Desperately Devoted to Tamra Judge, The Real Housewives of OC

Welcome to Desperately Devoted.

Think of us as your favorite neighbors as we chat about life and relationship, all.

While we revisit the iconic show Desperate Housewives together.

I'm Terry Hatcher, I'm Andrea Bowen, and I'm Emersonini. Well, welcome back. Thank you for joining us. This is a very exciting episode. I love how Mary Alice always either does her entrances or she does her sort of recaps in her voiceover, and in this episode, Mary Alice tells us quote throughout even the most respectable of neighborhoods, you can hear the sound of scandal. And for today's podcast, we have the most very special guest who I know knows a thing or two about scandal. So please everybody.

Welcome from the Real Housewives of Orange County and the longest running Housewives, having appeared on fifteen of nineteen season Tamra Judge. Welcome to Deperately.

Oh, thank you so much. This is so exciting for me. You have no idea, none whatsoever. I literally, I mean, first of all, I'm a huge fan.

Thank you.

And I laid in bed yesterday and watched eight hours straight. Oh my god. Okay, so I just I'm like, I'm just going to watch all of season one again.

Oh my god.

I got to eight and I'm like, I really need to get out of bed. Okay, I'm going to jump to sixteen and then I'm going to come back and rewatch because I mean, you guys, you guys are actually the reason why there's a Real Housewives.

Well, my very first question was I was like, it's.

Off.

It's written here in all caps, like, I've got to ask you this right off the pat Do you even think there would be a Real Housewives if it weren't for Desperate Housewives? And were you a fan, which it sounds like you.

Were absolutely a fan. Absolutely No, you guys paved the way for sure.

It's crazy, isn't it. I Mean, well, I think what to me, what's crazy is it about? It is how successful your franchise has become. I mean, it's way more successful than Desperate Housewives, and I find that to just be I mean, I really do remember at the time we were, you know, in our success. I'm not quite sure if we were in a season where we were waning a little bit in our viewership. I don't really remember exactly that timing but I do remember the first year Real Housewives came out, and I think we said it exactly that way. But I do recall feeling like, is Mark Cherry getting like a percentage of this because it sort of seems like he should be, you know, I mean it really is crazy, but I mean, you

guys have like you've got taken the baton and you've ran the ship.

All over the world. I remember the original title of the show was behind the Gates, and this was like in two thousand and four, maybe I think they started, no, two thousand and five, somewhere around there is when they started like pitching the show. And it was a guy from Scott Dunlap from Coda to Cosa, and you got these girls together behind the Gates and they were going to do the show. It got sold to Bravo and then they titled it. You know, obviously piggybacked off of Desperate Housewives and it was became the Real Housewives of Orange County. Well, now obviously it's a franchise and you know, and and I was like, oh my god, they were even holding fruit. Yeah, we hold oranges, right, And of course.

I think the marketing team had you hold oranges because we originated with holding apples.

Yes, sounds I think right, Yeah, I think there was. You know, there was a housewife book that was written a few years back, and there was actually a section in there talking about it, like the legal standpoint of how they could do this and what was acceptable and what wasn't legally can they hold fruit, can't? Like there's a whole section about it.

Wow. Yeah, really, I mean it's amazing well that I mean, this goes a little deep quickly, but it does kind of naturally lead me to another thing I was interested to ask you about because you have been on the show for actually longer than I was on. So I was on Desperate Housewives for seven eight years and you've been on for fifteen years.

I was liked, yes, yeah, so I was on fifteen I've got on Bravo for sixteen years. There was a two years where I was paused. So what this would have been my seventeenth year.

I remember being in the middle of, you know, eight years of something. And you must feel this way that so much of your life changes. I mean, first of all, you have the invasion of like paparazzi and press, and then as the social media sort of all heated up. But then you also have like opportunities and sacrifices that you make. I mean, it's so complicated. Do you have things that stand out to you as like what was the best thing about this journey and what was the hardest thing about this journey?

Oh jeez, well I think I know.

