Last month, we told you that it was reported that three stars were getting fired from The Real Housewives of Orange County.
We have some heartwarming news: the production had a last-minute change of heart about one of those stars.
But the other two were not so lucky. …
Without them knowing about any reports, if you had to ask anyone who their pick to get fired from The Real Housewives of Orange County this season would be, the surest bet would be Peggy Sulahian.
Like, if you and your friends were doing a Real Housewives castmember turnaround league or whatever, she would be your pick.
Why?
Because she doesn’t make for good television. She doesn’t feud, she just starts pointless fights — or jumps into other people’s. And her “clueless foreigner” act wasn’t doing her any favors.
Also, she’s a notorious homophobe who banned her own brother from their father’s funeral for being gay.
So, yeah. Nobody likes a bigot.
We already told you on Friday that Peggy Sulahian has been fired.
Bye, girl, bye.
But Peggy Sulahian isn’t leaving alone.
RadarOnline reports that Lydia McLaughlin has also been fired.
She left the series in 2013 to raise her kids — filming reality television can take up a lot of your time, and most Real Housewives who aren’t Tamra Judge care about their children and don’t want to neglect them.
Lydia’s big stink this season was mostly her conflict with Meghan King Edmonds.
See, Meghan had invited a psychic to her party. Lydia refused to participate, which is fine, even though it reminds us a little of the “God Warrior” episode of Wife Swap.
And then, at the reunion, Lydia suggested that Meghan couldn’t understand Lydia’s hesitation because Meghan isn’t a Christian.
(Which … is not true, incidentally, though even if it were, the accusatory manner in which Lydia said it would not have been okay)
Also, Lydia McLaughlin was too close to Peggy Sulahian, and Peggy was a toxic mess who dragged people down with her.
As RadarOnline‘s insider puts it:
“Lydia came back, but she wasn’t interesting. Producers mainly wanted her to bring Tamra and Vicki back together, and it was mission accomplished.”
Bye, Lydia!
Well, that’s two stars who are parting ways with the Real Housewives franchise.
But we’d been hearing that Meghan King Edmonds was going to get the axe, too. So … what happened?
Well … Meghan King Edmonds is pregnant, you guys.
She’s expecting a boy (she and her husband did IVF, and she went into it at length on her blog).
RadarOnline reports that this is what saved her:
“They were not planning on bringing Meghan back.”
That’s a shame. She might not be the most entertaining, but she doesn’t seem terrible. And, not for nothing, but she’s definitely the prettiest castmate. (Television’s a visual medium, folks!)
“But she sprung the pregnancy news on them at the reunion,” their insider says. “So she’s kind of forcing them to bring her back even though they didn’t want to.”
To be clear, we don’t think that anyone is suggesting that Meghan King Edmonds got pregnant just to stay on TV.
(Which is funny, because the world is full of actresses who have been fired from scripted shows or had their roles minimized because they became pregnant)
But she may have realized exactly what she was doing when she told producers about it.
One, nobody wants to be accused of firing a woman for getting pregnant (do they, Joss Whedon?), even when, in this case, it would merely have been a coincidence.
Two, and more to the point, Meghan’s pregnancy could make for good television. Cameras can follow Meghan on her journey, through all of her ups and downs (hormones can be unpleasant, folks, particularly if you did IVF).
And childbirth is the sort of drama that appeals to humanity’s social instincts.
No matter how it happened, though, we’re glad that she’s getting a second chance and we hope that we’ll see her for more seasons than simply this next one.
