‘Real Housewives of Miami’ Cast Weighs In on Lisa Hochstein’s Divorce Airing on Season 5: There Were ‘Red Flags’

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'Real Housewives of Miami' Cast Weighs In on Lisa Hochstein's Divorce Airing on Season 5: There Were 'Red Flags'

Putting the "real" in reality TV. Lisa Hochstein's divorce from Lenny Hochstein is a hot topic in season 5 of The Real Housewives of Miami — and even her costars were shocked at the way everything played out. "I just thought they were in, like, a little bit of a rut, but I was hopeful and thought that they would bounce back," Nicole Martin exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the season premiere. "So, I was surprised that it got to this point. The divorce and the girlfriend and all that stuff really caught all of us by surprise." Lisa, 40, and the plastic surgeon, 56, called it quits in May after nearly 13 years of marriage. At the time, Lenny told Us that he had started dating Katharina Mazepa, adding that their romance didn't begin until after he and Lisa decided to split. [jwplayer oKa7EGUj-zhNYySv2] A hot mic moment from season 5, however, hinted that Lenny may have been considering divorce for a while. In a sneak peek released on Tuesday, December 6, Lenny can be heard telling his friend Vito that he thinks he'll be single "in a couple months." When the friend says he doesn't want to see him split from Lisa, Lenny replies, "I do." Ahead of the premiere, Alexia Nepola (formerly Echevarria) exclusively told Us that she doesn't think Lenny knew his mic was on during the explosive scene, but she was still surprised he let himself get caught. "Just because the camera wasn't there doesn't mean that your audio is not working," the Alexia + Frankie's Beauty Bar founder, 55, explained. "Especially when it's something like that. Like, you're literally plotting to leave your wife, so [producers] are listening to this." Adriana de Moura, for her part, said she was "blindsided" by news of the breakup. "I mean, marriages have the ups and downs, but when you are committed with two small children and for the long term, you're gonna have some rough patches here and there," the "Feel the Rush" singer, 57, told Us. "But I didn't expect that either." Lisa and Lenny share son Logan, 7, and daughter Elle, 3. Last month, Lisa claimed in court documents that her estranged husband restricted her access to his finances, leaving her unable to pay for food for their kids. The doctor didn't immediately respond to her allegations. Despite the rocky moments depicted on the new season, Adriana thinks Lisa is "in a better place for sure" after the breakup, while Nicole believes the situation helped the cast grow closer to Lisa. "We all found different ways to show up for her," the anesthesiologist, 37, told Us. Season 5 of The Real Housewives of Miami premieres on Peacock Thursday, December 8. Keep scrolling to see the RHOM cast's thoughts on how Lisa and Lenny's divorce plays out in season 5:

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Alexia Nepola

The beauty entrepreneur believes Lenny may have wanted to hold off on the divorce until after filming for season 5 was complete. "I feel like he was waiting for many reasons for the show to be over," she told Us. "Unfortunately — or maybe fortunately — maybe it's a blessing in disguise that [Lisa] found out sooner than later. Her real life played out on TV because that's what was happening."

Alexia added that Lisa's divorce helped the women get closer. "I think it brought us together," she explained. "We were all here for Lisa, and Lisa had to feel how concerned we were and the love and support we had for her. We're eight women, we talk out through stuff like this in our lives, so we all had something to say."

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Nicole Martin

Nicole was surprised by how openly Lenny discussed wanting to split from Lisa during his hot mic moment. "I was like, 'OK, this is not your first rodeo, right?'" she recalled to Us. "Like, you've now been filming reality TV for I don't know how many years. And it's like, you know that you have a mic on. Or did you just forget? Did you not care? Did you cover it and think that that was gonna be enough? I was just so shocked that he was so brazen to have this conversation in a house with Lisa next door. ... I don't understand what was going on in his head."

Like Alexia, she was also surprised that Lenny didn't wait until filming was over to go through with the breakup. "When you think about filming, it's three months. It's not that long of a time frame," she explained. "Something so personal, so intimate ... I would hope that you could have held it together for three months and then done it off camera just to make it easier. Because now she has to relive that, and then it's gonna be out there and one day the kids are gonna watch that if they want to. I just thought it was poor taste [and] bad timing."

As for how Lisa is doing now, Nicole said she's in a "much better head space" than she was. "She's doing really well," the doctor added. "She looks amazing. She's in great shape. [She's] spending time with her kids and putting all her energy into that, which is where it should be."

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Adriana de Moura

"We all gathered around her and gave her support and gave her our advice on how to proceed, how to see this," Adriana told Us of how the cast supported Lisa. "I think she took it to heart and she's in a better place, and I think she's seeing light at the end of the tunnel and I'm proud of her for that."

The art dealer added that she saw some "red flags" with Lenny before the split, particularly with the way his looks changed. "To my experience, when you have a man who's been married for a while and comfortable [and] all of a sudden they start to care too much about their appearance ... that's suspicious," Adriana told Us.

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Marysol Patton

The publicist, 55, told Us that she was "pretty surprised" when she found out about Lisa and Lenny's breakup. "His life was pretty good, I thought, but I didn't live under the roof with them. I'm just watching on the outside," she said. "I was crushed for Lisa. I thought how hard and how difficult to just come out of the gate saying, 'I have somebody else. I'm done. You need to move all these things.' I thought, 'Wow, that's really harsh.' Talk about no bedside manner."

She added that she was "shocked" Lenny allowed the messy split to unravel in front of the cameras. "I was like, 'What's going on? Are we being punked?'" she quipped. "I was a little dumbfounded about how everybody was allowing it to play out so heavily."