They both brought along their significant others, as Jim Bellino and Slade Smiley were also in attendance. According to Alexis, she hit it off with Gretchen and Tamra Barney during the filming of the 5th season. The only housewife she clashed with was Vicki. Alexis has still yet to comment on the starting details revealed by her ex husband in an interview given to Star magazine a week ago.
In a recent interview, Gretchen also spoke fondly of Alexis. “We’ve become really good friends,” she said. “I like her a lot…She’s cool people.”
Before meeting Donn Gunvalson, her husband for the past 15 years, Vicki says her first marriage was fraught with emotional and verbal abuse, nearly getting physical at one point.
In an interview with Life & Style magazine, Vicki reveals she was just 21 when she married her first husband, Michael J. Wolfsmith. By the time she was 23, she had already given birth to a son, Michael, now 23, and was pregnant with her second child, daughter Briana, now 22. According to Vicki, Michael “was an alcoholic. He abused me verbally. He had many affairs during our marriage.” She recalls one horrifying incident while she was holding her baby Michael on her lap, “he went to hit me,” Vicki says. While he didn’t end up striking her, she was consumed with fear. “I was 23 years old and pregnant for the second time,” Vicki recalls. “I was really scared.
Vicki divorced him when she was 29. Vicki explains those six years, “were filled with screaming. I had to be his mother. I’d throw cold water on him to wake him up for work. It was a very hard life.” Vicki had a revelation as she approached age 30. “It was a pivotal point in my life,” she explains. “I didn’t want to live my 30s the way I’d lived my 20s. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t loved.”
Vicki’s ex husband denied the allegations when contacted by Life & Style magazine. “I had bouts with alcohol, but it was not a problem,” he says. He also says he never cheated on Vicki or abused her emotionally or physically.
Just when you thought the feud between the Real Housewives of Orange County housewives, Tamra Barney& Gretchen Rossi, had calmed down, comes news that their feud has once again gotten very nasty and personal. And the man in the middle of their current feud is none other than Gretchen’s current boyfriend, Slade.
According to InTouchWeekly, Tamra believes that Slade Smiley bashed her parenting skills on a recent episode. “I take raising my children very personal. Maybe it’s something he should try doing,” Tamra, 42, tells In Touch. Ouch, Tamra is referring to the news report that Slade owes $80,000 in back child support to his sick son.
Tamra doesn’t stop there, she continues, “I think he is a washed-up 40-year-old who wants to be on TV so bad he’ll do whatever it takes.”
Gretchen, 31, is however quick to come to the defense of her man. “She should focus on her own children, who obviously need the attention,” says Gretchen alluding to the troubled son of Tamra, Ryan Vieth, who has had several run ins with the law. Ryan has received a staggering number of more than 20 traffic violations over the past seven years.
“One of them went to jail recently and has not been successful at much except hitting on drunk girls that Mommy connives to get naked wasted at her home,” says Gretchen.
Yikes, this new feud is rather suprising considering Tamra has been writing in her blogs recently that she and Gretchen are now on good terms. Not certain of what Slade said about Tamra’s parenting skills in any of the recent episodes.
“I’m actually getting involved in the music industry,” said Gretchen while walking the AMA red carpet. In fact, Gretchen also brought along music producer Bryan Todd to the awards show.
Todd has produced music for the likes ofJordin Sparksand Ashley Tisdale. “We’re going to work together on some music stuff,” said Todd.
So does this mean stiff competition for fellow tone-deaf singing housewife Kim Zolciak? “Maybe,” she said. “You’ll have to wait and see. There may be some competition for Kim.”
The AMA Awards aired last night and in attendance were Bravo housewives, Kim Zolciak and Gretchen Rossi. In tow was also Slade Smiley, who accompanied his girlfriend on the red carpet.
Not sure what the correlation is between Bravo and the AMAs, but then again these ladies would attend the opening of an envelope. Gretchen and Kim both looked nice, and Kim did a rather nice job in walking that fine line between being sexy without being too revealing.
We recently wrote about the downside of appearing on a reality show such as the Real Housewives of Orange County. The first downside being that your ‘perfect’ marriage that you pride yourself on will come off as being not so perfect in front of millions of viewers, while your husband’s cutesy behavior might come off as being somewhat controlling.
The second downside it seems is skeletons from your closet being unveiled. New housewife on the block, Alexis Bellino, is now experiencing this as her first husband, Jeff Barry, is spilling all sorts of sordid details about the couple’s first marriage and nasty divorce to Star magazine. And oh yeah, there are pictures too.
In the latest issue of Star magazine, it is revealed that Alexis and Jeff got married back in 2002 after 3 years of dating. The Missouri college sweethearts would later go on to divorce in 2003 after just 15 months of marriage. Reasons for their divorce includes infidelity, boozy brawls, computer hacking, physical threats and missing money. “We had been college sweethearts in Missouri,” Jeff, 31, a sales engineer, tells Star. “I never dreamt back then that things between us could turn so ugly.”
More details about Alexis’s first marriage below -
The couple moved to San Diego shortly after their 2002 wedding. “We were young and didn’t have a lot of money.” says Jeff. “Then Alexis…started hanging out with trust fund babies. Having the right pair of expensive jeans became important to her.”
Eventually, Jeff discovered his wife was having an affair with a wealthy father of three she met at the gym.
“I gave Alexis endless opportunities to fess up, but she kept denying everything,” says Jeff. “Then she said she needed her space, moved into her own place and asked me to go to therapy with her. But she only went twice, she made no effort at all.”
