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Former Bravo producer Patrick McDonald alleged that castmates are fed questions to ask during scenes on Real Housewives, as there are “bullet points” of topics to address. Patrick then shared how the producers allegedly do it.
On Real Housewives of Orange County, some fans have speculated that certain Housewives are ‘producer plants’ – meaning they’ll do or say anything that producers will tell them, which is why they’re treated favorably in the edit.
On the Juicy Scoop podcast with Heather McDonald, ex-producer Patrick alleged that there are “bullet points” of topics that castmates are meant to discuss in each scene. He called the topics “beats.”
“Going into each scene, you have beats,” he said. “In the mornings, all the crew, we get a beats email. So it’s like all the scenes break down. And then [there are] all the beats for each scene … [like], ‘In this scene, they need to talk about these 10 topics. And within those 10 topics, here’s like 10 bullet points of questions they should ask each other.'”
“[Producers] meet with both [castmates] privately before the scene and prep them,” he continued. “Then they get in there and of course [the castmates] get off track, you know? So that’s when the ‘big words’ thing comes in.”
Patrick explained that the ‘big words’ are literally giant words written out on a phone screen – which the producer will flash to a costar to remind her what question to ask.
“So we’re at this restaurant, right? And like we’re shooting the scene. [I’ll radio my segment producer on the floor] like, ‘God, when are they ever going to get to Gina pissing Heather off? … I need you to go get in Tamra‘s eye and give her [the big words]: ‘Why is Gina scared of pissing Heather off?'”
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“Some housewives are really good at getting the notes and doing it, and then [others aren’t],” said Patrick, who shared that another question on his phone was: “‘Do you think Sheree knows Martell is dating that other girl?'”
New episodes of The Real Housewives of Orange County air Thursday nights on Bravo.