“Mention it All” with Leanne Morgan

York Season nine, Episode ten, Blackout and get Out. Have you ever seen the show before?

Ray of business deals. And we were sitting around with a bunch of producers and wonderful actors and all that we were rehearsing, and she said, she's the normal Ray. I mean remember guys, because they were wanting thirty percent of her deals or something with Ronvo and she said, no, I'm gonna walk away. She said she's the normal ray.

a scripted show characters, but these are real people. And so when you're sitting there, do you ever think because I think, like I was broke when I started, so I know why I did it, but I wonder why

the hell would anyone do this? Like you have these things that go on from fraud and infidelity and stealing and lying, and you know that it wouldn't be happening if it wasn't exacerbated on television, like these conflicts, the woman who went to jail, like Teresa who had that situation going on with her with tax evasion, Like why would people subject themselves to this fame and money? Right?

And I remember p K saying to me out to dinner at Chipriani dorit did the show because of you. I want for her what happened with you. So then

they're spending all this money. She's dripping in Chanelle and Fendi and Gucci and the ABC d efgs of letter logos, And you're spending all that money because you think it's going to come back, and it does, but it's a circular reference, like you're just spending because you think that that's going to be relevant and people are gonna give you the attention, and you're gonna get you know, it's fool's gold in a way.

But I remember, I look back on the episodes and like Atlanta and everybody, you know, people didn't have good hair, and people's houses, you know, it looked like somebody was in an apartment that didn't have like Vanderpump rules, which that's the whole other thing. I mean, we could go into that, but that's not the same thing as the housewives. But everybody was trying to you know, you could tell a year after year trying to keep up and had

to get hair and makeup and do all that. And everybody started looking better but I was watching this episode that we're on here to talk about, and I thought, I just now that this has happened for me. And I've been a comedian for over twenty ten years, but it's just taken off from me in twenty nineteen, and I just think about being so exhausted and you were talking to your assistant and you you were on the

bay and going, you know, basically, they're killing me. And then so I understand my end, and I also understand how all those women started hate knowing you because you were you wrote you, You pumped out of that whole thing. Out of all those people who were you know, dynamic and beautiful and all that, you were the star and then you started You got the dal with skinny girl and old man and now I look at Ramona bug God yelling at you on.

my gut. I left the Housewives after three seasons. Now, if you think some of these girls have been off for fourteen seasons a long time, three seas, this is nothing like. So I left after three seasons of a show when I was popping off and I was successful, and I left because I didn't want to be there. I felt that I had my reasons, I had my gut. I felt that I was having a child and it

just wasn't where I wanted to be. And I now realized the courage and that decision because I walked away from something that went off on to be very successful, and I walked away and I left for three seasons, and whether it's luck or skill or whatever divine intervention, the show went from I think it was three million viewers when I left, and it went down to one point six and they really wanted me back. And now the other girls were getting just incremental raises, small, little nothing,

few percentage raises. And I left and Andy Cohen, I wanted to pitch him another show. I was never going back to Housewise. I thought it was disgusting and toxic and I was wanted to pitch another show. I forgot what it was, and he said, well, I have something to pitch you. And he came over and he pitched me, and I said, I said, I'm going to give you a number, and I'm not going to negotiate with you.

I'm gonna give you a number and you're gonna come back and you're gonna give it to me or you're not. And that's how I'll go back. Now, at that point, I had leverage. There were other times you don't have leverage, like seasons later when they've got big shows and you know, Jersey and Beverly Hills and in Atlanta. That's not when you're going for your number. But New York was not doing well with the Carol Kristen and Heather Era, and

I gave him the number. Gave him the number. And also I had a boyfriend who wouldn't be on camera. I had a child who wouldn't be on camera, and a brutal divorce, and I named all my terms. I made sure you do that when you're doing a contract, you don't think of it later because they forget. It's like this is the dating phase. Now. They wanted to sleep with me. Once we start sleeping together, they'll be

sick of me. So when we were in the dating phase and I asked for that massive number, it was the highest house or if paid in history at the time, and even now it would be a lot. These women don't get paid that because I was incrementally raising each year too. So I started off with such a big number. When I came back and it was millions, it came to be millions. And when I made that deal, I carved everything out. I will not work when I have my daughter. I will not do this. I will do this.

