Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Heather Gay has certainly had her share of emotional outbursts over the years. Fans will never forget Season 4’s iconic, “Receipts! Proof! Timelines! Screenshots!”
So when Heather speaks more softly, you can’t help but lean in. A single tear spills down her cheek as she talks about her three-part docuseries Surviving Mormonism With Heather Gay. The very personal series premiers November 11 on Bravo.
Heather Gay thinks of ex-Mormons as “survivors”
“The more ex-Mormons I spoke with, the more I realized we’re all survivors,” she recently told Vanity Fair. “The church is so strong … You’re silenced, ridiculed, not believed — and that’s something you have to survive.”
Raised in the Mormon culture, Heather grew up to be a devout wife and mother. However, when she and her husband separated in 2011, she became an outcast, as the LDS Church disapproves of divorce. She eventually left the church.
“I never wanted to leave or criticize the Mormon church,” she admitted. “If the Mormon church wasn’t f*cked up, I would’ve stayed.”
But leaving the church gave her an on-going storyline on RHOSLC, as well as two best-selling memoires. In 2023 she released Bad Mormon, followed by 2024’s Good Time Girl. Both books were New York Times bestsellers.
In Surviving Mormonism, Heather discusses how Mormon influencers are portraying their lives as being perfect, which was clearly not her experience. This is particularly true on Hulu’s Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
“If any faith was built to thrive on Instagram … it’s Mormonism.,” she said. “Instagram and TikTok [are] a conduit for people to perpetuate this perfect veneer … When Mormonism works, it really does work. That’s why we all try to make it work, but perfectionism doesn’t work. Hopelessness and divorce and abuse and depression and addiction—you can’t contain those no matter how great the program is. Mormonism tries to contain that, and so does Instagram.”
When VF asked if Heather had ever discussed that subject with any of the SLOMW women, she said they hadn’t. “But there’s an absolute kinship,” she added.
She believes that when “they have their own money” and are introduced to ideas outside of the bubble they grew up in, “I think they will have very similar journeys … My generation had no examples … I was the only divorce [among] my entire 46 cousins.”
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on Bravo.
TELL US – ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO HEATHER’S DOCUSERIES?
