Credit: startraksphoto.com, Instagram
Emily Simpson just wrapped filming The Real Housewives of Orange County‘s season 15 reunion, and now, she’s reflecting back on her time on the show as well as her marriage.
In a new interview, the reality star, who joined the cast for season 13, noted that she did not watch the show religiously, despite how Vicki Gunvalson made it seem.
“I never really had conversations with Vicki. Vicki doesn’t really click with anyone new,” Emily laughed to Juicy Scoop podcast host Heather McDonald. “I remember my first season on I think Vicki kept calling me like, a super fan, or something, and I was like I don’t even watch it!”
The lawyer admitted she “didn’t really enjoy” the first two seasons of the show, revealing that the “difficult” time she had made her consider quitting for good.
“[For] the first two years. I was like, ‘Why do I do this? I need to just practice law and be Emily and take care of my kids.’ It gave me a lot of anxiety” she shared. “Last year was so hard on me. I lost a huge amount of hair just from like stress. It wasn’t healthy, Shane[Simpson] and I weren’t getting along, Gina [Kirschenheiter] and I weren’t getting along, that was like a knife in my heart.”
She added how much better this season was due to her getting back on a good note with Gina and improving her marriage with her husband Shane.
“[F]or him, it was just like, I don’t wanna be in any situation that could possibly jeopardize our marriage, our family, our children. So, those first two seasons, a lot of the animosity or a lot of the problems in our marriage had to do with like he didn’t wanna film or he didn’t wanna do things,” she stated. “And then when they would film him he’d be pissed off because he didn’t want to. So I’m like, ‘Great, can you just like, pretend like you like me?’ And he’s like, ‘No, I don’t wanna do this right now, like I’m hungry, I don’t want a mic on, I don’t wanna film.’
Dishing on how they went from that infamous Google chat engagement to a married couple, Emily shared that she was “never attracted” to Shane while working with him since she wouldn’t be attracted to someone who was married.
The mother-of-three stated that she found him “hilarious,” though, and wound up heading to the courthouse with Shane and his parents (whom she didn’t know “that well”) in their Bentley, wearing a gray $40 Banana Republic dress.
“I had no idea what was going on, I was like, ‘What? I’m in a Bentley, getting married?’ I’m so confused, I’m from Ohio, I have no idea,” she laughed.
Emily added that although Shane received a lot of flack online after fans got a front-row seat to their struggling marriage, he “never cared what people thought about him,” and was actually not affected by the social media critique.
He may be taking that mindset with him on his next bar examination venture, which Emily is apprehensive about.
“I feel like Shane just needs to do something else, but he’s very committed to finishing, like he feels like he just wants to take the bar so he can prove it but … it’s hard!” she exclaimed. “I’m like, do we really wanna go through [the whole world watching] again?! I don’t! There’s so many memes out there of Shane and not passing the bar, like, do we have to add more?”
“Were you really upset when he did go to the hotel to study?” podcast host Heather asked, considering a lot of fan response regarding Shane’s ostensibly shady behavior.
“No! I booked the hotel for him! So many people were like, ‘Oh, he’s cheating on her,’ and I was like, I booked the hotel! I know where he is! If I wanted to show up at any minute, I can,” she replied. “I took two bar exams, so I know what it takes to pass and you can’t have any distractions. So I was like, no, you need to go to a hotel, and you shut yourself in the hotel, and you study, all day and that’s all you do.”
She added, laughing, “It didn’t work, but we tried.”
The Real Housewives of Orange County airs every Wednesday at 9/8c on Bravo.