I would go to trips and it'd be the last one there. I'd go a day late and I'd come home a day early, but I would give my soul. I would be there. And that was like those Miami episodes would what about tom I would be torched. I would torch the joint, pick up every crumb, make sure I blew it up, even to the point where Lisa Shan and the producer didn't use a whole day after I left. She's like, that stuff is unusable. You have to please come. And they'd begging me to come early,

and I'd be like, don't worry. I'll light it up when I'm there, and I always brought it and I always delivered. So that was me coming back on my terms and always like making these decisions playing chess, not just checkers, even in that stupid situation, never sharing everything I was doing with everybody else, never thinking that we were all kombah yah an ensemble cast. It was cutthroat, and everybody was jealous of everybody, and everybody on Beverly

Hills is jealous of everybody else. You can hold hands and pretend your friends because you fucking got to you're on the war zone field, but they it's bullshit and you don't find out what's real until everybody's off the show. That's when you see what really goes on.

then everybody tries to be funny. And yes, you know you can use it in your act and all that kind of stuff. I've got to give it to you. You've always tickled me, and you've always had Even watching this episode, I thought she is so funny, just like you, just and and I can't compete, but anyway, and I think Dorinda. I thought Derinda, she and Sonya is funny in her.

was a seven. I was okay like I but I didn't get fed what people get fed from it. It didn't I didn't get the bug. I wanted to know that I could do it in the same way that I would love to know that I could like land a look at the met Galon that Anna Wintour would think like landed it, not like Rihanna crazy, but that like I could get up there, not fall I have the right hair, make up, land to look like. I would just want to know that I could do it, not to go there, not to be there. I don't

want to live, you know. But I couldn't do what you do on the road like that. I couldn't do that. I can dip it and dip out, but I couldn't do the g Maybe I could. I did it for years, but that's a different grind. Yeah, grind really But.

door this but and it's the same act. And to me that I know, that's the art of the beast. That feels fraudulent to me. I would be so self conscious in front of people that saw me say the same thing three times in a row. And I'll see Amy Schumer on a talk show saying the same joke that she said up on the stage, and it's awkward to me. I like everything to be completely fresh.

I've always had been enamored with comedians, so I always used to go to the comedy clubs when John Stewart was starting out and Alan Havy and like, I just have always had a relationship with that world. And I have a respect from that world that I find is like the highest respect. When I went to do comedy I call, I texted Ellen and Chris Rock and Kathy Griffin and Bridget Ever and everyone texting me by Kevin

Neil and had a twenty minute conversation. The point I'm making is I have a simpatico with comedians and I love it so and I'm proud of that that I have like a good respect from them. So that makes me happy. Okay, let's get into the show. So we're in the Berkshires and now I remember that scene, and I remember sitting at a restaurant with Ramona and her like people come in with the smoking guns. She's gonna come in and say to me all these things and

ask me if it's been hard for my daughter. That was the previous episode that like, I you know, it was top us in a waterbed in a movie thirty years ago, like some teen cheeseball movie when I was like on a roof. They asked if we would go sunbathing and if I would take our top off, and like, Ramona is bringing us up and it's such a bad like you gotta land of these things. My daughter at the time was six years old, so it was like she wanted to find this was her big inn to

say something to me like, was my daughter? Are they asking my daughter? Are kids talking about my daughter to my daughter? About my antics? Like so I said something like yeah, Diane Sawyer showed up at the schoolyard to so this is the aftermath of that. So now Ramona we're in the Berkshires and I just like, you know, I just can't stand her and I just don't She took two dresses from my talk show. She's a disaster.

It's good television and it's good sparring, but like she's coming in and she's got this whole monologue about my life that she's obviously rehearsed, and the mistake that people make in life and in these shows, is taking the bait like taking it seriously and talking to her about it is if I actually give a shit instead of you know, humor and mention it all fine, mention it all,

like all these things in the moment. It seemed such a big deal to me that she was saying these things because there's a camera there and it's on national television. What's everyone going to think? But like a comedian, living in the moment, being true to the moment is just how I handled it, just how I responded.

in that fast pace. I think she wanted to be the business person and it always bothered her, and she wants like some sort of extra credit points or like to be graded on a curve when a lot of people are stuck in their story and talking about like what they didn't get, and you got to be in the present, like, you know, if you're talking about what everyone else is doing and thinking about your story, you're not at the top of your game moving forward quickly.

