Fans often refer toHeather Gayas the narrator of "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City." During Season 6 of theBravo franchise, though – depending who you ask – she's lost the plot.
Gay, 51, went head-to-head with former besties Lisa Barlow and particularly Meredith Marks, the latter's alleged bad behavior on a plane alienating her from the rest of the cast.
It's resulted in lingering bitter feelings during the Season 6 reunion (airing Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo, Jan. 13 through Jan. 27, and streaming on Peacock next day). Gay and Marks are sitting on opposite couches, the tension palpable. Previews suggest a major blowout between the pair still to come.
"I really got burned when I came into this friend group on this show, like I did not know the level of mean girl trade craft that existed on the planet," says Gay in a Zoom interview. "I was a quick learner, quick student of it."
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But it still hurts her when she and her fellow housewives betray each other. Loyalty, for the author of memoirs "Bad Mormon" and "Good Time Girl," remains a crucial tenet for her in friendship.
"I don't care if we fight, I don't care if there's conflict, I don't care if we make each other mad, or we hurt each other's feelings," she adds. "That is life. But when we take something secret and special and we twist it and weaponize it and then use it to hurt each other, that just cuts me to my core. And it's really, really, really hard to come back from, and that's what Meredith and I are facing right now." Her "heart is broken" over their discord.
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Though some of Gay's friendships appear in freefall, other parts of her personal life are only rising up. She's thrilled being an empty nester, as much as her kids push back on her pleasure.
"With them gone and living their own lives, there's just a little more freedom and bandwidth for me to focus on me, and like it feels really good," she says, "and I know that I'm not supposed to feel that way, like I should be mourning my mothering, but I'm not. I'm happy, and I'm ready for this next chapter."
It's a chapter that some fans will be happy to flip through, but others won't feel like turning more pages.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:'Real Housewives' star Heather Gay mourning Meredith Marks friendship
