Fans of Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchise have endured Kelly Bensimon’s breakdown in St. John, Kim and Kyle Richards’ ugly battle over a missed flight in Hawaii and many Ramona Singer tailspins over husbands being invited on “girls’ trips.”
So, when “The Real Housewives of Miami” headed to Bimini in last night’s episode, we all buckled our seat belts.
Recurring castmember Alexia Echevarria included in her baggage a bombshell magazine article about Karent Sierra’s boyfriend, Rodolfo Jimenez, cheating.
After several rounds of shots, Alexia pulled aside Lisa Hochstein to tell her about the article, hoping that she would do the dirty work of telling Karent the news, because Lisa and Karent are close friends.
Long episode short, Karent is delivered the bombshell and, instead of getting upset about the photos of her boyfriend with his telenovela costar, she blames Alexia for bad intentions. The “Housewives” were divided. Should Alexia have brought the article or not? And were Karent and Rodolfo even in a real relationship, or was it all for publicity?
We talked to the “Housewives” about the episode on the eve of their Season 2 reunion show.
” I’ve known Alexia for a long time, and I don’t think there was any kind of malice or any bad intention,” Ana Quincoces says.
“And to be honest, at the beginning, I thought that the whole relationship [between Karent and Rodolfo] was fake — that they had, for her to get on the show, agreed that he would be on her casting reel.
“But after seeing them together, I think that she really, really loved him. I think that he was playing her, but that she thought it was real.”
Lisa still stands firmly on Karent’s side and defends her decision to break the bad news.
“I didn’t think it was fair that I was pulled aside and put in the situation to tell my friend,” Lisa says. “What was I supposed to do with that information? I have to go and tell her, and everyone was watching her like she’s a spectacle.”
And even now, months after the trip, Karent is still reeling.
“I truly believe that the intentions were very malicious,” she says. “You can tell they were scheming way before Bimini to see how big of a humiliation they could make for me.”
The drama isn’t over yet. Next week, the business dispute from earlier this season between Marysol and Lea is dug back up.
“Things with Lea are far from settled,” Marysol says about Bimini. “For me, I was in a very difficult, emotional state. I had a lot of personal issues going on, so I was very emotional. At that moment, we did embrace and cry, but I probably would have collapsed into anybody’s arms at that point.”
Lea simply says: “I think that the understanding that we came to is that I view the world completely differently than [Marysol] does.”
Unresolved girls’ trips lead to explosive reunions. Bring on Andy Cohen.