You're not playing chess, right, And she you know. And that's the thing about the show too, though, that really always you have to always know someone's always winning and someone's always losing, and the person who can land the takedown is winning. Because if she landed that scene, depending upon how I reacted. And I don't think this is just about reality television. This is about women in life.

If someone really gets to you and you take the bait and you go lower than they do, then you're the one who's gone the lowest, like no one remembers the person who started the thing. It's how you handle yourself in business in these situations, and I feel that that's a massive, massive part of this chessboard. How you handle it. How do you, as a comedian handled yourself when you're fucking bombing? Are you true to the moment? Are you gonna start saying, oh my god, I didn't

mean that. Hey, g I gus start like, you know, how do you handle when you're bombing?

going through the same thing I'm going through it. And I did this show and there were there were probably about twenty people there and half of them. I didn't bomb completely, but it was not good and that and I could just you know, I was getting some laughs, but it wasn't like I thought it was gonna be anyway. The people that were just like normal everyday people were laughing. The very very wealthy did not, and I and I was crushed over it, but I and I kept going.

And then in the in the hotel room, I went over in my head, comedians were we're an odd bunch and if and if somebody, if there's one person doing this with their arms folded in a that's all we And I've heard Jerry Seinfeld say that it will kill him and he will go over in his mind. I do that too. And then I talk to a good friend of mine who deals with a lot of wealthy women in Nashville, and he said, Lene, I mean, think about it. These women did not raise their own children.

These women have house managers. These women don't we're talking about yeah, and then I mean and it made me feel better because I thought I've gotten over it and I would have been fine because I'm you know, I've been doing this a long time and I'm professional, but at the but it does it hurts you and you but I thought, Okay, they don't. They don't understand what I'm talking about. I did talk about every day kind of you know, mom stuff, menopause. Oh, I'm a grandmother.

A lot of people don't want to even know their grandparents. They don't know.

said it, You're kidding me four to five times. And I think Ramona is a great reality character because she always brings the drama, but she doesn't kill the party, and she's absolutely nuts. So and I remember she's saying like she's annoyed that I dated wealthy men. And she's annoyed. She said, but by the way, the one thing that no one has ever accused me of is getting anywhere

by anything but hard work. I work harder than anyone around me, anyone on my on my team, anyone I I that's like such a good confident thing that I can have that I work so hard always. I can't. It's just who I am. It's what I know. So it's a great feeling when no one could ever take that away from work luck, you know. And I'm sure you could say the same. Working like a dog on the road.

of the guard. They're not going to say anything, and the producers aren't going to say anything because every producer tells every uh character, they did great, it went well. They nod, You're perfect, you did everything right. Good for you, they nod. And the person's like, it wasn't that bad, was it?

hell they told her? And I thought, but you second guessed yourself, and you just don't know what's coming out of the oven. The edit could be different than you thought. So in this situation, I didn't even see the humor in it. I was probably panicked inside by the things she was saying, and it felt like she had come

and attacked me. And I remember calling Andy Cohen, and I remember calling everyone and not getting the reaction that I wanted from them, like not them saying, oh my god, there's never been a trashing like this in the Housewives history, oh my god. And they give you no like Andy, No one gave me any cards like it was like they acted like it was just like a normal scene. Because to them, they're watching that hundreds of these scenes and it's all blending and they don't care because there

are no stakes for them. So I remember, And then you have to wait for this fucking thing to go in the oven be baked, and then you watch it so degrading, You watch it four days before everybody else, so you have no new knowledge. You don't know how

this thing came out. And when I it, I you know, things get taken out or added it down, and it seemed bad, but it seemed way worse than the moment because I was You're just so paranoid about what everyone's going to see and what she said about me, And then everybody finds this mention at all, thing that they think is hilarious that I didn't even think it's just me. I had no idea that was funny. You know, you

don't know what this cake is coming out. I had no idea that there was a funny moment in there. Mentioned all. I remember saying, mention it all you're just surviving m hm.