I said I was going to take it.

I'm gonna yeah. So the thing about it is is like when I started, it was there wasn't social media. It was MySpace and Facebook and things like that. So it was a lot easier to navigate through the show because you didn't have all these outside people, you know, sending you death threats and telling you ugly and you're fat and you're stupid. And because at the beginning when when Instagram started, I'm like, oh my god, I got to get off the show because I'm all these things.

It's just horrible, horrible feeling. But then you learn to tune that out as much as you can. But I mean, you guys were actresses. You're actors, Like, we're doing this and we're showing our life where we don't have any we don't know how to act. You give me a script, I wouldn't remember it to save my life. So we're showing our real life where people think we're a little bit more approachable and they can just like sit down at our dinner table with us at our restaur on and just start talking about you know, like on last up was I'm like, excuse me, like go away away.

They don't feel not the same boundaries. There's zero boundaries zero.

So do you. I mean, it reminds me of you. You know, I'm putting up my daughter, like Emerson was so young when I was going through the middle of it, and I remember conversations that her and I would have about, well, this part of being famous is hard, but I like to think about it as you know, part of the deal you make with some of the special things that we've had the opportunity to do because of fame, that we maybe wouldn't have had the opportunity to do, which isn't the easiest thing to negotiate with a young person.

But I tried to downplay what felt difficult while still sort of honoring your feelings, but also like upplay what what the opportunities were, which were many? Did you feel like it outweighed the good outweigh the bad in the end, does you reflect on it?

Yes, I think the good absolutely outweighs the bad. I know that for us on the Housewives franchise, because it does like we're fighting, we're arguing. Are we doing that in real life?

No?

Then we get the backlash of social media and then you think at times like it's like I call it like childbirth, Like if you go through it, it's horror, it's painful, and then you're like, I'm not doing that ever again, and then you forget.

You are speaking to somebody, but you literally.

Go through it, and then you're like, oh, that was tough, right, And then you're like I can't do that again. And then you know, here comes this baby and you're like, oh, this is amazing. I want to do this five more times.

Right.

So, I mean it's ups and downs on the show for sure.

How but them do you when you guys are done with the season, before you start your next season, what is that timeframe usually?

And you know what, it changes all the time, depending on because now there's so many franchises that it's all about programming and when it's going to be set. And so currently the past three years we film in January. We filmed for three to four months and then we air we I think we aired in July, and then if we do the same schedule, that means two months off we start filming again. Okay, so not too dissimilar from how Yeah.

We filmed for about ten months a year. Yeah, it had a nine to ten.

I remember us having pretty brief hiatuses like briefer than a lot of other series.

I like maybe ten weeks or like something like that.

But it's it's a lot. It's it's a cycle because even when I mean, you film it and then it's being edited, and then you start doing press, and then you start traveling to New York and doing press, and then it airs and then you're doing press. Like it's just such a cycle. So it's usually like maybe two months off.

Right, And what do you do in those two months? Do you want to be restored it?

Do you worry that you're going to get another contract?

Really know what? Yes?

I mean, I don't know how worrying is the word to use. But we never know if we're gonna get picked up. Okay, you know they they you know, I got let go after season twelve and I had I was devastated. I didn't know why.

Were you devastated because you felt personally rejected or you'd like that you'd done something wrong. And did you feel like if there was no resource for you to get an answer?

Yes, because you know, you get this call, it's like, I just want to let you know that the network has decided to go in a different direction. And then it's like you've been kicked out of the cool girls club and you're you're done, and you know, I'm not an actress. I'm just not like I'm gonna be like, Okay, well let me go just go get another job doing, you know, acting, because I have my real estate license and I've always I've always had a side hustle no matter what, because I knew this is not a career.

I'm a year to year contract with Bravo. So it you know, you you wonder like, is it is it happening? Is it not happening?

It's interesting. Emerson like, don't you think and Andrew like, I feel like the feeling you're talking about feels relatable to me as just a human. And I'm wondering like if our listeners it feels like they could benefit from what we all might see as a way to take care of yourself in when you're faced with these kinds of feelings, because that feels really familiar, even from like being rejected from a boy or you know, like I was going to say, it feels relatable too.

