The Women of ‘RHOSLC’ Should Let Bronwyn Newport Have a Little PR Relationship, as a Treat

In an era of reality television where the fourth wall has essentially become a pile of rubble, Bravolebrities have a new favorite game: calling each other out for self-producing storylines. And Bronwyn Newport of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is the latest to find herself tied to the stake in this authenticity witch hunt.Her fellow Utahns seem to believe her relationship with 33-year-old model Brandon Good—which began two months after she announced the end of her nine-year marriage to Todd Bradley and fizzled out before the season aired—is a publicity stunt.As expected, Reddit threads are absolutely flooded with receipts, proof, timelines, and screenshots supporting both sides of the argument. But there’s one response that I’ve been surprised to see missing from the conversation, and that’s a GIF of Arrested Development’s Lucille Bluth enthusiastically boasting “Good for her!”If you’re not fluent in reaction memes, let me explain.It doesn’t really matter if this was a bona fide relationship rebound or a carefully-calculated chess move. In either case, this alleged ploy is exactly what we all need from this show. Brandon is a fun addition to the mix. His mere presence ruffles the cast’s feathers in a very low-stakes manner, which is a welcomed reprieve in a season that’s getting darker by the week.It’s silly to see Bronwyn sweat bullets through feathered couture while her unfiltered mother, Muzzy, grills Brandon through every second of their probably-too-soon first encounter. And when Meredith Marks and Lisa Barlow crooned through their first live performance of Hypocrisy and Bullshit, it was objectively hilarious that sweet little Zoolander found the song to be catchy before realizing it was an attack on his very own girlfriend.No matter how Bronwyn may have chosen to navigate the months following her divorce, it would have naturally become a topic of conversation on the show. Sharing personal updates with viewers is the whole entire scope of the role for the ladies of The Real Housewives.If she had decided to play coy and keep her romantic life out of the spotlight, she’d have been accused of hiding something. But because Bronwyn opted to bring a new fling into the mix, she’s faced with having to beat the PR relationship allegations. And we all know that if she went for a secret, more sinister third thing—like getting really into aerial yoga or launching a luxury candle company—her cast members would have given her the same skepticism.At the risk of getting too inside baseball, couldn’t one argue that a Housewife accusing her fellow cast member of faking a relationship for a storyline might also just be attempting to pull a narrative out of thin air? And furthermore, isn’t that what we’re all expecting these women to do when that sprinter van drops them off at a vacation rental in Palm Springs?For 20 years, The Real Housewives have been giving us storylines that are barely tethered to reality. We’ve heard talk of clothing lines that never came to fruition, witnessed vow renewals that were just a divorce detour, and watched waiters hover around dinner tables where the goal is to unpack drama rather than to eat.Whether Bronwnyn was acting in good faith or scheming, she read the brief, rolled up her designer sleeves, and came to work to get the job done. If you’ve ever fired off a “no worries!” Slack when you were, in fact, worrying, I think you can give her a pass on this one.And let’s not forget that Bronwnyn spent last season dodging rumors that her 60-year-old estranged husband had farted while “making out” with another woman. If rolling up to the function with a boy toy who may or may not be sending an invoice her way afterwards is what it takes to recover from such a stinky dissolution of a marriage, so be it.