I mean, I don't even know. I'm not probably being loasted. I just I just think, how did you go through that benthony with the baby, with the ex husband. I just look at all that what was happening. And I know now I'm getting personal and I don't maintain, but I just watched it and I thought, how did that little thing make it through that? Well?

you didn't have glam for the interviews. You wore some shitty cardigan and did in your own house, so there was an authenticity to it. I was also I had eight thousand dollars to my name walking into the first season where I got paid two hundred and fifty dollars,

like it was a gig. It was a job. You know, you weren't even really famous yet, like people didn't really It was very niche, and we were creating this genre that would go on for decades, and creating, you know, making a millionaire out of Andy Cohen, who started off as an executive, and you know, it just was a whole different thing. And my skinny girl thing shook the core of the whole thing. It shook the core. But

I knew that that was going to happen. I had this sort of plan and it's been an interesting ride. And in that scene with Ramona and also she had previously on the Brooklyn Bridge decimated me in my life and said, terrible thing. She's got a mean streak and she has to like take you down because taking you down brings her up. And she's always had it for me. She and Luanne in particular, have always had it for me. And Jill was just playing the zero sum game. She

was feeling herself. She was drinking her fame, she was drinking the kool aid. And during the summer, something happened in an article and I, you know, I was trying to not tell her every single thing I was doing because I got a co host gig on a talk show and she called them up and said I'm better than her, and like she was competing a little bit quietly competing, but also my friend, And this is what's

happening to these women. And the reason I know that is that I've spoken to people from Beverly Hills and they're like, oh, they invited me to go to this country, and no one else got that, and they wanted only me, like everybody's competing, it's women in a fucking pitbull cage.

So with Jill, we came back and she thought she had a smoking gun, so she thought she was going to say to me, you didn't call Bobby when he had cancer in the beginning of a scene of a season, and that she was going to take me down because it's a zero sum game and someone's got to get killed and someone's got to be winning. I'm just pretty

fucking fast. And as Andy saw on that crazy reunion, when everyone was hating me, when Carol was after me, when Derinda was after me, when Mamona was after me, when Luam would have been my only ally, but I made them let her stay home because she had had her whole crazy intervention, and I took them on by myself, like a sniper. I just sat there and won at a time, I took him on, and you better get up really early in the morning to try to take my ass down. These women never had a shot, but

they kept trying, and I give them credit. So Ramona, sorry, I'm talking so much. I never talked as much. I'm just gonna I'm just remembering things. So Ramona came in to take me down and afterwards, when I was calling everybody, I thought a tree fell, but no one heard it, Like did that just happen? Because you could be the one that took the other, but you could be the one that I could have attacked her. I don't you

don't remember? You blacked out? You black out? So I like now watching Ramona recant the story to everyone that was my favorite that I attacked her.

has not painted herself into the perfect corner. You know, it's kind of great for her, like Luamne was a darling and the the couges and it's appropriate, but Ramona never said, well, she always acts like she's perfect. But it just she just started off with such craziness the very beginning that it doesn't matter what she does till now.

So and she's a great television character. And when I left the series this last time, she said the show will be better and trashed me and now calls me to be on this pocket like but it doesn't matter. It's like it's just noise. She asked me for advice all the time, forgetting all the bad things she said about me. It's it's just Ramona. So she's got revisionist history,

telling everyone that you know, I attacked her. And but what I find interesting is to watch the show through the lens of someone who's done it, and you can watch Ramona spinning out on camera, like you know that she's trying to tell other people that I attacked her, but in her mind she's trying to also like apologize and like, I don't know, I did have a lot to drink. Like she's talking out of both sides of her mouth. She knows she fucked up, she knows she

went too far. She's not entirely sure what she said, but she's trying to convince herself and everyone else. And it's like, hmm not everyone's buying it.