I mean, I think in our I'm a writer and a director, so other side of the camera, but in a similar industry. And I feel like it is really a gig economy in the sense, especially now that the landscape for TV and filmmaking has changed so much that you know, I can get hired to write a script and that's great, and then the script's done and I'm going, well, I hope I get hired for something else.

Yeah. Yeah, But I think I've been on it for so long and I'm fifty eight years old, and I always say, somebody have an intervention. If I'm on the show when I'm sixteen, I'm fighting with women, just somebody have intervention. Tell me you're not doing this anymore. You're not doing this anymore.

The thing I can relate to about that, I wrote a book about fifteen years ago called Burnt Toast and Other Philosophies of Life, which I was really proud of and I think helped a lot of people. But I remember I was writing it as a single mom in the middle of the first two years of Desperate Housewives, at the height of like all that insanity. I was working a thousand hours a week, I was on set.

I was also, you know, taking care of my daughter. And I remember saying to one of my good friends, you know, if you ever hear me say I'm going to write a book again, just like put a pillow over my head.

Like that's like, I just I know, but we're not terry. Congratulations on that.

Thank you.

So maybe you'll write a book next, Maybe that's in your future. Yes, I'm sure there's many untold stories you can share.

There's a lot.

But going back to so, I know that The Housewives, the Real Housewives franchise is obviously produced, but you know, as as a viewer or as just a woman, I don't love the narrative of women fighting and and I know people find it so entertaining, I guess because it's so popular, and I don't know, like, like what do we think about that? Like how do you live within that space? Because you've already said a couple of times that that seems to be your least favorite.

Part of Well, so are you saying you'd never sign up for the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

No, I would not. She's been approached. No, I would not. Ask I would not, mostly because I'm so boring. I mean, honestly, I said that when I am the most, I don't dress up. I'm not fancy. All the things that go along with what my perception is of how that show gets produced is just so far from my organic personality that I literally think I would bore the audience to death.

So so, how so are you asking me how do I deal with this's the toxic fighting and all that. You know, you are asking the villain of the show.

I mean, I don't know if I don't you're sitting here today. I don't think you're a villain like you I know, but that is an interesting Could you talk about what is it like to be positioned as the villain? And I'm only saying that because you call it you show. No, I don't think it.

Yeah, I have a lot of labels that people call me. But you know what, it is difficult at times because we are on this show where we are expected to have these discussions and arguments and all these things. And you know, sometimes in the heat of the moment, will I go too low? Yeah, I will, and then I will internalize it, internalize it, and I will feel badly and be upset and get my feelings hurt. But I'm not the person that people think I am, including my cast.

They think I'm like this super tough girl. No I'm not. I'm actually really fragile inside. I'm going through actually going through therapy right now because I'm finally dealing with it. I'm really fragile inside, and I have a really tough exterior, and so it's really easy for me to just you know, f off or say something like that and then go back to my room and go, I really wish I didn't say that, and you know, I should have been kinder and all these things. And now I guess I'm just leaning into it.

Well, And that's I feel like, that's what so many people tune in to see on a show in the empire of the Real Housewives franchise.

They but I also think there's so.

Much humor on the Real Housewives franchises that also drives that connection and why people tune in. It's entertaining because the stakes are high and because there is drama, but then it's also so funny and they try to, you know, bring groups of women together that play off of each other really well. But you know, it's so I find it so interesting listening to you talk about the in between of not knowing if you're going to be invited back, because obviously, on a show like ours, when we were hired to play a certain role, your role could go away at a certain point, But it's not like they're going to pick someone else to be your slot, right, you know, so I can imagine that feels really you won't have.

To die on your show?

Right people?

Did any people did?

Yeah?

Kind of our thing.

Yeah, I'm curious. You were a fan of Desperate Housewives? Did you start watching from the pilot of the show?

