my Real Housewives theory of everything

you're either a kyle richards or an erika jayne

Everyone has, or should have, a worldview. This is mine: There are two kinds of people in the world. One cares more about what their peers think, the other cares more about the opinions of strangers.

Like many of my core beliefs, this one developed over a decade of watching The Real Housewives, the most fascinating study on the human condition to ever exist. As soon as a new Housewife enters a franchise, I try to determine whether they are a Type One — that is, someone who tries really hard to get their new castmates to like them by like, being nice (or, conversely shit-talking one of their known enemies) — or a Type Two, someone who courts the favor of the Bravo audience, making hilariously vicious digs during interviews even if it means they might get the villain edit. You can spot a Type Two because they are always saying things like, “I’m just being real” or “I tell is like it is!” even if what it really means is that they are being a huge bitch.

By virtue of agreeing to be a reality show, the vast majority of Real Housewives are Type Twos. These are women who have offered up their families, their finances, and their friendships to public consumption in the hopes that the reward for doing so will outweigh the damage done to their personal lives. (Of course, a true Type Two would not consider this “damage” at all, rather they would focus on the social and material benefits of money and fame, but I digress.) Being a Real Housewife at all is extreme Type Two behavior, which makes it all the more fascinating when a Type One shows up.

Kyle Richards, the heart of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills since its debut in 2010, is one of these rare Type One Housewives. In fact, it is the tension between her inherent Type One-ness and the Type Two demands of being a Real Housewife that provides the main tension for her emotional arc. Richards is part of a semi-dynastic Hollywood family — she and her sister Kim were child actors, her other sister Kathy married a Hilton and gave birth to Paris — and her complicated relationships with both of them make up the bulk of her storylines, as does her relationships with the other cast members, nearly all of whom are Type Twos. Kyle is an easy person to get along with: She’s a neurotic, anxious, chronic people-pleaser who is absolutely overflowing with the “please like me!!!!” desperation common among Type Ones. (An example: Once she had to disinvite a woman to a party because someone else at the party was suing them and she couldn’t even get the words out because she was crying so hard.) But the moment she embodies Type Two energy — like when she sold a television show based on she and her sisters’ childhoods in Hollywood without their consent or when she stood up to her bestie Lisa Vanderpump over the whole stupid Lucy Lucy Apple Juicy thing (don’t ask) — Kyle absolutely falls apart, as though the worth of her entire soul is in question.

Because ultimately, to be a Type Two is to be unafraid of pissing people off, and by “people” I mean your friends and coworkers, while simultaneously hoping people you don’t know (legions of girls and gays) will call you “mother” online. No one embodies Type Two better than Erika Jayne, a fellow Beverly Hills Housewife best known for continuing to wear a pair of $750,000 diamond earrings given to her by her disgraced lawyer ex-husband even after they were alleged to have been bought with money embezzled from his clients, who include the families of plane crash victims. Other things she’s done on national television: said she had “no compassion” for said widowed and orphaned victims of her ex-husband’s crimes, was super weird about her cop son to queen Eileen Davidson¹, and told a recovering bulimic to just use diarrhea pills instead. It is not a coincidence that Erika Jayne makes for amazing television, particularly when she tells “unbelievable” stories about car crashes that then become memes.

An interesting caveat in Real Housewives typification is that cast members must not be too obviously Type Twos. In other words, you can’t make it overtly clear that you’re only on the show to deliver a few campy catch phrases and cosplay as a larger-than-life diva just for the screentime, even though that’s obviously the point of being a Housewife. You have to actually, genuinely believe that you are a larger-than-life diva without a shred of self-awareness, or else the Bravo producers will sniff you right out the door. Example: After Aviva Drescher of the Real Housewives of New York threw her prosthetic leg on a restaurant table during a fight and cried, “The only thing fake about me … is this!” she was fired for — ironically — appearing too fake. What makes Erika Jayne a great Housewife and a perfect Type Two is that she’s just literally like that.

