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Gretchen Rossi appeared on Heather McDonald‘s podcast on Tuesday, where she reflected on The Real Housewives of Orange County cast’s warnings about Katie Ginella.
As she also denied that she and her castmates were ganging up on Katie, 41, and accused Katie of using the press to spin lies about them, Gretchen, 46, reflected on her shady comment about Shannon Beador‘s DUI and clapped back at Tamra Judge‘s suggestion that she hasn’t gotten enough compassion on the show.
“They were all telling me, ‘Gretchen, you need to be careful. This is what she does.’ And I didn’t want to believe it,” Gretchen revealed on the August 26 episode of Juicy Scoop.
After starting off the season as Katie’s friend, Gretchen began to notice a pattern.
“Every time we’re turning around, there’s some new blogger,” she explained. “Even the thing that happened with Tamra. That blogger came out and said, ‘Katie is straight-up lying. This did happen. She did call me.’”
Although fans have accused the RHOC cast of ganging up on Katie, Gretchen insisted that was not the case, signaling Katie’s own antics against the cast.
“The audience thinks we’re all just ganging up on Katie and going against Katie, but she has strategically done this to each and every cast member, and she’s out spinning these really horrific stories about each cast member and she’s done it to every single one of us, [Gina Kirschenheiter], [Emily Simpson], [Heather Dubrow], Tamra, Shannon, now me,” she shared. “I’m just like, why the heck? Why is she doing this?”
After admitting that her comment about Shannon’s DUI being illegal amid Shannon’s argument that it was illegal for Katie to secretly record her “wasn’t a great thing to say” since she loves Shannon, 61, Gretchen pointed out that the moment was “real” and “authentic.”
She then suggested that other women on the show aren’t as genuine.
“It’s hard when you’re filming with people that are just like, ‘Oh I just gotta give this whole thing,’ and it’s like they’re wiling to say and do anything for this moment, and it’s like, I think we can actually have a lot of moments without trying to have this moment or make sh*t up about people or wreck their life,” Gretchen suggested. “For me, you’re taking it too far.”
Moving on to Tamra’s recent suggestion that the cast didn’t give her compassion amid Teddi Mellencamp‘s cancer diagnosis, Gretchen shot down the idea.
“I don’t think anybody didn’t have compassion for what Tamra, and I hate to even say what Tamra was going through because it’s what Teddi’s going through,” she clarified. “Tamra happens to be a good friend of Teddi’s, and I understand that it can affect her, but I’m sorry, when [my late fiancé Jeff Beitzel] was going through cancer, I wasn’t an a**hole. When [my current fiancé Slade Smiley‘s] son died, he wasn’t an a**hole. It doesn’t give you free rein to still be an a**hole and be a bad person.”
According to Gretchen, the issue that people have with Tamra and her comments about Teddi was that her castmate always seemed to have an excuse for her behavior.
“It’s like, ‘Oh, I was horrible to Shannon because I’m on the spectrum.’ ‘Oh, I was treating you that way cuz I was in a bad marriage with Simon.’ She always has an excuse,” Gretchen explained.
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 19 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on Bravo.