Absolutely?

And what did you love it? Like?

What drew you to it?

I just loved It's almost like watching how like real housewives? Like I love to see the dynamic of the women, the scandals, the the girls arguing about things, the husbands having affairs, and you know, the DUIs and and and they're taking adderall to deal with your children. And I'm like this is just like real Housewives.

Now, I was going to ask you, so when this all started, I mean, you were living in suburbia, Orange County. Do you think Desperate Housewives did a reasonable job at representing suburbia?

I think yes, Wow, I do I think they did well. I'm probably jaded because I'm looking at it through like you know what I do on the show, and you guys, you know you're acting and it drew everybody in, Like, I'm surprised you guys didn't go longer or did not come back. Would I would love to see like everybody come back. Well, I have a funny story my now husband.

We had a mutual friend and I was looking at houses because I was getting separated. Didn't know I was going to marry the guy that we're going to this out the house we were looking at.

Oh that's how you met him. Yeah, maybe I need to do more househunting, right, So my friend, thanks for that advice.

My friend says, you know, we'll go to my because you can't just film at anybody's house or open house, like you have to have permits and all that stuff. So we're looking at his house, which is the house I live in now and and he had no idea about real housewives, so he thought his friend was bringing Eva Longoria to his house to film a scene.

Oh my god, Oh my god, he's.

Like I just thought, like Evil Longoria, like I know Desperate Housewives. I don't know who these Orange Housewives. Oh my god, god, so funny. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but here I am. And then we've been together sixteen years.

Oh wow, so romantic. I think that's crazy though. Wow.

Have you ever been to Wisteria Lane? Of course I have, and the universal Yes, that's my favorite part of Behind the Tour.

Isn't great? It's so pretty up there.

Yes, I actually had a party this season and it was a spring flame and I got with steria and I hung it all over my courtyard. Oh I saw it. I saw Yeah. I think you even said like this is just like yes, like, oh my gosh. Like when I say this fan, I was a huge fan, still a fan.

Did you connect with one character over another Industrial Housewives that you felt like, Oh, I really see some of myself in this character.

I feel like I'm kind of a little bit of a mixture between Edie and Gabby. Okay, I see that, yep, because I get my mouth gets me in trouble and all that. I think Bree is definitely Heather to Brow. Yeah, she wants everything perfect, her life is perfect, and she's always put together. Now, Lynette, I think is Gina on our show currently because she has all these kids and she's like always busy and frazzled. Not that she's taken out or all, but just saying because I know Lynette did.

And then.

Susan, I think you are kind of like Alexis Bilino because you were so sweet, not last year Alexis Bilino. I love the context. You're like, let me, let me explain. But originally okay, because she was always like she's just so sweet and kind and a little bit ditsy and you know, a little bit stumbling over things and things like do.

You feel like you have real friendships out of this or is it just a job and a show and performative.

Some friends are clearly just show friends. Okay, they're show friends, and you know that because you don't really talk off camera off season, you don't really talk. You know, there's girls on the show that have young kids. My youngest is twenty. I'm not hanging out and you know, going to the park and doing things like that. Overall, I care about all the girls. I mean, we're all putting our lives out there. Some you know, I care less about.

Keeping it real.

Yeah, I've known for a very long time, and I respect her and I think she's great, and I love her family and and you know, we have our ups and downs on the show, of course, but overall, I think she is a good friend. She was in my wedding, so you know, then other like Vicky, I mean Vicky are like sisters.

And you just met everyone on the show, like you didn't actually know people living and working.

And I knew so when I started. The show had only been on for two seasons, and it was literally right down the street from me in this gated community. And I was in real estate at the time, so I knew Gina keoh, like just loosely, like we didn't hang out or anything like that, just from the real estate world. And when I got asked to be on the show, it was I never thought that I thought I was boring. You know, my kids were little, I think I think Sophia was just over a year old, and my girlfriend said to me hey, we're on I am remember. You don't remember that year?

I do?