Sometimes it's like if you're a good starting player, sometimes you really just want to get the not the street whatever, the next level, the next string of players kind of out of your way because you want to play tennis with,

like Federer. So like even if I don't love even if I don't love Ramona for example, Like she's a good she's a good tennis player, you know, so you want your first you want your like good tennis players, like you want your starting lineup, like you know, the Sonya is even even you know, Ramona never been Land's always like one notch down. She's always hiding something. But the mistakes that she makes make her a starting player. But so I bring all this up because Tinsley is

not really a starting player. But I really like her and she's so nice, but sometimes you kind of just want to get that like fluffy cotton candy out of the way so you can like get to the meet, you know, you know what I mean, Like.

I really like Tinsley, but like, she was not built for this. And sometimes you just don't want to be like talking to Kristin or Tinseley about something in a scene because you really want to get like you want the meat off the bone. You're not really interested in like the little side dishes the fat. So that's just I just mentioned that because I liked Tinsley a lot. I always liked her, so whatever that means.

I thought, oh.

in my house and trash my house. Like I couldn't handle what Durnda indoors. But because with her house being a location sometimes and when Deinda, Ramona got to her room and was wasted and wanted to go to bed. She didn't think to go downstairs and tell somebody, can you take the lights? And it's not like it's a light switch, you gotta unplug it and find the plug. So instead she wanted to go to bed, and she just ripped everything off the wall. So it's stuff taped

to the wall. So she just ripped all the lights down so they just get off. It'd be like, you know, just like ripping chords out. And so she trashed and which is totally believable, as much as it was believable that every person who was ever on my talk show knows she stole the dresses. It happened. Yeah, I didn't have to. It just happened. And I think and Sonya,

you know what, that's the thing about getting drunk. Sonya wore during his husband's pajamas and it's like funny but almost Yeah, it's funny, but it's like not that funny. And that's what happens when you're drinking and you know, in a show and something's gonna happen. And then there was some fake scenes in the episode, which there always are, like the made for TV producer scenes, Carol showing Tinsley the apartment down the hall. Tinsley was never going to move.

Tinsley was never moving to New York because she didn't want to live in New York. She was staying in a hotel because of the show. She was staying at Sonya's because of the show. And that's like one of those fake scenes. And I know they need the filler scenes and they suck, but I never did those scenes. I don't do fake filler bullshit scenes. Like she's not moving in there. It's a co op building anyway, Like it's just not happening.

important how we spend it. And you get pulled in different directions and you say yes, and everything sounds good on a calendar, but then you really have to execute it and it's it's not the same. But I was obviously more focused on the moths. I had a moth. Have you ever had a moth investigation?

the best stuff. They have good taste, they love. They're like Erica Jane. They want expensive. It's expensive to be me. They want to lay in like the soft, cuddly, cushiest stuff you have. So and thank God in Boston, I have just my lounge around stuff with Paul. I don't have like my really good Lori piano cashme. I would be institutionalized, so all the moths and Paul was like, we can go shopping and I wasn't gonna like. I was like, who cares, It's just crap shit anyway. So

that's not the worst process. The worst process is that you have to take every single garment out of your house have it dry cleaned. I did it with Madame paul Lett, and you have to have them come in and fully exterminate and like your clothes have to be taken out and put back, and it's thousands of dollars. I don't know. You know, that's one of the things you think if you're poor, like you're getting mothballs. It's not gonna it's not gonna do it. I mean, you

may not have Laura piano cashmer if you're poor. I get it, But to wash every single garment, it's like lice, but ten times worse. You have to wash every garment and every it's a fucking nightmare. So I was panicked when I saw those moths must have been like babies. You know, it was a night My.

But it doesn't cost thousands like my sister. She went through that. It was horrible. I thought, oh no.

I just felt like I needed to hold you. But you're a tump little boger. But you're a tump little boger, Yeah you are.

isn't tracking. And Luanne's trying to just like rinse it with fairy dust. Everything Lewenne does. She has found Tom and like everything is perfect. There's no problems with Tom. Everything's great. Like these housewives want to make their person perfect on the show because they're trying to sell something to the other women. So the women don't like, uncover the bag of skeletons and sell it to the audience.

