Emily Simpson is confirming that when it comes to Katie Ginella, she refused to film alongside her castmate after their initial encounter on the premiere episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County earlier this month.
As she also revealed how Katie, 41, breached the trust of Shannon Beador, 61, explained why she is confident that Katie will not be back for season 20, and shared what she believed Alexis Bellino, 48, did wrong on the show after returning for season 18, Emily, 49, admitted that she won’t be attending Alexis’ wedding to John Janssen, 62, and more.
“I didn’t deal with it,” Emily said of her feud with Katie during a July 17 interview with Us Weekly. “I mean, the first episode is basically, I said what I said, and then after that, I don’t think I have any other interaction with her. I just, I had so much going on with my kids, and the kids were the root of a lot of issues with her, so I just removed myself from that.”
While Katie described her dynamic with the cast as “eat or be eaten,” Emily said she didn’t understand that mentality as she found it easy to be accepted and remain on good terms with the group.
“As long as you’re honest and authentic and you say what you think and feel on camera, not off-camera … and you try to build relationships with the other women, then that’s staying power. And she doesn’t do either of those,” Emily noted.
That, along with Katie’s filming of Shannon amid a meltdown, which she described as a “breach of trust and an invasion of privacy,” have led Emily to believe there is no way Katie would be brought back to the show.
“I don’t see any way … I think people were starting to realize that she does a lot of things that are deceptive,” Emily shared. “Katie’s the kind of person that you don’t know what she’s doing behind closed doors. And that’s scary.”
Even though she and Alexis weren’t exactly best friends amid season 18, Emily made it clear that she “would take Alexis any day over Katie.”
“Alexis is like a Labrador. She’s a ding dong, but it’s to your face,” she reasoned. “I don’t have hard feelings toward Alexis.”
That said, Emily felt that Alexis went about last season all wrong.
“I think that she went wrong in a lot of things that she did, and I think Alexis, if she self-reflects, probably understands that she did do things. She can never pivot … you have to pivot at some point, and she just never could,” she noted.
Also during the interview, Emily said that while she was “absolutely not” invited to Alexis and John’s wedding, she “wouldn’t go” either way.
“It would hurt Shannon’s feelings. I would never do that,” she explained.
The Real Housewives of Orange County season 19 airs Thursdays at 9/8c on Bravo.