Jeff pretended to be a friend of Alexis’s and started emailing her under false pretenses. His suspicions were confirmed that Alexis was indeed sleeping with the married wealthy man.
Jeff then sent a mass email out to couple’s friends and family, in which he referred to Alexis as a “gold-digging homewrecker,” and a “$2 whore.“
In the divorce filing, Jeff said of Alexis, “She can be an extremely mean, irrational drunk… She once took off her top in front of my best man to make me mad because she was upset that I smoked a cigarette.”
The couple’s divorce was finalized in June 2004. According to Jeff, he hasn’t had any contact with Alexis in four years.
“I’m not surprised she ended up on a show like Real Housewives,” says Jeff, who is now remarried. “She just seems to have even bigger boobs, a nose job and blonder hair now.”
According to Star magazine, Alexis declined to comment on this article.
Alexis, 32, is a stay at home mom of three, and is happily married to entrepreneur Jim Bellino. This episode of the OC Housewives was a perfect example of why doing a reality show is a not so great idea for a marriage. The little things about your spouse that you found oh so adorable quite frankly might translate into creepy and controlling in front of millions of viewers. All of a sudden, your “perfect” marriage doesn’t appear so perfect anymore.
I was loving the dynamic between Alexis and Jim, 47, at the beginning of the episode, especially when they mentioned putting God first in their marriage, then came some awkward moments which included Jim telling his wife to quiet down during their lunch ( she was barely loud by the way), and Jim not allowing her to try on lingerie at the store (even though her bathing suit from the previous day was very revealing). Seems like it gets even better judging from next week’s previews. We get to see Jim not allow Alexis to go on a trip without him. Sighs, all soo romantic.
Tonight’s episode also brought way TMI (Too Much Information) concerning Gretchen and Slade‘s relationship. I could have really done without the excessive details of their sex life. A refreshing moment however was Slade admitting he was poor/broke. It was nice to see some honesty regarding his financial situation. Gretchen continues her attempt to prove to us that she didn’t get a ton of money from her late fiance,Jeff Beitzel, though a TMZ report reveals she received $2.5 million.
Tamra continues to prove to us she has some major jealousy and self esteem issues. Vicki was Vicki as always, and we got to see a somewhat emotional goodbye from Jeana. It was nice seeing her with all of her kids. Can’t say I really blame her for wanting out of this OC madness.
TELL US – WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON TONIGHT’S EPISODE? WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ALEXIS AND JIM?
One of the original Orange County “Housewives,” Jeana Keough is leaving the show to focus on work. Due to the chanllenges of the real estate bussiness, the Wisconsin native and former Playboy Playmate wants to focus her attention on short sales and escrow disbursements.
Tonight’s episode will highlight her exit from the show. Though she is off the show, Jeana plans to tune in every Thursday. In a recent interview, Jeana opens up on her departure, plans to return to TV, what she really thinks about Vicki, Gretchen & Slade’s relationship plus the possibility of a wedding.
These are excerpts from Jeana’s interview below:
Well, now that we’re on the topic. Explain a little more about why you decided to leave the show.
Work. My real estate just went down two-thirds because I wasn’t around the summer to do the open houses and do the things that make me successful. I mean, you can have 15 listings but if you’re not the one sitting on them on the weekend and telling the people the positive things about the houses and why they should buy this house instead of another house — it just … me not being there hurt my sales. The market changed horribly anyway. And me taking off four months in the height of the season was just really hard on me. I needed a summer to get my business back on track. I took a few other jobs. I’m doing, like, three spokesperson jobs. I needed to focus on my income. Loan modifications and short sales take an extraordinary amount of time over a normal sale. So I had to do four loan modifications on four properties. Plus helping all my clients do their short sales. I really didn’t have time to do the show. I had to move Kara from Berkeley down to UCLA. I had to go college searching with Colton. The kids were at a point in their life where they wanted a break from it. They really enjoyed their break from it … but now they miss it.
Over the seasons, we see the ins and outs of your relationship with Vicki. You guys bicker occasionally, but you always seem to work things out. This season, we learn that you asked to borrow money from Vicki and she didn’t help you out. And it seems you sort of lost touch. Talk a little bit about the situation.
It was a small amount of money. It was a deadline for summer school and I didn’t get a check for a week. It was a small amount of money for a small amount of time. It meant nothing. I picked up the phone and called my next friend. It didn’t bother me at all. It just … I don’t know. It hurt my feelings just for a second. But I didn’t dwell on it. I don’t even know why she mentioned it. It was an insignificant thing. I’m not sure. It didn’t hurt my friendship with her. We just got busy. You see in the next few episodes, she traveled a lot this summer. She had to go to a whole bunch of different states for work. And she traveled with the show to a couple of different places. She wasn’t around. Normally, I went on vacations with her. If she was going to Mexico, we’d go. But I’m on a Mexican moratorium so I didn’t go this year.
What do you think of the Tamra-Gretchenfeud?
I told Tamra many, many times: “It’s none of your business. One guy woke you up one night. Get over it. Say you’re sorry.” We actually did an appearance where she apologized on TV. She wanted to do it on TV so everyone would know. She did apologize. She wanted to move on. But, of course, the episode came out and it brought up bad feelings. Hopefully, it’s done now and we can move on.
What about Gretchen and Slade’s relationship? True love?
I have a feeling they will be the next wedding. They’re very, very close. And they’re so cute together. Gretchen’s a girlfriend kind of girl. She wants to be married and have kids so … I think they’re in it for the long haul.
