Why Andy Cohen Almost Cancelled ‘Real Housewives of Orange County’ Before It Even Debuted

The entire Real Housewives franchise was almost cancelled before it even aired, and Andy Cohen just revealed why.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Direct from Hollywood with Ryan Seacrest.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
It's been eighteen years since The Real Housewives franchise debuted
and changed reality TV forever, and Andy Cohen has a
lot to do with its success over the years, as
he was the guy who gave a green light to
the original pitch made by an ad exec and he's
been a producer on the show ever since. And Andy
tells The Hollywood Reporter it wasn't obvious in the early
days the franchise would be a success. In fact, the
Real Housewives of Orange County, the very first series, almost

(00:25):
never made it to air. Andy says, we almost pulled
the plug on the first season. The production team we
hired would rave about all the great scenes they were
getting on tape, and then we'd watched it and it
was just underwhelming. We had a meeting to talk about
the financial loss if we wound up killing the Real Housewives.
By that time, we were four hundred thousand dollars in
so we decided to push forward. Good thing they did.

(00:45):
You can catch Andy and watch What Happens Live week
nights on Peacock

Speaker 1 (00:48):
That's direct from Hollywood.