Andy Cohen referred to the season 2 cast of Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip as his “twisted fantasy” — and according to Brandi Glanville, Tamra Judge, Phaedra Parks, Dorinda Medley and Jill Zarin, the group, which also includes Vicki Gunvalson, Taylor Armstrong and Eva Marcille, lived up to the challenge.
“I felt like [Dorinda and Vicki] were both, like, peacocking a lot. It was like, ‘Who’s the OG?’ And obviously, it’s Vicki. But Dorinda felt like it was her home, so she was in charge,” Brandi exclusively says in the new issue of Us Weekly. “It was almost a queen bee off. I’m like, ‘I do not need to be the queen bee, you guys can fight over that all you want.’ I feel like it was more of, like, who’s more popular? It was really silly. Like, this is not a popularity contest. We’re not in high school.”
For the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, however, Tamra was the one she was most nervous to film with.
“Originally, I was super excited just because I haven’t really traveled, you know, during COVID. And I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I get to live my life again.’ It’s like, we’re coming out of COVID and I get to go somewhere. And then I heard Tamra was doing it,” Brandi told Us. “We had, like, a social media drama, not even a year — like, six months before so it just kind of changed for me and I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to go and fight. I just want to go have fun and be on vacation.’”
Unfortunately for the Celebrity Big Brother alum, it wasn’t long before she and the Real Housewives of Orange County alum were fighting it out.
“We did not hit it off from the very beginning,” Tamra told Us. “We had some back history, social media stuff that her and I got into and it was a lot. And then when we met, the first day, I think she said to me, ‘I kind of like you.’ I’m like, ‘Of course what’s not like?’ Then, we kind of went from there, but I think there was a lot of drinking and F-bombs thrown for the first couple days.”
Meanwhile, Phaedra got along great with the former diamond holder.
“Surprisingly, I bonded probably the most with Dorinda and Brandi Glanville. I mean, you know, people warned me about Brandi — ‘She’s crazy, watch out, you know, she’s the devil.’ But, man, after I really got to know her, I adore her,” the former Real Housewives of Atlanta star told Us. “Her and Dorinda are our, hands down, two that I just did not realize that I would just fall in love with. So different, yet so similar.”
According to all the ladies, Dorinda wasn’t just in the hot seat with Vicki — mostly due to the fact that the show was filmed at her beloved Blue Stone Manor in the Berkshires.
“When it’s your house, and you’re the host, there’s certain expectations of the host and certain expectations of being a guest in someone’s house,” Jill told Us. “It definitely caused conversations that if we had all been in a hotel or, like, in Turks and Caicos those issues would have come up.”
Season 2 of The Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip premieres on Peacock on Thursday, June 23. Scroll through for more from the cast: