behaving
that way from what I can understand.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
No, no, no, gosh. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Now on this note, are you guys worried that, you know,
Mary fans, which of there are many and bravo fans
coming after you were saying like you didn't tell the
whole story. And again, like you've said over and over,
you reached out to them and it says it right
there in the documentary, you reach out to them many times.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
To have them tell the side of the story.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Are you sort of are you worried about any sort
of backlash on this or you feel you've told.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
I mean, personally, I'm not, mainly because I think we
did our job to the best of our ability to.
I think uphold the stories of these victims and their truths,
and what matters to what matters to us most is
that we can't invalidate how they feel and what their
experience was. And all we did was really shine a
light and uphold and allow them a platform to share
(33:36):
their experiences and their trauma and their pain is very real.
And you know, we did want to and would've liked
to include Mary and Robert's accounts of these things, but
we weren't able to, and so therefore all we're doing
here is showing the other side as far as these
these church members and these family members who have not
(33:58):
really been able to have a chance to speak on
their behalf.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
And that's really what our.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Focus was here, and I think we did that job
really well, and I'd like to think that they would
also be proud to be able to have this opportunity,
because at the end of the day, we're also not
definitively saying one way or another if is Mary a victim?
Is Mary of Dylan, And at the end of the day,
no one can really speak the whole truth. And I
think any fans and anyone who feels like we're not
(34:26):
sharing everything that there is, you know, would have to
pose a larger question. Well, then you know who is
the truth teller? There is not one person other than
I think Mary and Robert who would be able to
really encapsulate everything here, and so all we're doing is
really bringing the other side to a narrative that a
lot of people really don't know and allowing that to
be out there and let the series speak for itself.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
It's really really good. And I noticed, you know a
lot of the work you guys have done. You've done
the House of Hammer and Queen of Meth and all this,
and I'm like, you know, you think Army Hammer in
that family that's wild and then the Queen of Math.
Of course tom Arnold's sister who ran this meth business.
And you've done so many different things like this. How
(35:10):
does this compare as far as unsavory creatures that you
run across in your business? How does this compare?
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Oh boy, I don't have a talis ranking of unsavory creatures,
and I wouldn't. I mean, I think listen with for
people who've seen Queen of Math, which is about Tom
Onold's sister, who is one of the one of the
largest math dealers in the Midwest of the nineteen eighties.
(35:39):
That's interesting because she was manufactured and sold drugs and
that and paid the price and went to jail for
many years for that. And there's no way you can
put a smiley face on drug dealing, but you can
put a context to who she was as a human
being and how she arrived at that point, which is
very different from some of these other people who I
think you're dealing with people in power people. You know,
(36:02):
when you're talking about Queen of Matth is a woman
who is completely disempowered because she was in a roust belt,
de industrialized Midwest town. All opportunities were shut down and
drug dealing was her path. It's not the right path.
But then we hear people who have tremendous wealth, tremendous power,
tremendous media exposure, and I enjoy giving people enjoy. I
(36:24):
feel proud to give people a platform to speak their
truth to that power system. And so I suppose that's
a common theme with House and Hammer in this one
and another one we did, which was how to create
a sex scandal that look at kind of satanic panic
in a small town and the malibility of the mind.
(36:44):
And that's what's interesting about colts too, is we could
all end up in one because the mind is malleable
and emotions can be pulled, and it's behaviorism. You know,
if you have a rubber band and you snap it
every day when you spoke a cigarette're going to star smoking.
But that's the classic study and coercive control. Mary and
(37:05):
Bishop was snapping a lot of other bands to other ends. Right,
they're punishing people to get something out of them. Right,
So these mind control, the playbook of mind control, the
playbook of colts is universal. Who would have thought it
might have cropped up on the Real Housewives? I mean
that's odd.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah, yeah, listen our Housewives. They give to us, they
give us the storylines, and this one was, you know,
as you pointed out in the documentary, you know, like,
who would have thought?
Speaker 2 (37:37):
You know?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
And again Mary says on the thing, why would I
come on here if I was a cult leader.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Now we've had many.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Bravo lobs that said, why would I come on here
if I was committing financial paul?
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Well they do, and then they go to jail.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
And you're like, why would I come on here if
I was defrauding old people? Well you did, and then
now you're in jail, you know. So I don't know
if it's an attention thing or it's a narcissistic thing.
I'm never going to get caught. Well, I just want
to thank you guys so much because the documentary was
perfection well done. I watched it once and my daughter
wanted to watch it with me, and I said, well,
(38:11):
I'm gonna have to take notes, so I'm gonna have
to be pausing.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Quite a bit. And she said, well, will you watch
it again with me?
Speaker 1 (38:16):
I said yes, so we're gonna watch it again a
second time where.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
I don't have to take notes.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Wow, yes, yes, she's twenty two. I was going to
say yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I was like, she loves it and she thinks Mary
Cosby is funny, and so I said, but she, you know,
she understands. And I said, well, I think you're going
to really find this interesting and as somebody her age,
with the quick cuts that you have in there, with
all the social media things that we've seen over the years,
I think that will be very appealing for her age
range as well. And I got to tell you, when
(38:47):
I was watching it, I like took a little picture
a couple of times and send it to some friends.
I go, you're appearing in this documentary and they're like,
oh my gosh, exciting, you.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Know, exciting.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yes, thank you guys, so much, so much. Mary Payne.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Tell everybody where they can find the documentary, give us
the US.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
So The Cult of the Real Housewives premieres on t
LC on January first, eight pm. It's three. It's a
three hour event that is its premiere, and the following
day it streams on HBO Max and Discovery Plus.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yes, yes, I say, I say watch it at eight pm.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
That's what I say. Absolutely very.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yeah. What else are you on January first? Nothing?
Speaker 3 (39:34):
What I mean, on the couch hangover?
Speaker 4 (39:36):
Possibly, but possibly yes, But but we're really excited and
you know, we worked Everyone who was a part of
the show worked so hard on it, and I, for one,
Bill can't wait to be on the internet threads and
they hear all the chatter that that people have to say.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
It's going to be It's going to be interesting. All right,
Thank you guys, don't hang up. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Thanks most
Hey, everybody, welcome to Pink Shade. You guys, this is
a bonus episode. I'm so excited that I'm going to
talk to the producer and the director of the Cult
of the Real Housewife. You guys know this documentary is
a three part series airing on TLC starting January. First,
you can binge all three I did you guys. It's
really really good. It crosses what we're all interested in.
(00:38):
We all love TLC like it's our beating heart, but
of course we also love.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Bravo and we also love Mary Cosby.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
So this documentary was very eye opening, very well done.
So thank you very much to Julian and Denise for
joining me to discuss Now, Julian, you're the director and producer.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
And Denise you're the executive producer.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yes, yes, and not joining us as Ellie. She's the
other director.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I know.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
She is your partner, Julian that does these documentaries with you,
and she's not here, but you're here to represent.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I am thank having you.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
And by the way, love your accent. Love wherever you are,
I'm very jealous. It looks better than where I am.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Palermo, Sicily is where I am. I know White lotus,
come on.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Really, Oh my gosh, Italy is on our bucket list
to go in twenty twenty six, and we have a
family friend that's having their child's wedding in Italy.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So we're just going to like make a whole time
best excuse excuse, like we have to go.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
We have to know some tips. I'm happy to provide them.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yes, I would like all the tips. I would like
all the tips. I'd like to stay in that house.
It's gorgeous. So first of all, if you guys are
watching a video, then you understand what I'm saying. So
thank you guys for being here. I'm excited to chat
about this documentary. When I saw that TLC was doing this,
it warmed my heart because I'm a huge TLC fan.
I cover all most of their shows, but I'm also
(02:10):
a giant Bravo fan, and over the years, Mary Cosby
this documentary sort of reminds.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Some of us Bravo fans what we.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Forgot about, right the first couple of seasons where you're
like this is interesting and everybody questioning it. But now
Mary is so light and bright and airy and breezy
and funny. We're like, huh, forget it. She wants a cult.
It's fine, nobody look over there, right.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I wouldn't know.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I actually don't watch the show, so okay, all of
my information is hearsay, Internet chatter, all of the like.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Okay, So that was my first question. Do either of
you watch any of the Housewives? Are you familiar?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Oh? Absolutely familiar, and watched all of Housewives of Salt
Lake City just as as a matter of research and
getting up to speed with the arc. But but I
was not at Bravo call. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I was.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, I was looking out for Mary Gosby every.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Quell and by the way, I should just say, way
up from tallows ellie me, Denise. We have no beef
with the Real Housewives. It's obviously beloved by many. It's
a gigantic television franchise, which we love. We love TV,
we love you know. All film is focused on the
Mary Cosby and the Bishop of it all.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yes, yes, the bishop is the interesting part to me.
That's what I came away with. So how did this
come to your radar for you to think like, you know,
we've seen a Ginshaw documentary, We've seen you know, one
about probably Teresa Judice. There's lots of housewives over the
years that and most recently Windy Spho that have done
(03:58):
things illegally and people are always like, nobody's talking about
this perhaps cult. So how did this come to you?
Speaker 4 (04:07):
Yeah, well, I'll speak so a couple of years ago,
and once again, we weren't watching the Housewives franchise when
it first aired. But Yanne Rowntree, whose incredible journalist who's
also featured in our docu series, released an article with
The Daily Beast, right, I think it was after season
one that was too many, the first I think set
(04:29):
of allegations around Mary Cosby and this cult like allegations.
And so this article came to Julian and Ellie, who
then shared it with me and they were like, have
you read this?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Have you seen you know? Do you watch the show?
Speaker 4 (04:42):
And I immediately read this and was like, I have
no idea who this woman is.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I don't watch this show.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
However, what Chyenne did in her initial reporting was pretty
groundbreaking and fascinating, and as a fan of just documentaries,
my first words were like, if this was a documentary,
I would eat this up because I no idea who
this woman is. But this is a fascinating, I think
approach to you know, hearing so many of the initial
victims stories and what was really going on. And that's
(05:09):
kind of what initially sent us on this journey because
then we you know, started contacting Cheyenne and doing our
initial research. But I think her article really was that foundation.
Would you say so, Julian.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Completely yep, her article for Dailybes. She's now a reporter
at Rolling Stone, So Cheyenne was central to this. She
was the foundation of the work. We then cast more people,
talked to, more people, expanded, but the initial remit was
her core reporting. I also find it interesting though, after
reading that, I went and going back to watch season one,
(05:44):
and this is the phenomenon a lot of documentaries that
we make at Tallos, is that the churn on this
was happening online during season one. It was people after
the tape was released saying that Mary was shaking down
a congregation of berating them for not giving enough money.
That then you get the chatter began to go wait
a minute, sounds a little cultish. And having directed and
(06:05):
produced before House of Hammer on Arnie Armie Hammer, that
started online as well. So the initial question actually was
self generated, and then of course it merged into the
series and Andy Cohen asked at the end of season
one directly to Mary Cosby, are you running a cult?
And then in season two it emerged as a storyline.
(06:28):
So actually we didn't pose the question is you know,
is Mary Cosby running a cult? That was posed organically
within the series itself. We just decided to investigate further
and talk to the people who would never talked to
during that when that question was raised. Was actually siblings,
you know, fellow family members, congregation members. No one ever
(06:51):
went out and talked to them. That's what Cheyenne started,
and then that's what we accelerated in the documentary.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And the social media part is interesting because in the
documentary there are a lot of kind of quick quick
cuts of this person on TikTok, this person I saw
lots of people that I knew. I was like, Oh,
my goodness, there's my friend. There's my friend, there's my friend.
All these content creators and up in Adam is someone
I know as well, and he was featured heavily, and
I completely had forgotten that Adam went and interviewed Mary's mom.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Yeah, it's an amazing. We exok the piece of that
in the film. It's the most and she unfortunately passed
away earlier this year, so that's an important piece of
archive in the film to get her perspective.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
It really, it really that to me was fascinating because
and also the story that Mary told this season and
what's in the documentary is sort of it all somewhere
in there is the truth, right, but what is it?
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Well? And that's when I think the docuseries kind of
posts the question once you devour it, whether you're a
Housewives fan or a non Housewives and don't know anything
about this story, I think through the investigative research and
all of the all of the different participants and sharing
their sides of the story, I think that is the
question that we pose, right, which is like, what is
the truth there? Other than just presenting the facts as
(08:14):
we know it through our everyone else's experience. And I
think it was really important for us to include the
bloggers and the influencers and the people on the internet
because in so many ways, to Julian's point, they were
also uncovering the story in real time as well, and
so it felt like if we were going to help
draw out the timeline of events and incorporate any clips
(08:34):
and things around the housewives, you know, people like yourselves.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
You guys do such a good.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Job in this S fandom world of being able to
speak on this and being able to have reached out
to participants like Adam having interviewed her mother right, Like,
it was like, how could we not include them as
part of this larger narrative as we're you know, taking
everyone's accounts into this. And I think that that's something
really unique in this docu series that I don't find
(08:59):
a lot of people do you normally in a documentary
that it was it was.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
It's the world we live in, right, So it's it's
it's relatable and familiar. As you're watching it, you're like, oh,
I may have seen that. I know who that person is.
I remember three years ago when this person said that.
But because our world is so fast, like like I said,
a lot of it I had forgotten and I devour this.
I mean it literally is not not like my job.
It is my job, and so I it's so much
(09:27):
of it I had forgotten. So I was glad that
the documentary sort of reminded me. Season one, Season two,
and how when Robert Sr. Which is what we call
him because there is a Robert Jr. Robert Senior came
on the reunion. It was so combative and nasty and
she was it to me, came across a little father
(09:47):
daughter ish not.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And so there's there's it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
That's the right intersection. Dare I say with with with
Mary's mom, which is unpacked in episode two, which is
you know, this is a story that goes back generations
and dozens and dozens of years, so you have to
dial back into nineteen ninety seven and nineteen ninety eight
when Mama, the founder of Faith Temple, passed away and
(10:12):
the inheritance was up and air. Now, normally you would
assume it might go to her eldest daughter, which is
Mary's mom, and in the shakeup at the church, instead,
what Harriet happened is this is well known of course,
is that Mary married her step grandfather, right, and so
the line of secession was turned in a different direction.
(10:35):
And without giving away a lot of information that's in
the film, we really dived deep into what happened in
that moment and the breakup of the church, which was
a very beloved Pentecostal church. Mama was an icon in
Salt Lake City, did all these great things, and then
(10:55):
it became something very different once Mary and Robert c
Year took over. And that's that's kind of episode two
unpacks that I think a lot of people may view
and think, Oh, this cool thing just happened when Real
Housewives came on, or a couple of years before. Yeah,
much more complex and interesting and I think compelling story
than that one thousand percent.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
And I also feel like people in some ways when
the trailer dropped were concerned that this docuseries is just
retreading information you might have already seen or that.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
People have already talked about.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
And you know, one thing I'm most proud of is
to join this point the second episode where we also
talk about the origin story of this church and what
Mama came in and built in the late nineteen sixties
and so much of that to understand Mary and a
lot of these allegations. It felt so important to us
to be able to pull back and say, Okay, well
where did this all start? And I think you have
(11:46):
to have a full picture understanding of this family, of
this church and how things were and then what they
became eventually under their leadership, and that to us was
very important because that part, I think doesn't feel like
it's ever really been out there. I think people have
found clips of Mama preaching and whatnot. But her story
was very important to our participants as well, who really
(12:07):
wanted to shine a light on just how beloved, you know,
Rosemary Cosby was to all of them.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
That that was something I did not know. I didn't
quite understand the journey of how the church was created
and how blood she still is and the people that
still talk about her, and how sort of Robert came
in and with Mary they sort of like ruined it.
Before it had been this loving, inclusive place. And then
Robert and Mary would get up on the pulpit and
(12:34):
sort of break people. And it was interesting too with
Adam's interview with Mary's mom saying that, you know, Mary
here was a victim. Now, many other people in the
show didn't agree with that. They said, no, she was
like this from the jump. She was materialistic. She was
always trying to go from one guy to the next,
(12:56):
the one that could provide. So we've seen, you know,
a lot of a lot of it's sort of like
up to the viewer to decide, right, And it's also
kind of up to the viewer to decide, like are
you just going to accept this like fun like Mary
that's on our screen, or are you going to look back?
Or And if you guys don't watch a lot of housewives,
you don't know a lot of times they call housewives
(13:16):
shows lily pads because people go on to jump off
to something else, mostly leaving their husbands. Usually usually it's
like you can see on TV they have this terrible
spouse and they leave them. Now, if this is in
fact what happened with Mary and Robert, then we hope
for her that she does leave him. The church has
not been active for years.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
She says that it was just rebooted in the last month,
right after Bravo com So the latest episodes have the
reopening of Faith Temple, which we didn't look at that,
you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
But yeah, well it was pasted.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
Yeah, it's interesting to see, like will we I don't know,
it's interesting that she rebooted it because it seems to
me the best idea would have been to shut it
down and let those members go with some other congregations,
you know, I mean, I mean.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
To your point, I think it's a really it's important
to say that that not even what they've Yeah, people will,
by the way, just to talk about Adam for one moment,
to give him a lot of props. He is a
huge fan of the Housewise.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Fred Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, bread and butter,
that's what he is. I met him at Ravo con
so yes, and he.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Chose when he witnessed this because it wasn't just Mary's mother.
He also interviewed on his on his show, Dan Cosby,
you know who's a big part of our film. So yes,
he went. He decided to become a Gumshoe detective because
in his opinion, something was suspicious, something was off here,
and he was one of the early people, just like Cheyenne,
(14:44):
to really begin to dig into the story, which was
kind of everyone felt was in the rear view mirror.
But one thing we say about this is in people's lives,
they don't work like reality TV. So just because a
character may evolve on a reality TV show doesn't mean
that the damage that had been done to these people
who are part of this church isn't long lasting and
that they still don't suffer and have grievances against being
(15:07):
within this, so we're just giving them that platform. They
haven't had that platform before. And of course it's up
to the viewers to decide what they think about Mary,
what they think about cult allegations. Again, we didn't make
the cult allegation that came up organically within the show.
But I think I'll say this, for people who are
die hard fans, I encourage them to watch the show
(15:30):
because they may have a change of heart, you know.
And at the same time, I encourage people who aren't
fans of the Real Housewife franchise to come and watch,
you know, the Cult behind the Real Housewife because it's
actually a case study of how a cult might be created, right,
It's kind of like a textbook example. That's why we
have our expert talking to that. So I think that
(15:51):
it's it's you know, I think a lot of the
fans will turn up and watch because there's a curiosity
point there. But I think, you know, these days, people one,
you know, people want to hear about colts, they want
to hear how they operate. So I think it's built
for both audiences.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
The the cult expert was great because he was explaining
and I've covered a lot of documentaries about cults as well,
but I think that you know the power, the sex,
the control, the financial right. And so when you look
at this and granted this may be on a small scale,
you know, it's not a wild wild country, it's not
the Rajishes, it's not like a large sale cult, but
it is on a small.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Scale a little bit of a cult.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
And them talking about being locked in and you don't
get to leave until you donate or you know. The
guy I think it was Ernest said that he was
there that day with the famous I only got fourteen
birthday cards, and he was like, mine was one of
the fourteen, and I gave her a thousand dollars. So
you're thinking, I'm just thinking growing up going to my
(16:50):
Methodist church, and what world am I giving my minister
a birthday card? Much less one thousand dollars? Like what
I'd be like given my five dollars in the offering?
Like it's wild to me. And this is kind of
what I want to talk to you guys about. How
do you think that Robert and Mary have explained their lavish,
(17:11):
very like luxury six homes everything designer lifestyle in a
church of people that are just very middle class, regular people.
How was that explained?
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Well, to be honest, we don't know. Because we asked
Mary to an ambishop Robertsenia to be part of the
film and to answer some of the allegations and they
chose not to, which is their right. So it puts
us in a position where we can't speak to their motivation.
We can illustrate what people have experienced firsthand. And it
(17:41):
should be said that that was done journalistically, so everything
the show is double fact checked. There were some things
that was said in the documentary that didn't make the
final cup because we couldn't verify it. So honestly, I
would love to know an explanation from Robert Senior or Mary,
but that is not part of wall film.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, it's interesting when you see on the show, probably
the first season, maybe the second season, when you went
to her house and she did have people working in
the house, that seemed to be like, this was my cousin,
this is my sister in law, and it's like ordering
people around in her home, bringing me this, do this,
And I was like, that's your sister in law, that's
(18:25):
your cousin, and you're speaking to them. And there's a
cousin that appears on the show quite a bit, who's
a contractor who was helping with this remodel of the church,
and he just calls her ma'am. Yes, ma'am uh huh.
I was like, this is like your first cousin you
grew up with and you're calling her ma'am. It's very
it is very called like and very strange. And I
(18:46):
did really like how you included her sister in the documentary.
That was fascinating. When the sister appeared on the screen,
It's like Mary Counsey's sister. I was like, whoa, We've
never seen her before. She had a lot to say,
she had a lot to.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Denise, Well, Denise, I know we shared the same name,
which was which was fun now, but Denise was was
was I think such such a powerful story for us
because obviously she was able to speak to so much
about the Mary's childhood and growing up together and again
the origin story of what it used to be. But
(19:24):
but I think with all of our participants, the most
interesting thing is that a lot of them were still
very active in the church even after Mary and Robert
took over in their leadership. And and did not actually
leave until right before COVID, right before Mary joined the Housewives,
And so they had this really intricate, deep understanding and
knowledge of just around all of the cult like allegations
(19:46):
that they themselves said, I felt like I was in
a cult, right, And so I think that was to
us very powerful to get their accounts because they had
been a part of this up.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Until so recently.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
And yet her sister is just you know, it's your sister,
someone who is represumably was close at one point.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yeah, this type of indoctrination goes beyond faith. This is
people who felt like and Denise articulates this like she
was going to write in Internal Hell if she left
the church. The indoctor nation at a level such an
extreme level that people could not imagine leaving. Their entire
worldview was being framed through Bishop and Mary and getting
(20:30):
out wasn't an option. And we're talking about people here.
So you have the Eenarchs, which is Rosy, and you
have Ernest Nark and you have Michael Enoch. Their relationship
that church goes back to their father joining in the
nineteen seventies and heading up the choir. These are people
who obviously Denise is Mary's sister. So these are people
who are deeply interconnected and people who still have family
(20:52):
members in the church. So it's you know, one, but
I think it's Michael says or Ernest. Mary divides, so
they die families, they divide, siblings, they divide. In the
case in all film when you see Dan Cosby and
his wife, that marriage is nearly ripped apart. And this
is either you're in and you're all in and your
true believer, or else any doubt, any questioning, You're out,
(21:15):
You're banished.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
It's very uh, you know, just another famous cult scientology.
You know, you think it's very similar when you and
it's very nexium. It's very similar. It's like if you
and your spouse are in, that's great, but they're going
to get try to get you to.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Turn on each other.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
And then this is you know, brings up the cult
aspect of you know, power, sex, financials, and we hear
a lot of allegations about Robert kind of maybe trying
to coerce his grandson's wife to sort of constantly be
at his house and testing her. Do you want to
(21:55):
go with me to Vegas? And all these things, and
you're like, what do we do here? This is so
much this is your grandson's wife. And the fact that
Denise kept calling Robertson and your gramps just killed me.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
It just killed me. Yeah, she kept because she was because.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
That's how she knows him as gramps. And you're like,
but it's married to your sister. It takes a little
bit to draw. And you guys did a great job
by the way, on the documentary of like the flow
chart of who was.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Oh, I mean, you had to at some point the
family tree because there's you know, so many of them,
and and and in some ways because they all grew
up together, they are like a family, right, Oh yes,
against the family members and the non family members. They
were a very tight knit group. And so I think
in order to just kind of understand the landscape, yeah,
we had to do the family tree and the chart
(22:44):
just to be able to really to to allow yours
to understand who was speaking into what regard right, So
that way you understood exactly where they fell within.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
It was helped a larger content. It was helpful.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
So, Okay, another issue on the on the show on
the Real Housewives, she has said or maybe she said
it on an interview, but she said when she first
married Robert, she kind of didn't want to didn't want
to do it, but you know, Mama had said they
had to, which is in dispute in the documentary. People
say that never happened, but she said, you know, when
she first married him, she did not want to have
(23:18):
sex with him, and she would sort of high from
him or say she was having your period and things
to kind of avoid it. Now, eventually they obviously did.
They had a son, and in the interviews on the show,
they give off a very father daughter vibe. But did
you get from the interviews you did? Do you get
the feeling that we have on the show now they
live completely separate lives. She's at home with the son
(23:38):
and he's off to one of their homes, Like, what
is he still preaching in the church.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Honestly, that's another thing that we don't know because of them.
You know, the people we're talking to are the people
who have left and they're out of the inner circle,
you know, so they don't actually know what's going on
in that mansion up on the hill per se. And
you know, again, I'll leave it up to view is
(24:03):
to decide whether they think Mary's telling the whole story
there or not.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Right, both of them, Robert and Mary, the Bishop, Mary,
Who's did they come up with this plan together that
Mama said, But Mama died suddenly.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
So and then I do know from listening to a.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Podcast that I love the Bravo docket that says that
there was that Mary's mom did want to have Mama
exhumed at one point to see if Robert had murdered her. Like,
it's just so so many layers.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
I mean, you have you have Sam in the film.
He no longer goes by Cosby, but he was. He
was Mama's adopted son. I mean. The one thing he
says that may give you a clue, and again this
is his opinion, right, He says, Mary's kink is money,
mm hmm, yeah, And I think that's probably followed the
money has a lot to do behind a lot of
(24:55):
colts is also a con and I think follow the
money is an important part of the story. So some
people in our films say that it was a it
was a it was a marriage of convenience, you know,
and that's.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Fine, that's not the first person in the world to
do that, But they sweep under this was Mary before,
and you know, the.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
People in our church went with that for a good
many of them up into the last few years. They
went on that on that train for a long long time,
and they thought that's what was ordained, and the legacy
of the church is going to continue through Mary. A
bishop already was part of the legacy. It was, so,
you know, just to break down simply, Episode one looks
at the allegations in the first two seasons of Real Housewives,
(25:35):
and then it tells you the story you haven't heard
behind those things that were very buzzy at the time.
Episode two, as Denise laid out, rolls you back and
tells you the origin story Mama, the passing of Mama,
and how Bishop and Mary took control of the church
right then. Episode three looks at the years from nineteen
ninety eight up until the premiere of Housewives where the
(25:58):
church allegedly descend ended into a far different cultish organization
and it kept escalating. And so that's just so people
know when they tune in, that's that's kind of how
the arc is going to play out.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I was wanting a fourth episode. I was like, oh,
there's more, but.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
I don't know you. And by the way, if Mary
and Robert want to speak, the door's always open for
that conversation to happen.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
They showed a couple of scenes that were kind of
known on the show, which is one scene where Mary
goes over to Whitney's house and her children are there
because they're coming to make cookies or do something. And
Mary comes in and she's telling a story. This person
in my congregation was killed. She was ejected out of
her son roof and she rolled down the ditch and
she's telling this awful story. And you see Whitney and
her two young children going, oh my gosh, oh my goodness,
(26:49):
this is terrible. And the kids are like, oh my god,
this is the girl. Okay, and she goes, no, she died,
and she goes, wear your seat belt. Now, what they
didn't show on the documentary which was on the show,
which like two seconds later, And of course it could
be edited. She could have said this ten minutes later,
but the way it shows on the show is she
says wear your seat belt, and then she goes, whoo,
I'm here, let's make some cookies, like all in the
(27:10):
same and you're like Wait, what was heartbreaking on the
documentary is the family of this girl that she's referring
to that got ejected out of a son roof and died.
A young mother very known, very known to Mary.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Not a stranger who names Michel Mikel.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
But Mikel and the father and the aunt who would
raise her all very very close with Mary. So Mary
is not telling this crazy story about Wow, I read
this on the news. She's telling a story about someone
she knew very well, so callously, and that was shocking.
And I'm really glad that that was in the documentary
(27:50):
to see the family of that girl. To be like
this girl was like a punchline and people thought it
was funny. But this was our family member, This was
a mother, This was a young girl in the church
who loved to marry.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I think that was shocked.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Be one of the most affecting, uh pathos written, sad,
disturbing pieces of the film. That story, and it goes
further with with Michel's father, Michael. You know, it was
a big part of the film. He asserts alleges that
(28:23):
then there was a disruption by Mary of the go
fund meet Boushy. Michael had two young kids who that
need to be taken care of. And so it even
went further than say and inappropriate gaff or maybe that
was edited on the TV show to look that way.
It was much more thought through and punitive to that family.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
And and and why you know, yeah, well.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
And and I think Amery pay what was important to
us too is once again, I think on a show
like The Housewives, it is reality TV, they're not always
going to, I think, show the whole narrative, and that
is sal skew to Mary, right. And so I think
it was so at least for the Enochs and how
real and tragic this event was for them, It was
so important to allow them to tell their side of
(29:07):
the story to that clip that everyone has seen on
The Housewives. Fig yet there is a young girl whose
life was tragically cut short, and this family was very
devastated by her comments and what she said and how
she portrayed it, and they felt portrayed. And I think
for a lot of them, you know, you can talk about,
at least as at the time as members of the church,
(29:28):
how that made them feel. And I think it was
really really important to allow Michael and and Rozzie to like,
tell their side of the story of that impact and
how that impacted them. And because you don't get that
on The Housewives, you don't see I don't even think
they mentioned Mikel's name.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
You have no idea around.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
The truth of this tragedy and how that impacted the church.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I did like that.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
There were a lot of things that we've seen on
the show again that I've kind of forgotten about. You know,
the berating text that she sent to Whitney and Whitney's
reading them. I kind of like, oh, my gosh, she's
talking about how I look and this, that and the other.
And we've saw her many times on the show just
flat out tell Heather she was fat, or tell her
she looked inbread. Just like very blunt, very very cruel,
(30:12):
mean things to say to people, and it's sort of like, well,
she's whimsical.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
There are be times on the show and people said,
do you want to come and sit with us? She's
like no, or why are you wearing?
Speaker 4 (30:21):
That?
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Just mean and it's sort of kind of the Laura
that she's funny and quirky. But it was interesting to
have these real life church members say, oh, that's nothing
and it's funny when it's on TV, but when it's
directed at you, and this is somebody that is the
leader of your church coming at you this way that
you respect, And the story of the elderly woman that
(30:43):
died in anyone that works in her home and how
awful they treated her. And that girl's name was Susie,
and she was saying the way she treated my sister,
you know, and I didn't get to and I didn't
get to go to the funeral because they had kicked
me out of the church because I was I spoke up.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
There's just a lot of story, the guys.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
If you are thinking, like I don't know if I'm
going to watch this, there are so many stories there,
some that you see on the show that sort of
play into it, which I liked as a as a
Bravo viewer to kind of get the backstory, and some
of them like that is kind of quirky and funny
the way she is, But also if you're on the
receiving end of it, it's pretty terrible and devastating, especially
(31:20):
if it's a person in a position of power. And
that is sort of what your cult expert talks about
a lot the what cult leaders do, right, they bring
you up, they pull you down, you know, they pull
you in and they badger you, and then do you
feel like you can't live without them for some reason.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Of course, no cult leader ever says, hey, I'm a
cult leader, So I'm right. That's the point. You need
to look at it from the outside. You need to
break out of the bubble and the and the interesting
thing is is for some of these members who we
talked to until Housewives aired well one, they were outraged
by her behavior on the show. Some said that she was,
(31:56):
you know, hiding in plain sight by some of the
behavior traits you're talking about that they had witnessed in
even more extreme forms firsthand. But I also think for
some of them they did not realize the wealth that
had been amassed by Bishop and Mary, and the opulence
and the and the display of that opulence. They just
(32:17):
were slack jawed. You know.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
You see that house and all the luxury items and
the thousands of handbags, and she's and she's just bragging, saying,
I'm gonna have to get an apartment to use as
my closets.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I have so many things. She's living in a little.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
And she's a preacher, you know, and that's odd.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You know, it's odd, and you didn't see Mama behaving
that way from what I can understand.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
No, no, no, gosh. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Now on this note, are you guys worried that, you know,
Mary fans, which of there are many and bravo fans
coming after you were saying like you didn't tell the
whole story. And again, like you've said over and over,
you reached out to them and it says it right
there in the documentary, you reach out to them many times.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
To have them tell the side of the story.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Are you sort of are you worried about any sort
of backlash on this or you feel you've told.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
I mean, personally, I'm not, mainly because I think we
did our job to the best of our ability to.
I think uphold the stories of these victims and their truths,
and what matters to what matters to us most is
that we can't invalidate how they feel and what their
experience was. And all we did was really shine a
light and uphold and allow them a platform to share
(33:36):
their experiences and their trauma and their pain is very real.
And you know, we did want to and would've liked
to include Mary and Robert's accounts of these things, but
we weren't able to, and so therefore all we're doing
here is showing the other side as far as these
these church members and these family members who have not
(33:58):
really been able to have a chance to speak on
their behalf.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
And that's really what our.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Focus was here, and I think we did that job
really well, and I'd like to think that they would
also be proud to be able to have this opportunity,
because at the end of the day, we're also not
definitively saying one way or another if is Mary a victim?
Is Mary of Dylan, And at the end of the day,
no one can really speak the whole truth. And I
think any fans and anyone who feels like we're not
(34:26):
sharing everything that there is, you know, would have to
pose a larger question. Well, then you know who is
the truth teller? There is not one person other than
I think Mary and Robert who would be able to
really encapsulate everything here, and so all we're doing is
really bringing the other side to a narrative that a
lot of people really don't know and allowing that to
be out there and let the series speak for itself.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
It's really really good. And I noticed, you know a
lot of the work you guys have done. You've done
the House of Hammer and Queen of Meth and all this,
and I'm like, you know, you think Army Hammer in
that family that's wild and then the Queen of Math.
Of course tom Arnold's sister who ran this meth business.
And you've done so many different things like this. How
(35:10):
does this compare as far as unsavory creatures that you
run across in your business? How does this compare?
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Oh boy, I don't have a talis ranking of unsavory creatures,
and I wouldn't. I mean, I think listen with for
people who've seen Queen of Math, which is about Tom
Onold's sister, who is one of the one of the
largest math dealers in the Midwest of the nineteen eighties.
(35:39):
That's interesting because she was manufactured and sold drugs and
that and paid the price and went to jail for
many years for that. And there's no way you can
put a smiley face on drug dealing, but you can
put a context to who she was as a human
being and how she arrived at that point, which is
very different from some of these other people who I
think you're dealing with people in power people. You know,
(36:02):
when you're talking about Queen of Matth is a woman
who is completely disempowered because she was in a roust belt,
de industrialized Midwest town. All opportunities were shut down and
drug dealing was her path. It's not the right path.
But then we hear people who have tremendous wealth, tremendous power,
tremendous media exposure, and I enjoy giving people enjoy. I
(36:24):
feel proud to give people a platform to speak their
truth to that power system. And so I suppose that's
a common theme with House and Hammer in this one
and another one we did, which was how to create
a sex scandal that look at kind of satanic panic
in a small town and the malibility of the mind.
(36:44):
And that's what's interesting about colts too, is we could
all end up in one because the mind is malleable
and emotions can be pulled, and it's behaviorism. You know,
if you have a rubber band and you snap it
every day when you spoke a cigarette're going to star smoking.
But that's the classic study and coercive control. Mary and
(37:05):
Bishop was snapping a lot of other bands to other ends. Right,
they're punishing people to get something out of them. Right,
So these mind control, the playbook of mind control, the
playbook of colts is universal. Who would have thought it
might have cropped up on the Real Housewives? I mean
that's odd.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah, yeah, listen our Housewives. They give to us, they
give us the storylines, and this one was, you know,
as you pointed out in the documentary, you know, like,
who would have thought?
Speaker 2 (37:37):
You know?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
And again Mary says on the thing, why would I
come on here if I was a cult leader.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Now we've had many.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Bravo lobs that said, why would I come on here
if I was committing financial paul?
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Well they do, and then they go to jail.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
And you're like, why would I come on here if
I was defrauding old people? Well you did, and then
now you're in jail, you know. So I don't know
if it's an attention thing or it's a narcissistic thing.
I'm never going to get caught. Well, I just want
to thank you guys so much because the documentary was
perfection well done. I watched it once and my daughter
wanted to watch it with me, and I said, well,
(38:11):
I'm gonna have to take notes, so I'm gonna have
to be pausing.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Quite a bit. And she said, well, will you watch
it again with me?
Speaker 1 (38:16):
I said yes, so we're gonna watch it again a
second time where.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
I don't have to take notes.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Wow, yes, yes, she's twenty two. I was going to
say yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I was like, she loves it and she thinks Mary
Cosby is funny, and so I said, but she, you know,
she understands. And I said, well, I think you're going
to really find this interesting and as somebody her age,
with the quick cuts that you have in there, with
all the social media things that we've seen over the years,
I think that will be very appealing for her age
range as well. And I got to tell you, when
(38:47):
I was watching it, I like took a little picture
a couple of times and send it to some friends.
I go, you're appearing in this documentary and they're like,
oh my gosh, exciting, you.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Know, exciting.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yes, thank you guys, so much, so much. Mary Payne.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Tell everybody where they can find the documentary, give us
the US.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
So The Cult of the Real Housewives premieres on t
LC on January first, eight pm. It's three. It's a
three hour event that is its premiere, and the following
day it streams on HBO Max and Discovery Plus.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yes, yes, I say, I say watch it at eight pm.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
That's what I say. Absolutely very.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yeah. What else are you on January first? Nothing?
Speaker 3 (39:34):
What I mean, on the couch hangover?
Speaker 4 (39:36):
Possibly, but possibly yes, But but we're really excited and
you know, we worked Everyone who was a part of
the show worked so hard on it, and I, for one,
Bill can't wait to be on the internet threads and
they hear all the chatter that that people have to say.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
It's going to be It's going to be interesting. All right,
Thank you guys, don't hang up. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Thanks most
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