What the Heck Happened on Bravo’s Love Hotel?
Sunday night’s series premiere of Bravo’s Love Hotel was not dramatic. Host Joel Kim Booster, a comedian with a self-reported Bravo obsession, welcomed four Real Housewives to the “Love Hotel,” a resort in Cabo populated with men of a certain age willing and ready to date on reality TV. Everyone was on their best behavior as Booster laid out the vague premise of the show: The Housewives, including the OC’s Shannon Beador, Potomac’s Gizelle Bryant and Ashley Darby, and New York’s Luann de Lesseps, would date around until they found someone with whom to spend the rest of their lives (or, presumably, until season two). Think a cross between The Golden Bachelor, Love Island, and Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip. Promising!
Watching the premiere, though, I was searching for clues. Despite Booster and the ladies’ sunny dispositions, something went down on this set.
Back in September, at the end of filming, Booster went live on Instagram to talk about Beador, claiming “that she had been a terror to work with, humiliated the crew, and was rude to someone at the wrap party,” per People. He then posted the following Instagram Stories:
Joel Kim Booster had some words for Shannon Beador and her behavior during the new housewives dating show he is hosting. ???? #RHOC pic.twitter.com/NQPTz4WNaE
— BravoBabe (@thebravobabe_) September 29, 2024
“Just because you’re a pathetic drunk on a reality television show best known for a string of failed relationships and a DUI does not make you a star and does not give you license to treat the people you work with like they are subhuman. Period,” he wrote. “They will make me delete this but DM me if you’d like to see some videos. Besos!”
Damn. Beador, as fans of The Real Housewives of Orange County know, did get a DUI after crashing her car into a house following an argument with her now-ex-boyfriend John Janssen in 2023. (Beador pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 40 hours of community service.) But what on earth could she have done on set to evoke this outburst?
Booster did not provide details or publish any videos. He did end up apologizing two weeks later in another series of Instagram Stories. “I let an on-set conflict cloud my judgment and accessed the darkest, ugliest part of myself and said things I don’t stand by or even believe, and I am deeply sorry that allowed my worst self to cloud my judgment,” he said.
Beador acknowledged the drama during a live show shortly after, telling the audience, “I really don’t know what it’s about because before the wrap party, he had tears in his eyes and said, ‘I’m so happy for you.’ …It’s really going to look silly for him because he had nothing but love for me the entire show.”
On yet another Housewife’s podcast (New Jersey’s Melissa Gorga), de Lesseps weighed in, claiming that she did not see any bad behavior from Beador. “Listen, he made a mistake for sure,” she said of Booster. “People make mistakes. He acted out, you know, and then it was too late to take it back, and God knows we’ve all done that.”
God knows. The premiere episode, however, did not feature much acting out at all. The naughtiest moment was perhaps when de Lesseps attempted to find the Spanish word for “vibrator.” (“El veebrator,” she mused.) Everyone was drinking, of course, but not to excess. Only Darby ended up kissing one of the men (a nice-seeming 38-year-old named Wale).
Beador notably addressed her DUI right off the bat, telling a potential suitor named Earl that she had had a hard year and was arrested after an argument with her ex. Earl was not flustered, and the two even ended up holding hands.
The teaser for the season promises some onscreen drama, at least. We see Beador in hot rollers crying about a guy, Beador and Bryant going after the same guy, and de Lesseps tossing a T-shirt over the camera in her room to do … something.
But will Bravo address the deleted Instagram Stories in the room? I guess we’ll have to watch all eight episodes to find out.
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