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By H. Alan Scott
Senior Editor
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When Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New York City debuted in 2008, we were introduced to a group of women willing to open up their lives and families to the prying eyes of cameras and the millions of strangers who tuned in week after week. That original cast was so culturally redefining that we, the culture, have never quite moved on. That’s where E!’s The Golden Life steps in.
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"Well, your voice has been heard because we're back," Sonja Morgan tells Newsweek, reflecting on the constant demand for the original group to return to television.
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After RHONY went in a new direction with a new cast, fans kept asking when the original cast was going to be back on TV. The outcry was obvious.
"We're just so thrilled for everyone because everyone's been saying like, ‘When are you guys coming back?’” Luann de Lesseps adds.
Dorinda Medley notes that the fan response was happening everywhere they went to the point where it was getting uncomfortable. Viewers simply missed the OGs and refused to accept any substitutes.
“No, I'm not doing that, because I miss the OGs,” she said, recalling the fan response. “No, I am not watching that. So, it got to the point where it's like, finally they picked up the torch and said, ‘Come back on.’”
With a not-so-subtle nod to The Golden Girls, The Golden Life follows the series follows Morgan, de Lesseps, Medley, Ramona Singer and Kelly Bensimon at a stage in their lives when the kids are gone, husbands long gone, too, for the most part and they’re able to live their golden years partying in Palm Beach, Florida, and the Hamptons in New York. While they might have more time on their hands, there’s one thing that has remained the same: friendship.
"Genuine friendship. This is not manufactured," Singer explains. "We have real history, real lives. We're real friends. We argue like sisters, which makes me crazy. And then, we make up."
Bensimon echoes that sentiment by highlighting how much they rely on one another off camera.
"I love, too, that we can talk to each other and that we confide in each other," Bensimon says. "And you know, women need these friendships that Ramona always talks about. We need to vent, we need to process."
But they’re quick to point out how The Golden Life is different from RHONY.
"Because we're now on our own, we've already been married, our children are adults," Singer says. "We are living our golden life, our best life. It's mind over matter."
Medley points out that viewers have mainly seen them in the highly specific environment of New York City primarily as mothers and wives. Now viewers get to see what it is like when they have the freedom to do exactly what they want. It is an opportunity to show people that their fifties and sixties are actually one of the most incredible times of their lives.
For all of these women, they know getting cast on RHONY was the original gift, but they’ve had to put in the work to find lanes for themselves outside of the Bravo universe.
"I was 50 when I started this. I had already had a whole life, I'm an interesting person, a lot of interest so now when people see us, it's not just, oh, there's a housewife. They can now see us in all different ways," says Medley, who has appeared on two seasons of The Traitors and has a new book coming out, I Know a Thing or Two About a Thing or Two.
De Lesseps, who has forged a popular cabaret career for herself, agrees with Medley.
"It's not who we are. We're not defined by it. We wear many hats," de Lesseps says. "You live your life, the show follows you. And I think a lot of Housewives in particular make that mistake of letting the show become their lives."
Medley agrees with this common reality television trap.
"They let the show become the cake, and they become only the frosting," Medley adds.
If history and their longtime popularity tell us anything, these women make good TV, so don’t expect them to leave your screens anytime soon.
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