It’s important to note that neither type is better or more “authentic” than the other. You can have evil Type Ones and perfectly lovely Type Twos. If you want to follow the type to its logical, most extreme endpoint, you could argue that Type Ones can rationalize any action under the rationale that they were being loyal to those they love, or that nothing is more important than consideration of one’s community. Type Ones, therefore, are probably more likely to find themselves swept up in some kind of sinister, amoral conspiracy or destructive system (Enron-esque white collar crime, or perhaps fascism) just because the people around them are part of it. Type Twos, meanwhile, rationalize their decisions based on their own sense of righteousness, which can either be morally pure or purely selfish.

My Housewife typification system applies beyond the Housewives: Most pop divas (Madonna, Mariah Carey) are Type Twos, as is Bernie Sanders (you can see the connection: huge fanbases, notoriously difficult to work with). Princess Diana, Meghan Markle, and Prince Harry are all Type Twos. People from your high school who are unabashedly trying to become influencers are Type Twos.

You might be asking, “Well, who’s a Type One?” and the answer is “who cares” because Type Ones are boring. I’m a Type One, for instance. You probably are too. Type Ones are terrified of confrontation, which is why we love to watch Type Twos from the safety of our couches. I am kind of morbidly fascinated by Type Twos even though I fundamentally distrust them; none of my close friends, for instance, are Type Twos (with maybe one or two exceptions, but they’re Type Twos in the good way, not the scary way). Basically what I am saying is that Type Ones tend to have a healthy amount of shame, a trait that I might offer is woefully undervalued in our current moment in culture. Type Ones know this. Type Twos don’t, and god bless them for it.

Back to the Housewives, though: Teresa Giudice is a Type Two that wants people to think she’s a Type One. She constantly claims that “nothing’s more important than family!” despite constantly vilifying her brother and sister-in-law on camera, probably because she knows that her family drama is the main reason the Real Housewives of New Jersey is still on. But what Teresa never realizes is that people watch her because she’s a Type Two. In reality (the television genre but also, like, our collective existence), it’s a Type Two’s world: Everybody is thirsty for other people’s gossip, and Type Twos will give it to them. They’ll name names because they’re “just being honest,” they’ll say exactly what’s on their mind because it wouldn’t even occur to them this approach may not be the best idea in every single situation. I admire this, on some level. It’s why, despite Kyle Richards often making for really boring TV (separation announcement and rumored gay relationship with country singer Morgan Wade aside), I find myself rooting for her, because it’s hard out there (a.k.a. the Bravo Extended Universe) for a Type One. But we still need them, otherwise the Housewives franchise will be fully of people like Sai De Silva on the new season of RHONY, who tried to be the cool girl who’s “just being real” but came off as kind of a miserable bully instead.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills premieres on October 25th. God, what a perfect show!

Stuff I’ve been into lately:

• I’m like 80 percent of the way through The Power Broker, which is both an absolute slog and completely thrilling. It will, however, fill you with rage, mostly about all the ways Robert Moses fucked the city but also because … how did Robert Caro … write this? Like physically, how does one work that hard and be that good of a reporter????

• I’ve been trying to avoid clothes shopping lately, but I loved the Uniqlo x Claire Waight Keller collab, and even though I’m not a huge pants person these baggy corduroy pants are basically all I’ve been wearing this fall

• My autumnal playlist, if you want to borrow it

• Making my own DIY moisturizer where I combine two drops of rose oil and one pump of Cerave. Feels glam!

• This piece I wrote for New York Magazine on conspiratorial Britney fans (I’ll be covering the book for Vox, look out next week)

• Being engaged!!! It’s the best, highly rec.

Til next time, who knows when!

💖 Bex 💖

1. Eileen Davidson is easily in my top five favorite housewives (but loses the top spots to Dorinda Medley and Carole Radziwill). I know she’s vibing in Malibu with her doofy hot husband but I could see her on RHONY someday. Frankly, I don’t care where they put her, listen to Sarah Paulson and bring back Eileen!!!!!!!!