Outrageous antics are almost a prerequisite to being a “Real Housewife.” If you’re not flipping tables or yanking off wigs or babbling about the wonder of gummi bears, you don’t make the cut. And it seems that while new to the “Housewives” franchise, the ladies of “The Real Housewives of D.C.” are no rookies when it comes to drama. Exhibit A: the alleged White House crashing fiasco. Exhibit B: the Whoopi Goldberg incident. And the show hasn't even started!
The new neighbors to the "Housewives" block move into Bravo tonight, when the show premieres at 9. We spoke with the ladies — though, two of them wandered off midinterview (something that apparently they're good at — pre-WhoopiGate while they made their rounds at a TCA press tour afterparty last week (There was no party crashing. We were all invited.) Click on the video below and meet the new gals. They share who their favorite "Housewives" are and discuss their musical ambitions — would a song on healthcare be a hit?
A feud between “The Real Housewives of D.C.” cast member Michaele Salahi and “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg escalated Thursday when the infamous reality show figure told NBC’s “Today” show that Goldberg peppered her with profanities after her appearance on the daytime talk show.
Less than an hour later, a defiant Goldberg responded on the air. “I make no apology for my choice words,” she said on “The View,” adding that she was upset by an allegation that she hit Salahi.
It’s the latest dust-up involving the Virginia socialite, who first stepped into the limelight in November when she and her husband, Tariq, allegedly attended a reception for a White House state dinner without being on the official guest list. That prompted the Secret Service to launch an internal investigation, saying its procedure wasn’t followed, and Congress to hold a hearing on presidential security. The Salahis refused to testify at the hearing, invoking the Fifth Amendment. Since then, they have repeatedly insisted they were invited.
The incident that kicked off the newest furor occurred Wednesday, when Salahi and her fellow castmates appeared on “The View” to promote their Bravo show, which premieres Thursday.
During an interview conducted by co-hosts Joy Behar and Sherri Shepherd, Goldberg came out from backstage, lightly touched Salahi’s arm and said, “Excuse me, could you get back to the White House, please?” according to a full clip aired by “The View” on Thursday.
According to the Salahis’ attorney, Lisa Bloom, Salahi was “unnerved” when Goldberg came up to her on stage and felt demeaned and degraded by the whole experience because of the frequent references that she was a “gate crasher.”
After the taping, Salahi was crying backstage and, according to ABC, told a producer that Goldberg “hit” her. Salahi maintains that she merely said that she was upset that Goldberg had come up behind her on the air and “grabbed” her arm.
Both sides agree that the exchange that followed was heated: Goldberg went into Salahi’s dressing room and had an angry confrontation with the “Housewives” cast member and her husband. “Her husband got in my face, had his BlackBerry out and started taking pictures of me,” Goldberg said on Thursday. “And needless to say, I really went off then. And there was even more choicer words. I mean, they were so choice, you could have cut them with a knife and eaten them.”
On “Today,” Salahi said that she wasn’t upset about what Goldberg did on the air but how she treated her afterward. “I think I started crying because now I have someone I don’t even know, I’m a guest of their show, and they’re berating me,” she said.
Salahi’s fellow cast mates, who appeared with her on “Today,” didn’t appear to buy her claims. The four other women repeatedly exchanged looks of exasperation and said they were fed up with her and all the attention she generated.
“This is a show about five people,” said Mary Schmidt Amons. “We’re so finished with it.”
Lynda Erkiletian, the one cast member who was friends with Salahi before the show, said she no longer trusted Michaele and Tariq: “They live a phony fake Bonnie-and-Clyde life.”
The drama, coming right as Bravo launches the show, appears likely to heighten interest in the program.
“It’s perfect, perfect, because you couldn’t pay for this kind of publicity,” noted “Today” co-host Kathie Lee Gifford.
After a month-long public records investigation, Times staff writers Matea Gold and Richard Verrier found that dozens of children are appearing on reality television shows without legal safeguards because of widespread confusion among state regulators about how to classify the shows.
In its examination of some of the most visible series featuring children under 16, The Times found that a majority had not obtained work permits to employ minors — including TLC's "19 Kids and Counting," WE TV's "Raising Sextuplets" and the entire "Real Housewives" franchise on Bravo.
Because producers say that the kids on their programs are participants, not employees, child labor laws are rarely applied. As a result, for the vast majority of these shows, there are no state-mandated instructors or union representatives on set to limit the number of hours the children are on camera, to make sure they get meal breaks and go to school, or to prevent exposure to dangerous situations. Most reality show children are not guaranteed that they will be compensated or that any money they do earn will be set aside for them.
After inquires from The Times, state agencies in California, Florida, Georgia and Virginia are looking into whether production companies violated child labor laws while filming in their states.
Photo: Jim Bob Duggar, who appears with his family on TLC's "19 Kids And Counting," told The Times that they do not consider the filming work. Credit: TLC
You know Michaele and Tareq Salahi as the White House gatecrashers, and soon you can see them starring in Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Washington, D.C."
But investigative journalist Diane Dimond is working on a new book that she says will not only disprove that the socialites crashed President Obama's first state dinner, but will also reveal, among other details, why the White House chose not to clear their names.
"There's a whole sub-text to the story here that involves reality television and the way journalism is practiced today and the way that new administrations handle themselves with the Secret Service," Dimond said during a telephone interview Friday. "And I think it's got a lot of layers and texture to it. I've been a journalist a long time. And there's almost always a deeper story to be told that we the media don't get the time or we're not allowed to tell it."
Dimond met the Salahis when she was assigned to interview them for "Entertainment Tonight." Having covered the White House earlier in her career, Dimond said the story that the politically connected couple had crashed the state dinner for India's prime minster never sat right with her. So she started digging for information, calling Secret Service sources and other Washington insiders.
Complicating the matter was that the Salahis were under contract with Bravo for their reality show and could not speak publicly about the events surrounding Nov. 24, 2009, Dimond said. In fact, Bravo's camera crews had been following the couple that day, capturing Michaele Salahi as she got her hair done for the dinner and Tareq Salahi as he ordered his tuxedo, she said. The cameras even followed them to the White House doors as they arrived, Dimond said.
