In particular, Lea said she spent the summer keeping up with The Real Housewives of Orange County. Just like many fans, Lea said she couldn't get enough of the drama surrounding the cancer diagnosis of Vicki Gunvalson's then-boyfriend Brooks Ayers last season of RHOC. "The one that I find the most fascinating right now of the Housewives shows last year — and maybe perhaps this year will be the same — is Orange County because I feel like those girls, it's just such raw emotion and such raw reality. It's not contrived. You just get the feeling that they're being who they really are, and it's just shocking," Lea told The Daily Dish earlier this month. "That whole thing with the cancer. It was just a strange season, so I kind of got hooked on that one a little bit."
Lea has also gotten really into The Real Housewives of New York City recently. "New York, I think was pretty good the last couple years," she said. "I didn't get to watch [Part 1 of this season's reunion] in its entirety, but I was shocked, to be honest, at the level of verbage that some of those girls were using. I was shocked. I thought I had a rough reunion, but they really went at it."
Lea went on to explain why she thought the reunion's drama was so entertaining. "I think the difference is you can get away with more when you're coming from, I don't really hate you, I just don't like your behavior, than when you're just evil and full of hate and just spewing venom and toxic and just literally drooling at the mouth to bring somebody down," she said. "So I think that's why it works for them, because you don't get that it's hate-infested and that they don't like each other and they try to bring them down. You get they have some real differences, and you're not gonna get away with this if I can't get away with that. And it's just a little lighter. It's not dark. I don't like it when it gets dark. I don't think anybody does."
As for The Real Housewives of New Jersey, whose seventh season premiered in July, Lea said she "somewhat" follows it, although she's "never really gotten addicted to" it. Lea also said that she occasionally catches The Real Housewives of Atlanta, which will return for its ninth season on Sunday, November 6, because it's "hilariously full of shade."
However, as a friend of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' Lisa Vanderpump and many of her castmates, Lea said it's not always easy for her to watch the drama that unfolds among the ladies of the 90210. "Beverly Hills is pretty, and I know all the girls in Beverly Hills. I've known most of them for years. I've known most of them before they were ever on the show," she told The Daily Dish. "So that's an uncomfortable one to watch."
Lea said she appreciates when Real Housewives keep it, well, real, as she said she did for three seasons on RHOM. "That's what I like about Orange County. You get the feeling that those girls, genuinely, that's just who they are. They're not doing it for anything other than that's just how they are. You can watch them over a period of years, and they stay the same people," she said. "I think New York is like that. I think those people stay the same. Ramona [Singer]'s always been the way she is, Sonja [Morgan]'s always been the way she is. They're always how they are, and I like that."
Source/Photo Credit: Bravo