‘RHOSLC’ Producers Discuss Whether They Knew Monica Garcia Was Behind Reality Von Tease From the Beginning

POV: Everyone around you has spent the past few weeks in a state of truly unbridled shock over the season finale of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. One of your friends claims they never saw it coming while another says something to the effect of "Who in their right mind would confess to being behind a burner account as a joke?!?!" But what everyone in your life can agree on is that they're.5 seconds away from removing you from the group chat because you haven't caught up on season 4 yet.

Point! Is!!!! The Bravo franchise is still getting tons of attention over Reality Von Tease-gate—aka when newcomer Monica Garcia was revealed to be behind the Instagram troll account that targeted practically every single cast member on the show for years.

Ultimately, Monica's secret was discovered after fellow RHOSLC star Heather Gay confronted her alongside Lisa Barlow, Meredith Marks, and Whitney Rose during a vacation dinner in Bermuda that legit broke the internet. (Heather reportedly found out the truth because her stylist, Tenesha Luckett, confessed both her and Monica's role in the scheme.)

And because this might be the best season of reality television ever, there's still tons of drama surrounding the scandal—the latest of which came out last night during the final part of the RHOSLC reunion. During the program, cast member Lisa Barlow questioned whether producers were in on Monica's secret, saying, "You guys brought her on knowing she wanted to f*cking take every single one of us out, and no one gives a f*ck."

Monica herself fueled the claim that she did, in fact, inform the production team during an early round of the casting process. How-ev-er (!!), executive producer/reunion host Andy Cohen full-on denied the allegations by dropping this: "If you’d said you run a burner account we wouldn’t have cast you."

Moreover, showrunner Lori Gordon and Shed Media SVP Lisa Shannon stood by Andy, and the exec even had this to say about the sitch in a Variety in a profile published yesterday: "You have to have the trust of your cast...And we would never jeopardize the trust of the cast, nor would the network, nor would Andy. Especially over something so seemingly silly—and not knowing that it’s going to pay off. We just would never do that. Especially with the entire cast—you’re really blowing up your relationship with everybody."

"Had we known, we probably would have encouraged her much earlier on to have a come-to-Jesus with the ladies," Shannon added.

And in the wake of all this ^^ is also the news that Monica will not be returning for season 5 of the series—a bombshell that left viewers split because increased viewership is still increased viewership, ya know? However, showrunner Lori Gordon told Variety that fans should "never say never" about Monica's possible return down the line.

"The women just need a cooling-off period, and I think it’s just too soon," she added. "They’ve articulated it. It’s too soon for them to reenter into a friendship—a trusting friendship. Not enough time has passed."

Whelp, this has been an update!

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