And he just seemed like he wasn't looking anyone in the face in the eye, and he seemed cagey and like he just didn't seem trustworthy. He did not look like a trustworthy person.

there with Turquois own. I know she's from Native people, but I thought, what do you day? When Lee wangan you? Not? What are you day? When I mean everybody knew Tom dang doll.

sell him to everyone, and no one's buying it. In nineteen housewives have slept with him and it's just not a great story. And and Ramona dated Tom and some other friend and Ramona's other friends forgot her name, like Hillary or Monica or some other one of their other friends. There's there are three people that were on the adjacent to the show that have dated us up a Tom and I had a friend who knew someone who had dated Tom and who saw Tom making out with the woman.

He just is one of those guys.

was upset that I wasn't invited to the wedding. I think there was no world where I don't remember it even being a discussion. I can't. I don't know of me being invited to the wedding, like I don't. I just don't even think that that. I like that. I like that that was not fake on the show, like the Teresa has to invite every single person she's ever met in the Bravos fear to the wedding. I don't like Luanne Lewyne doesn't like me like I'm Manivit's the wedding, perfect, perfect, perfect.

versus sitting tight and playing the long game. When because of her and everybody else, the negotiating for the most recent Real Housewives legacy show didn't work, not only because Jill wanted to be paid as much as everybody else, and then negotiated herself out of it. But if everybody else with the difference and came down a little in their money because it is a new show and some of them had been fired, they all would have met

somewhere in the middle. So Jill over negotiated and overplayed her hand, and so did the more expensive crew, thinking that they should be paid much more than her cast. So did the expensive the expensive cast that they thought they should be back to where they were on Housewives. Instead of everyone meeting in the middle, they would have

had probably an eight to twelve episode show. So now what Bravo did, which is the cheapest because it's going to cost them like one hundred thousand a housewife for a week's travel, and they're going to get multiple episodes of it. It's much cheaper than Bravo hiring them for a whole legacy show and having to pay pay each

of them a couple hundred thousand dollars. So Bravo did something much cheaper, but they left Jill out of it because of her press tour presumably and trashing everybody and telling the story about what happened and why a legacy didn't happen. So instead of Jill play her cards right, she burned the bridge to get on that show that she could have been on for six episodes on Peacock and then she would have been on two shows because they're doing like a legacy trip instead of doing a

legacy show. Does that make sense to you?

and not even entertain it. And I could feel Roman's heart being out of her body through that.

She was a B player, so but her nudity scene with the art was a good vehicle to have a Derenda Bethany Ramona conflict recap. So it doesn't matter whether we were a Burger king or you know, fucking Disneyland Carol's boring art scene. You know, Carol had a lot of those scenes like going to get the ashes, which is you know, meaningful and I understand, but that was

a boring scene. So it's these scenes that are just filler with these other players that you need because not everybody can be the A player otherwise it's going to be too much type A, you know. But you have these like Jacqueline Marita is a great, great player on a Jersey show to be nice and some filler and her daughter and her husband was good, but some and sometimes the player has people around them that are good that all together they make up a housewife, like Dory

and p K make up one housewife. Alex and Simon made up a housewife. Melissa and Joe made up one housewife without the husband or the people around. These people, they might not make up a whole housewife.

of the work for her. The houses and the bags and the logos and the abc DFG alphabet of Gucci Fendi, do your Chanelle LV, all the letters they're a character mm hmm.

like a costume and like just forced logos. But Erica gets credit for it. She said, I'm on TV and every moment will be a hair and makeup moment and a costume. And I was against that in the beginning when Kristen came in with costumes and two different shoes, because I always thought, God, focus on the story and your personality, don't focus so much on the shoes. Because I never gave a shit about the clothes a little a little and wanted to look better as people looked better.

But I would probably wither in Beverly Hills because I wouldn't want to keep up with that shit. It's too competitive. Like the dressing. I'll keep up with anybody with the banter, but not the clothes.

a fog because of menopause. But I hope that you keep that because that is what makes you Benthany, That's what makes you and it and it's very entertaining. Wow, And I just watching that episode, I look back, You're right. There are people that just kind of fade into the background, and then there are people who hold it, hold that scene. And I just the whole time I thought, and and you're tough. You are tough, and you've been through a lot and you grew up going through a lot, but

I still wanted to. I thought if I could just cook for her, and I know you'll want to cook, but I thought if I could just go in and do a load of wash for her. She's got so much. Thank you, thank you Angel.