Credit: Instagram/Shannonbeador
Shannon Beador was put on blast by Patrick McDonald, a former producer of The Real Housewives of Orange County, on Tuesday’s episode of Heather McDonald‘s podcast.
As Patrick suggested Shannon, 62, actually hated filming the series but was too addicted to the fame and money to walk away, accused her of mistreating him and his crewmates, and claimed she was protected by production, he also backed the claims Joel Kim Booster, 38, made against her after filming Love Hotel, and detailed Shannon’s past meltdowns.
“[Katie Ginella] filmed one of her meltdowns,” Patrick began on the August 25 episode of Juicy Scoop, giving a nod to an incident that occurred amid a cast photoshoot. “I was there that day and Shannon was going crazy. Who knows [why].”
According to Patrick, Shannon’s antics are a case of diva behavior.
As he reflected on his first day filming with Shannon, Patrick admitted that she reached a breaking point for unknown reasons.
“She’s like, ‘Are we done? Okay! We’re done. Filming should be stopped. No one’s filming, right?’ And then she looks right in the camera, and says, ‘You’re not filming.’ And it’s like, ‘Girl, just walk out of the room then.’”
Shannon then called a local restaurant with demands about seating.
“She’s like, ‘Hi! Hello! Yes. This is Shannon Beador from the Real Housewives of Orange — yes, I’ll hold … Hi. Yes. This is Shannon Beador from the Real Housewives of Orange County. I need to make a reservation. We’ll be there in 30 minutes for a table for two, and for the love of God, do not put us in the front table again. Everybody was gawking at us the last time. Please put us in the back so we can have a nice dinner.’”
“I was like, the fact that she introduced herself as Shannon Beador from the Real Housewives of Orange County, not once, but twice, on like a 30-second phone call, I was like, ‘Yikes, lady,’” he continued. “And then I proceeded to work with her for four more months and see her move through the world like that constantly.”
During another moment, Patrick recalled Shannon “unraveling” after learning amid a phone call that her new Mercedes-Benz wasn’t compatible with the breathalyzer she was required to have due to her September 2023 DUI.
“She’s like, ‘You’re gonna f*cking tell me. Can they not put that breathalyzer on my car or not? I just spent f*cking $60,000 on the car, and I’m not gonna be able to use it,’ like, going off on me. I’m like, ‘Lady, I didn’t drive your car into a house. I’m just here to film your life, and I’m certainly not going to like check and do you a favor if you’re speaking to me like this,’” he explained.
“Just her arrogance and audacity of speaking to me that way was like, ‘You go check to see if this is gonna work or not because if it’s not gonna work, I’m not coming over there,’” he added.
After they got off the phone, Patrick said he warned the crew and those involved that she was “coming in hot,” and sure enough, she pulled up, screaming out the window before she was even parked.
“She’s like, yelling at me from the car, before they’ve even pulled in,” he revealed.
From there, Shannon went on a rant about Tamra Judge, 58, telling him, “You want me to go film with Tamra Judge tonight because every single one of you, when Tamra Judge says, ‘Jump,’ you say, ‘How f*cking high?’ And then I gotta go film a f*cking scene with Tamra.”
While Shannon reportedly seems unhappy while filming, Patrick said she’ll likely never leave RHOC because of her need for fame and funds.
“It’s the addiction to the fame, and it’s the money,” he stated. “She despises doing the show. You can see …[But] Shanon is a fascinating case because it’s one of the most fascinating cases of like, Stockholm Syndrome I think we’ve ever seen on reality TV cuz she hates that show. She hates doing the show every f*cking day. She like, resents the fact that she has to be there. But she loves being famous. She loves the perks that come along with that. And she loves the check, obviously, and not only that, but she needs that check.”
After working with Bravo for years, Patrick said that the RHOC crew “loves to terrorize their cast,” and Shannon specifically, as he pointed to the addition of Alexis Bellino, 49, amid season 18.
“It was absolutely diabolical of them to add Alexis Bellino to that show. This woman had just drunk drove, got a DUI for driving her car into a house … with her dog in the car … and it’s not the first time she’s had issues with alcohol, and I’m sorry, it’s just like, yeah, it was awful of them to put Alexis, to add onto that. I totally agree with that,” he admitted.
That said, he claimed producers refrain from showing Shannon at her “very, very worst.”
“There’s footage of Shannon that is much worse than you’ve ever seen on the show and they don’t show that because they have to protect her just enough so she’ll come back the next season because if they show everything and make her look like an absolute monster and then the public completely turns on her, she’s not gonna come back cuz there’s only so much a person can take,” he shared. “So they protect her a little bit, they show her being crazy, show some stuff, then they show her being funny … and then that gets the audience to laugh, and so they like her and that makes her feel good.”
Also on Heather’s podcast, after suspecting Shannon’s “mask has been slipping,” Patrick made it clear that he had no doubt that Joel was being honest when he accused Shannon of treating the Love Hotel crew in a subhuman manner and reacted to his public apology.
“He retracted and apologized later, which he was most definitely pressured to do … when I heard that, I was like, every single word he said is true. I’ve seen her do it multiple times.”
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 20 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on Bravo.