I totally remember. I am yeah, I AM went back to me the drinking wine. She lived in the house next door. She's like, did you see that OC Housewives is hiring. They're doing like a casting call the babloa bay club, and I'm like, oh, yeah, right, like I would go to that and I was doing an open house and I'm like, I'm busy, And so she sent me the app like online application. So I literally filled it out like as a joke, like like a sixteen year old boy, like just stupid answers. And I knew that there was all these super rich women at this casting call with their fancy cars and their stacks of money and their birkens and whatever. And they literally called me the next day. I'd sent no pictures, I sent nothing,

and they're like, hey, can we meet you? Like we want to come meet you. And I'm like, okay, if you want. So I told my husband at the time, and I thought for sure he'd say no, and he's like, sure, why not. And so they interview me and they give me like this big stack of papers to fill out and I just threw them in the drawer and I just said it's the same cap ning. Then they called me back and they're like, did you fill out all the applicates? I go, no, I didn't. They're like, well, can we come back and meet your kids and your husband.

I'm like sure, And I never like I didn't care, Like I thought, there's no way, there's not even a chance. And sure enough, Like they call me. They're like, and this is the person I've ever heard this term. They're like, you made the shortlist and I'm like, well, what do you like the shortlist? I'm like, is it between me and somebody?

Like?

Yes, it's between I. Oh, came on, you give me a number. I'm with Slice or Tires. Wow.

Okay, so that's where. So you will consider yourself a competitive person?

Yeah, oh yeah, definitely definitely. But I never ever dreampt of this, like being on TV, or being famous, or being on reality anything like that.

That was a question I had for you, which is just you know, Harry mentioned obviously Despert Hoausways was a big part of our life, and it certainly had a really successful run, but it was still ultimately eight seasons of a show with the Real Housewives, It's still going.

It's been such a giant portion of your life.

Yes, do you find though you thought in the beginning, like, oh, I don't think I'm interested in this and blah b la lah. Now when you reflect on it, like you kind of can envision your life having not.

Had it been a part of it, I think life would be very different. Yeah. You know, I was in a not a great marriage at the time. I had three little kids. I had just recently got my real estate license because I kind of had a feeling I needed a backup plan with this marriage. And when I started the show, we weren't getting along, and I think by our maybe second or third season, we were divorced.

You know, I literally asked for a divorce on camera.

But you don't think this show is what put that you're saying, Oh, no, I was. It was headed that way before.

I think if you are on you know, shaky foundation with anything, and then you put yourself into this position, and especially if you have a husband that is controlling or has I guess you can call it old fashioned values where the woman stays home and cooks and claims, and that's pretty much what I was dealing with. So it definitely made things worse. My husband. Now he do your thing, babe, have fun. He's just like, keep me out of it.

Right.

He's not big on the filming. He doesn't love it.

Does he watch it?

No?

Right?

No, he all say he'll say, was I on any of the episodes? He didn't watch one episode this entire year.

I think that's probably very healthy.

Yeah, he doesn't care. He's like, he thinks it's silly. It's your job, it's your thing. I mean, there's been seasons where they've come after him and and you know, said things bad things about him, and he's like, I don't want to be involved in this, Like this is so toxic, you know, and it can it can it hurts your character. And at this point, fifteen years in, I'm like, my character has been destroyed, it's been revived, it's been destroyed up, it's down, it's you know, but so.

Okay, just like digging in on that a little bit, because again, I do think that people can apply this to their own Like I think a lot of people these days are like not feeling good about themselves and they're not feeling like they have any power to change anything, and they're and and it's not a good feeling, Like what tools you must to just be able to show up today and be so fabulous and present whatever, like to go through the fire the way you have, like you must have I went through the firem Inner. Tools that come from somewhere that you've either learned or gotten from some you know, can you share that? Like, how do you keep going on? So?

