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Season 16 of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” has a new marquee star: The Bravo show has landed actor/anti-Scientology activist Leah Remini as a full-time cast member.
Remini won’t be the only new cast member on “RHOBH.”
Tracy Tutor, the real estate agent and former “Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles” star announced on Instagram on Aug. 19 that she’s also joining the cast. Remini and Tutor will co-star with returning full-time cast members Kyle Richards, Erika “Jayne” Girardi, Dorit Kemsley, Bozoma Saint John, Rachel Zoe and Sutton Stracke. Kathy Hilton and Jennifer Tilly will also be back as “friends” of the cast. Amanda Frances — the manifesting guru added to the cast for its 15th season — was not asked back, despite Rihanna’s DM to Frances saying, “We need more of you!” Frances herself announced her own departure on Instagram on Aug. 5.
Season 16 has already begun filming, with several of the cast (though not Remini and Tutor) attending Saint John’s wedding to Keely Watson in Ghana on Aug. 21. Kemsley, Richards, Tilly and Stracke were among the guests. Remini will begin filming in Los Angeles later this week.
“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” is the most-watched edition of the “Real Housewives” franchise, which turned 20 this year. Within segments of the Bravosphere, it’s also the most complained about, with quibbling fans constantly calling for a major cast overhaul, year after year. As executive producer Andy Cohen put it sarcastically in an interview with Variety in June, “They hate it so much, it’s the No. 1 ‘Housewives.'” Now, with eight full-time cast members and two veteran (and popular) friends, perhaps this full deck of Housewives will tamp down the griping. It will certainly put an end to the rampant (and incorrect) speculation about the Season 16 cast, which has included an anonymous tip to DeuxMoi claiming that Kyle had filmed a farewell scene during production on “Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip Roaring 20th” and a blind item sent to Bravo and Cocktails that said Dorit was being put on pause. (Executive producer Alex Baskin debunked the Kemsley report, which had spread far and wide.) There was also speculation that Crystal Kung Minkoff, who was on Seasons 11-13, might rejoin the cast, especially after she was featured on “Ultimate Girls Trip.”
Remini and Tutor’s new associates are a divided group — Season 15 concluded in May after a fiery three-part reunion, during which the tension between Richards and Kemsley, who were once close friends, boiled over. Kemsley’s divorce from Paul “PK” Kemsley has continued to make headlines over the summer, with both of them accusing the other of financial mayhem, with their school-age children stuck in the middle.
Remini, 56, became a household name during the nine-season-long run of “King of Queens” on CBS. In 2015, she released the memoir “Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology,” in which she recounted her rise in Hollywood as well as her indoctrination into Scientology beginning at age 9. (“Where is Shelly?” Remini has asked since 2006, wondering about the whereabouts of Shelly Miscavige, the never-seen wife of Scientology leader David Miscavige). Remini’s high-profile exit from the organization caused her to become an anti-cult crusader, and she and fellow ex-Scientologist Mike Rinder hosted “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath” on A&E, winning two primetime Emmys for the series along the way.
As for Tutor, 51, she’s no stranger to Bravo. As a successful real estate agent, Tutor starred on the network’s long-running show “Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles” from Seasons 10 through 15, before it was put on pause last year. Tutor has long seemed to fans like an obvious choice to join “RHOBH,” and on her Instagram post, Cohen wrote, “This has been a long time coming!”
