The show must go on. Season 15 of The Real Housewives of Orange County started filming before the COVID-19 crisis, but it’s safe to say the coronavirus pandemic is going to affect the feel of the long-running Bravo show.
“We are trying to do what we can,” Braunwyn Windham-Burke told Us Weekly exclusively while chatting about her charity #WivesHelpingLives, a social media campaign offering support, advice, and charitable ideas during the era of COVID-19. “We know that we have this really unique opportunity to capture this moment in American history or the world’s history and we are doing our best with what we have, obviously. I do think it’s important, we can’t just go from ‘Oh, and then this happened.’ So no, we are going to do what we can to talk about it just for what we have at home.”
She added: “I don’t know if any of us can come out of this the same way we went in. I know I’m not going to be able to.”
Braunwyn, who is quarantined in the OC with husband Sean Burke and their seven kids, told Us that it was easier to film the show without Tamra Judge and Vicki Gunvalson. (Bravo confirmed earlier this year that Tamra and Vicki were not returning for season 15.)
“I can only answer that for myself — for me, it makes it a lot easier. I do love Tamra. I’ve always gotten along with Tamra. Even now, we still text. So, I do miss her, but I think it’s been really nice because a lot of the group dynamics were forced to switch,” she explained. “People were like, ‘OK, we have to work through some issues now because I’m not going to just go off in this direction with this person.’ So, I personally, feel so much closer to everyone that I’m filming with this season than I did last season.”
RHOC also stars Shannon Beador, Gina Kirschenheiter, Kelly Dodd and Emily Simpson.
“I feel like it just made it a lot easier to open up to everyone because everyone was sort of finding their place again,” Braunwyn said. “And it just made my relationships with everyone much more authentic, much more.”
For more from Braunwyn — including details of #WivesHelpingLives, a group-effort social media campaign led by the RHOC star, Jennifer Armstrong MD and community leader and travel writer Kim-Marie Evans — watch the video above.
