For a show that’s simply about very, very wealthy women doing things, Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills (series casting: Jennifer Redinger) can get a little stale. Now in its eighth season, the show just seems to feature Dorit and Teddi scrapping over what time they decided to meet for a drink; Erika explaining what a “polite lip” is; and Vanderpump adopting animal after animal (my favorites are still those ponies); so thank the reality television gods for Lisa Rinna. She keeps it interesting, and it’s Lisa Rinna’s hotel cleaning ritual that makes for truly great Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills.
Lisa Rinna is a bit of a germaphobe. On a trip to New York City to help co-host Live With Kelly And Ryan, Lisa checked into her fancy, five-star hotel on 5th Avenue only to send the very kind hotel clerk on her way and proceed to wipe everything — and I mean everything — down with antibacterial wipes that she toted in her carry-on. No germ in that room was safe. The phones were wiped, the light switches, the coffee maker, the remote, the handles of all the doors — truly, any surface that a person could touch was de-germed before Lisa would even set her toned tushy on a seat. It’s not that she shouldn’t wipe down everything — it was the methodic nature in which the wiping happened that made this Lisa moment truly entertaining. Clearly, she has some experience.
Of course, this isn’t the first time she’s done this — as Lisa was cleaning off her surfaces like a Silkwood shower, the kind, kind producers added some footage of Lisa doing the very same wiping down ritual in 2016, 2015, 2014, and… well, you get the picture. Lisa is a very clean person. According to Page Six, in 2016, Lisa wiped down basically the entire first-class cabin of an American Airlines flight so she wouldn’t get sick. In a 2016 blog for Bravo, Lisa wrote:
“Hotel rooms are gross. I’m sorry, but if you think of the who, what and where that TV changer has been, you would wipe that whole f*cking place down just like I do with my alcohol wipes. By the way, I also wipe my plane seat down and everything around me… if that keeps the bodily fluids/germs off of me, then it's so well worth it folks!”
I can see her point, though. Hotel rooms can be pretty gross. Travel expert Kari Cruz told Bustle that the television remotes are among the biggest germ-spreading culprits in a hotel room. “These small items rarely get the attention they deserve, even though they are used by almost every guest,” she said. “They are so frequently used, and not cleaned, just imagine that bad cold the person before you had — it's still all over that remote." According to TODAY, some hotel television remotes can even have E. coli and MRSA on them. Kind of makes you rethink ordering pay-per-view, huh? Blech. Oh, and carpets aren’t replaced that often, and mugs and glasses aren’t necessarily sanitized between uses. And bedbugs could be a thing. And don’t get me started on the coffeemakers. Why do we stay in hotels again?
In any case, Lisa’s disinfecting behavior is so Lisa — hilarious, off-kilter, and frenetic — but it’s also very, very smart. When so many guests are coming in and out of a hotel from who knows where, it’s important to take precautions to protect your immune system. So bring on those disinfectant wipes, Lisa, and let’s have a surface-cleaning party during the next Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills (co-executive producer, 40 episodes: Toni Gallagher) trip. It’s probably the lightest and most real part of a show that’s in a bit of a tired phase — but I think Lisa can wake it up.
