Tonight is the long awaited premiere of Bravo’s newest housewives franchise – The Real Housewives of DC. Pictured above are the DC ladies as they visited the Today Show this week. From left to right is Mary Amos, Lynda Erkiletian, Cat Ommanney, Stacie Turner, and Michaele Salahi.
The DC Housewives have already proven to be the most controversial franchise yet all thanks to notorious cast member Michaele Salahi, who made headlines last year when she and her husband Tareq Salahi decided to crash a White House party.
As if that wasn’t enough, a new controversy hit early this week when the Washington Post reported that Michaele’s husband Tareq threw a drink on another cast member, Lynda.
Lynda, during her appearance on The View Wednesday, said it all started when she heard Tareq being verbally abusive to some Bravo execs during a press dinner in a Beverly Hills hotel. She said she tried to calm him down and he ended up tossing his wine on her. “Aside from ruining the day, he also ruined my beautiful Zac Posen couture suit!” said Lynda to the Post.
Even more interesting, Michaele admitted the incident occurred during her appearance on The View, but defended her husband, saying he was just defending her from past insults Lynda had hurled at her.
And there’s more folks! During the ladies’ View appearance, host Whoopi Goldberg, who was offstage during the segment, walked on the set, touched Michaele’s arm and told her to refocus on answering the White House party crashing question.
After finishing taping the segment, Michaele then reportedly told the producers of the show that Whoopi hit her, leading to an ugly exchange backstage between the Salahis and Whoopi. Whoopi admitted on The View this morning that words were exchanged backstage between she and the Salahis, saying Tareq began taking photos of her on his Blackberry at one point during the argument.
As for Michaele, she tells PEOPLE magazine that her experience on The View was “humiliating and torturous.”
“The first encounter I had with this woman is her grabbing my arm and telling me to change the subject,” Salahi told PEOPLE Thursday. “It was very inappropriate … They want to torture me. I didn’t know [being interviewed on the View] would be this horrific.”
Seems the DC cast will fit right in with the other franchises. A preview clip of tonight’s premiere is below –