I was I graduated high school three months pregnant, okay, and thinking all my dreams have been crushed. I not going to college. You know. My parents were very old fashioned. They you know, had us get married, put us up in a house, you know, and I had my son, who now is almost forty years old, and that was a lot to go through. And then you know, shortly after that, of course, the divorce came. I was, I was divorced. I've been married three times now. So navigating as a single mom for so many years, it was that's a tough job. That is probably one of the toughest jobs out there.

And do you feel like that experience, like do you feel like when you have hardship or not that having a son is a hardship, but I mean being a single mom and having it feel hard, do you feel like you teach yourself that you can do hard things.

Yeah, yeah, I definitely think that, you know, the experience of going through that and then from that, you know, I had the help of my parents even after the separation and the divorce and everything, and then I got into it was like ten years later. But then I got remarried and it was not a healthy relationship for me, and it was I had got three beautiful kids out of it, but it was so toxic, and I thought it was he was my safe place. I thought that he would be able to, you know, I don't know, give me stability. Me and my son, we're going to be you know, taken care of, and you know, is what I wanted. My mom was a mom at eighteen seventeen, and that's all I knew. My grandma was a mom very young, and that's what I was going to do.

So when I met Simon and we married and had kids, that divorce was horrible and it was public, and he tried to take the kids away from me and each named me monster mom in the press and did all these things. At the end it you know, nothing ever wasn't true, but it was a very difficult thing. To go through and very hard to navigate through. So now on the show forever, I am getting messages like how did you pick yourself up? How did you do it?

Because honestly, when I left Simon, I wasn't making that much money on the show. I had only been on a couple of seasons. And you know, way back then, I'm my first season, I got seven thousand dollars. Wow, seven thousand dollars the whole season.

Wow.

Yeah. I started selling my clothes on eBay that I wore on the show, and I moved out into a two bedroom apartment on the third floor with three kids, little kids, and I just made it work. And I've just been that person that's like I'm always like what can I do next? And what can I do next? And I've never relied on the show or my husband now for any kind of financial support whatsoever. I've always done it myself. I opened up a gym me and my husband did together. Then I opened up a CBD THHC business. We've had that for six years. I now have a podcast on I Heart So with Teddy and so I'm just always look like, what what can I do next? What can I do next?

So do you think like when you said the person asks you like, how do you pick yourself up? Like do Like I do a thing at night where when I put my head on the pillow, I think about what I was grateful for that day. So even if I've had like the worst day with the most complicated, difficult feelings and situations, I can still lay there and go had I got to look at that beautiful yellow tree at the bottom of my driveway that turns colors every October, and that made me really happy, Like and I feel like that is just a minuscule tool, but it like counts for something.

It is a good tool.

Is there something like that that you or bigger than that or that you do?

I mean, my night time routine is I just thank Jesus for another day. H just thank you for another day. And when I know things are really really hard and tough, because there is a lot of stress that comes along with this show, a lot of stress to the point where I'm like, is this going to make me sick one day?

You know?

And so it's hard and my husband's always you know, I work out a lot.

Does that help? I think I'm a big one on the exercise.

Exercise, Yeah, I don't for the ice back. No sauna more of a sauna. Yes, we have a son at home or for reds on it and I will sit in there for forty five minutes and sweat my butt off. And yeah, but I'm not But in a honesty, I'm not good at stress because I was raised where you just sweep everything under the rug and you don't deal with things. You just move on, and so I will explode.

And that's why I started therapy, is because I need to learn how to process the things that I'm going through. And you know, when something comes to me, to address it then instead of being like six months later and you did this to me when it really doesn't matter anymore.

Oh my gosh.

Sitting across from Tamra Judge is so fun and surreal for me.

I am such a.

Big Bravo fan and I love how much you love Desperate Housewives. Also, there is so much more to come in our next episode. Tamra continues to hang out with us and shares her own opinions about episode sixteen

Ladies who Lunch And remember, if you click subscribe now, you'll never miss a single Desperately devoted episode stay Tune

Desperately Devoted to Tamra Judge, The Real Housewives of OC

Kapitelklicken springt direkt hin

Shownotes

Transkriptvom Podcast bereitgestellt · Zeitmarken springen hin