An Emmy-winning producer on a string of Bravo hits has claimed that “it’s a bummer to [the network’s producers] when [a cast member] gets sober.”
Beloved producer Patrick McDonald, who recently stepped back from his work on reality TV to launch an OnlyFans career, appeared on Bethenny Frankel’s “Just B” podcast on Friday, where the pair also suggested that the shows rewards drunkenness and punishes “boring sobriety.”
The claims come as Bravo prepares to defend itself in a lawsuit filed by former “Real Housewives of New York City” star Leah McSweeney, who alleges that Bravo coerced and manipulated her into abandoning her sobriety because producers believed it would make for better TV if she was drinking.
“The addiction and substance abuse storylines always made me a little uneasy,” McDonald, who is sober after battling a meth addiction, said on the podcast.
“Anytime we were talking about someone’s alcoholism or drug addiction — any of that — it’s so, so fragile. It’s not something to be taken light, and yet it gets amplified by these shows,” he said.
“I can’t imagine trying to… stay or get sober while being on one of these shows… It’s a bummer to production when someone gets sober,” McDonald claimed.
The former “Real Housewives of New York City” star Frankel and McDonald said they felt that stars get better treatment if they’re creating boozy drama.They also pointed to stars like, Scheana Shay of “Vanderpump Rules” being demoted to “friend of” on various seasons because her story lines weren’t dark enough.
A Bravo insider told us, “there is no truth to any of this.”
A judge in the McSweeney case recently ruled that Bravo and its production companies have a First Amendment right to require their cast members to drink. But he said that the network will have to answer McSweeney’s claims that they “harassed” and “coerced” her in an attempt to get her to fall off the wagon. (Attorneys for Bravo and its production companies have argued in court that the way they handled McSweeney both on- and off-set are protected by the First Amendment).
Vanity Fair also recently published a deeply reported piece that claimed, among other things, that “Real Housewives” cameras rushed to film drunk and incapacitated women in humiliating situations, rather than to help them to recover.
McDonald made headlines last week when he said that a “toxic” work culture at some of the production companies that make shows for Bravo — which, he claimed, included working 12-plus hour days, six days a week, along with breaking up violent fights on set — eventually pushed him to join adult content sites like OnlyFans.
McDonald also said he believes production bosses eventually caught wind of his NSFW gig and iced him out of reality television gigs after years of working on Bravo shows like “Vanderpump Rules,” “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” and “The Real Housewives of Potomac.”
“Things went radio silent with executive teams,” he said in previous video he posted. “It hurt my feelings – for the last five years, [I’ve] given so much of myself to these shows.”
He told Page Six, “All I’m doing here is advocating for fair and humane treatment in the workplace.”
A rep for Bravo did not comment.
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