Real Housewives Of Salt Lake City: Who Is Reality Von Tease?
The Season 4 finale of Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City," aptly titled "Mysteries, Revealed?" featured a bombshell reveal that promised to change the dynamics of the group forever.
The episode opens in Bermuda with housewife Heather Gay, who has called her friends and fellow castmates — Meredith Marks, Whitney Rose, and Lisa Barlow — to the beach for a secret meeting. Gay pulls back the curtain and tells the group that rookie cast member Monica Garcia helps run an Instagram gossip-slash-troll account known as "Reality von Tease."
"She's not our friend," Gay says to the women on the beach. "She is someone that has schemed and worked to infiltrate our friend group and the name that you all know her as, the woman whose birthday was celebrated, who we have been trying to champion and support and defend, is Reality von Tease." Since the episode aired, the follower count for the Reality von Tease Instagram account has exploded, going from the ballpark of 5,000 followers to more than 39,000 followers at the time of writing.
Reality Von Tease (@realityvontease2) is a "Real Housewives" gossip account that had been active on Instagram for years before Garcia made her Season 4 debut. The account was originally made to target former cast member Jen Shah (who is currently serving time in federal prison) and it later expanded to sharing alleged insider secrets about the rest of the wives. Gay also claimed that it was Shah who gave her the black eye in Season 3, though Shah has already denied this allegation from prison via an Instagram story.
The Real Gossip Girl of Salt Lake City
"The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City" cast later confronts Monica Garcia at a Bermuda Triangle-themed dinner, where Heather Gay once again drops the bombshell that Garcia is not who she says she is. Garcia initially denies the accusation, but finally relents and admits that she was not the only person involved in running the account. She was aided by Tenesha, Gay's personal hairdresser and a friend of Garcia.
"Reality von Tease is an Instagram account that was created over three years ago and was dedicated to annihilating and exposing Jen Shah," Gay says in an on-camera interview. "But it quickly expanded to troll all of us: Me, Whitney, Meredith, Lisa. These were character assassinations. But we never knew who it was." The finale ends with Garcia leaving Bermuda after she is told to go.
Some "RHOSLC" fans have already dubbed the Season 4 finale as one of the best "Real Housewives" episodes of the franchise. However, producers have also flatly denied accusations that they were aware of Garcia's involvement in Reality von Tease before she was invited on the show (via ET).
Garcia is expected to appear in the upcoming three-part reunion, though she shared in a recent Instagram live that she has not yet been asked to return for Season 5. As Garcia herself says at the end of the episode, "Even Gossip Girl couldn't stay Gossip Girl forever."