Credit: Charles Sykes/Bravo
Carmella Garcia looked back on her spat with Vicki Gunvalson after a recent episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County saw her telling the OG that “everything has an expiration.”
As Heather Dubrow, 57, admitted it was a “good line,” Emily Simpson, 50, called it an “appropriate response” to Vicki’s criticism of Carmella’s parenting, and Shannon Beador, 62, said Carmella, 44, had “every right to be upset,” Carmella slammed Vicki’s treatment of her as “arrogant” and “gross” as Vicki, 64, told her to “sit down.”
“I just popped off, and I think rightfully so,” Carmella reasoned on the September 24 episode of the RHOC: After Show.
Then, after saying the cast should’ve been more surprised when Vicki implied she was a “sh*tty mom” than when she suggested Vicki had an expiration date, Carmella admitted she could appreciate Vicki’s seniority and long-standing history with the Real Housewives franchise.
Carmella also praised Vicki as “funny” and confessed to thinking they would establish a friendship.
“I really thought that we were gonna hit a place of genuinely moving forward together … and I was a little taken back by how this nastiness continued and the way that she looks at herself; it’s truly about the level of self-importance,” she noted. “It feels like a hierarchy. It feels like she’s up here; she’s the only one that can win. She’s the only one that can work. Everyone else is beneath her, and I just don’t roll like that. I think it’s gross. I think it’s arrogant, and I just, I’ve had enough of her.”
Amid their dispute on last week’s RHOC, Carmella said she was trying to explain to Vicki that just because someone is new, as she was on season 20, doesn’t give her the right to attack them.
“I was trying to help her understand, if you were new, it wouldn’t be okay for me to treat you like that, and she took that as an opportunity to pull rank and be like, ‘I started this franchise,’ and I’m like, ‘You need to pipe down because no one cares,’” Carmella recalled.
Meanwhile, Vicki pointed out that Carmella will have an expiration date too.
“One day I’m gonna die, and that will be an expiration date. I mean, I don’t know what her point was in that. She’s a rude lady, really is, and I would never say that to her face. Now I will,” she declared. “She’s coming in way too hard and too strong. The girl needs to sit down. I don’t really care. I’m not losing sleep over her.”
As for the rest of the cast, Emily said that Vicki “[hadn’t] expired yet” as she admitted Vicki would always “be the OG and the OG of the housewives in general because obviously no other housewife franchise would exist without Orange County.”
“She does have that title,” Emily stated.
Then, Gina Kirschenheiter, 42, pointed out that Vicki’s title was a “double-edged sword.”
“Because Carmella really needs to be like, f*ck you, but also thank you. It’s a weird thing … [But] I think [Carmella] could’ve said way worse sh*t. She was kind, I think. She was going after her as a mother,” she reasoned.
Also on the After Show, Shannon applauded Carmella for going up to bat with Vicki.
“Carmella had every right to be upset with the conversation that was taking place. I mean, she has no fear and I admire that,” she stated.
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 20 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on Bravo.