RHOLSC’s Monica Garcia is officially a one-season wonder, as she won’t be back for season 5. Plus, producers speak out on casting her and more!
One and done! Monica Garcia‘s time as a Real Housewife is done – for now.
Earlier this week, Ryan Bailey from So Bad It’s Good podcast revealed that he had a very reliable source tell him that Monica Garcia would not be back for season 5 of RHOSLC.
Listen to his podcast clip below!
Then, on Tuesday, ahead of part three of the RHOSLC season 4 reunion, PEOPLE confirmed that Monica Garcia was departing the show after only one season.
Multiple sources confirmed to the outlet that Monica would NOT be joining co-stars Heather Gay, Meredith Marks, Lisa Barlow, Whitney Rose, and Angie Katsanevas when cameras pick back up for season 5 of RHOSLC next month.
This news comes just days after Andy Cohen teased Monica’s precarious future on the show when chatting with Entertainment Tonight.
Andy explained, “I think the question is how will Monica, or will Monica find her way back into this group?”
Then, on Watch What Happens Live, Andy hinted that Monica’s exit from RHOSLC may just be a “break” so that the rest of the RHOSLC cast has time to regroup.
Speaking of the RHOSLC cast needing a break from co-star Monica Garcia, showrunner Lori Gordon told Variety on Tuesday that fans should “never say never” to Monica’s possible return to RHOSLC in the future.
“The women just need a cooling-off period, and I think it’s just too soon,” Gordon said. “They’ve articulated it. It’s too soon for them to reenter into a friendship — a trusting friendship. Not enough time has passed.”
Meanwhile, RHOSLC producers Lisa Shannon, Noah Samton, and Lori Gordon also spoke with the Hollywood Reporter and opened up about casting Monica for season 4.
They note that they would NOT have brought Monica on the show had they known about her troll account, Reality Von Tease.
Shannon explained: “We didn’t even know what RealityVonTease was. Lori called me and gave me a heads-up, and I was like, “What even is that?” It wasn’t this big blog to us, and we would have breadcrumbed it more throughout the season if it was something that we knew and we were leading up to. Our big concern was like, “Sure, it means a lot to the ladies, but we don’t know what this blog is, so is this going to be this big ‘a-ha moment’ for a viewer?” Lori and the team did an amazing job making the viewer feel as shocked by it as the women were and as impacted by it as the women were.”
Gordon notes that as shocking as it was to learn that Monica kept the Reality Von Tease account from producers, they decided to let Heather Gay run with the news and reveal Monica’s troll account to the rest of the cast. Gordon also admits that she was focused on how producers could tell this story as authentically as possible since they were out of the loop on it.
“It’s two parts. One part is like, “How did we miss this? How did we not know,” obviously. And the second part of that was, “Well, we’ve got to let Heather embrace this and tell this story.” There were a lot of thoughts going through my head personally as a showrunner, like, “What do we do with this? Are people going to think we knew? Are people going to think we lied?” The most important thing to us was to tell the story as authentically as it came out so that people would realize that we had no idea. But it was upsetting because [Gay] was so upset, and as she started to walk me through all the evidence that she had gotten in those hours, it was really quite shocking, and more and more flooded in as the editing process went on,” Gordon said.
Samton notes that producers do extensive background checks on potential new Housewives, so they were shocked that they missed Monica’s connection to the Reality Von Tease troll account.
“We do extensive background checking on the cast, but a fake profile troll account wouldn’t come up. There’s no record of that account through her name. So yeah, there are things that can slip through and do, and it’s certainly not something we love when we have a surprise like that. It turned out well, I guess, creatively for the end of the season. But it was pretty shocking for all of us, and certainly, we would not have brought Monica on the show in the first place if we knew that that was going on.”
He adds that RHOSLC producers may need to change their casting process moving forward.
“It’s a good question that we have not discussed. I don’t really see how you protect for something like that. I mean, it’s not my area of expertise, but it’s certainly something we should look into,” Samton said.
RHOSLC will return for season 5 in late 2024.
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