Denise Richards Calls Bravo “Shady” For Misrepresenting Her Iconic RHOBH Line

Among the iconic quotes in the Housewives Hall of Fame is Denise Richards’ RHOBH Season 10 gem: “Bravo, Bravo, f*ckin Bravo.” Apparently there’s more to the story than what viewers saw on TV, though. Richards claimed on the Feb. 11 episode of SiriusXM’s Jeff Lewis Live that the network had taken the line out of context, per People. “It’s shady, but it’s OK,” she told her fellow former Bravolebrity of how the scene was handled during their sit-down.

As Richards told it, she’d been “dealing with some stuff with [her] children” when she joined co-stars Kyle Richards, Teddi Mellencamp, Garcelle Beauvais, Dorit Kemsley, Lisa Rinna, Erika Girardi, and Sutton Stracke at the cast dinner in Rome. The mom to Eloise, 10, Lola Rose, 16, and Sami, 17, recalled that the other women “started to go after” her, long before Mellencamp brought up sensitive rumors of Richards’ reported affair with Brandi Glanville, which seemed to precipitate the meltdown. Rather than discuss her family drama on camera, she uttered the now-iconic phrase, believing that would pause production, essentially shutting down the conversation.

“I was like, ‘Oh, my God. I can’t believe, another f*cking dinner of dealing with this sh*t,’” Richards explained of filming amid unrelated family drama. “And so, I blurted out what I was dealing with and I said the ‘Bravo, Bravo, f*cking Bravo,’ because I was told to do that from Kyle and Rinna — whether they want to admit it or not, that’s the truth. [They said] if you say something about your kids or say the name of a school, to do that and Bravo won’t air it.”

Kyle, for her part, already admitted to sharing that information with her former co-star during an RHOBH after show, however. According to the OG, she and her fellow castmates would shout “Bravo” or “Andy Cohen” at producers if they “didn’t want to be seen touching up” their makeup or some such circumstance, back in Season 1. However, Kemsley, who joined in Season 7, added that she’d “never seen anyone do it to cut something out or not have something used or to put an end to a conversation.”

Regardless, Bravo still aired the footage, albeit with some editing, and Richards prematurely stopped filming with her co-stars, before exiting the series completely in 2020 after two seasons, following failed salary negotiations. During her interview with Lewis, the Bold and the Beautiful actor also shot down rumors that she’d been paid $4 million to join RHOBH in 2018: “No offense to Bravo but they don’t pay a lot of money. So I did not get $4 million.” Instead, she joined the show because she “thought it would be fun,” though persistent affair rumors, coupled with filming amid a painful surgery and a falling out with Rinna, ultimately shifted the experience.

In recent months, however, Richards said she’d “never say never” to returning to RHOBH, which is currently filming Season 12. “I liked being a part of the show, and I had fun with most of the women, not all!” she revealed to Entertainment Tonight in August, joking that she “should get paid” for every time her name continues to come up on the show. Prior to that, Beauvais already revealed on a 2021 Watch What Happens Live episode that Richards would come back one on condition: Rinna’s “gotta go” first.