In "Bravo's Love Hotel," Real Housewives own up to everything in the name of romance

During a particularly memorable season of “The Real Housewives of New York City” — Season 8, which will surely trigger a wave of gasps and delight among fans — cast member Luann de Lesseps was so certain about the prospects of her romantic future that she was telling anyone who would listen. De Lesseps had fallen head over heels in love with Tom D’Agostino Jr., a businessman and fixture in New York’s social scene, whom she had been dating for just four weeks. When she arrived at her castmate Ramona Singer’s apartment to test out a line of hair extensions (classic “Housewives”), de Lesseps was practically giddy as she filled Singer in on the details.

“He wants to marry me!” de Lesseps exclaimed, beaming with infatuation. She was so visibly excited that she banged her hand four times on a nearby table to emphasize her point. It was like watching a teenager talk about their first love: sweet, but with the melancholic knowledge that it will almost certainly crash and burn. A few weeks later, cameras caught de Lesseps finding out in real time that D’Agostino cheated on her while the cast was filming a trip to Miami. And by the next year, the two lovebirds had been happily married and messily divorced.

Along with de Lesseps, the other three Housewives starring in “Bravo’s Love Hotel” — the network’s new dating show where famously lovelorn Bravolebrities seek long-term partners — share similar romantic trajectories. They’ve loved, lost, divorced, remarried, divorced again; been sued and endured custody battles, infidelity scandals and failed Australian restaurants. These women have been through the ringer of romance, yet it’s rare to see them learn from these experiences. With how “Housewives” is constructed, viewers are only allowed so many intimate glimpses into one cast member’s life at a time. The franchise has always been a deceptively sharp study of human nature, but juggling the six-to-seven individual storylines per season means audiences miss out on the nitty-gritty details of how Housewives navigate finding new love after public heartbreak. Often, a Housewife will end one season in a promising new relationship, only for their paramour to be cut loose by the next, when new romances blossom alongside fresh opening taglines.

But not at the Love Hotel, aka the swanky resort that producers have turned into a “Bachelor in Paradise”-esque setting for Housewives to get their groove back during the off-season. Here, four of Bravo’s most familiar faces must own up to their past relationship failures and put their mistakes under a magnifying glass to assess what they really want from a partner. Moreover, the men competing for their affection are so reality television-averse that they might as well be civilians that Bravo casting reps intercepted at the airport and paid to film a show at the last minute. Their suitors’ naivete gives the women a chance to find love that isn’t manufactured or heightened for the cameras, while presenting a fascinating culture clash for them to contend with as they move through the dating pool. Despite their namesake franchise, “Bravo’s Love Hotel” is the most real these Housewives have been in years.

Joining de Lesseps at the lovers lodge are “Potomac” cast members Gizelle Bryant and Ashley Darby, along with “Orange County” star Shannon Beador. Each woman’s torrid romantic past is well-documented, but if you’re not up to speed, don’t worry, because they can be summarized in one, simple word: yikes! For uninitiated viewers tuning in, celebrity host and Bravo expert Joel Kim Booster is here to play concierge. Like all star hospitality workers, he’ll do anything to make your stay more comfortable. Booster is lively with the women but also has an encyclopedic knowledge of their relationship blunders. He’s playing both sides of the fence, which means he talks straight to these Housewives and steers them away from harmful patterns he’s noticed by watching them on television — patterns these Housewives don’t always see themselves.

(l-r) Jason Bramble, Gerry Matthews and Luann de Lesseps on "Love Hotel" (Ana York/Bravo). Bravo has been slowly dismantling the fourth wall for a while, and with “Love Hotel,” the last of the rubble is cleared away. The show is designed to be a reflective experience predicated on each Housewife’s honesty and vulnerability. Gone are the days when producers nudged cast members to talk about being on television like they were in some secret club. Now, all of the dirty details are on the table, similar to the dynamics in Peacock’s “Ultimate Girls Trip” spinoffs, which crammed a bunch of Housewives from different cities under one roof. But unlike “Ultimate Girls Trip,” where it was obvious that egos were meant to clash for our entertainment, “Love Hotel” lets Bryant, Beador, Darby and de Lesseps bond over their shared experiences. They’ve all suffered mortifying, exhausting breakups on camera, and at this resort, they use the insights learned from those mutual train wrecks to steer each other in the right direction.

This group is the ideal mix of personalities for the spinoff’s first season. Darby and Bryant are OG “Potomac” Housewives, and their nine-year run on television has only tightened their friendship. Bryant is a recent empty-nester, so she’s looking for someone who’s experienced as much life as she has and knows how to have fun at the same time. Darby is the mom to two young boys, so she requires someone with stamina and flexibility. Then there’s de Lesseps, a charmer so adept at the art of seduction that Casanova would quake in his pantaloons watching her work. She could seduce a park bench if she set her sights on it. But early on, she reveals the truth that many great lotharios are afraid to admit. “I’m struggling with trusting people again because my heart has been broken,” de Lesseps says, recalling her two marriages.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Finally, there’s Beador, the cast wildcard. At the time of filming, Beador is coming up on the first anniversary of a very public DUI that involved her crashing her car into a house after a blow-out fight with her on-again, off-again ex-boyfriend John Janssen. Not only that, but Janssen is now dating former “Orange County” Housewife Alexis Bellino, who was brought back as a friend-of in the series’ most recent season to flaunt the relationship in Beador’s face. And all that comes after several years of watching Beador’s strained marriage to her first husband, David, slowly unravel. (Never has a conversation about water temperature been so charged with tension.) Beador’s picker is the most busted of all the Housewives at this hotel. Luckily, her reality television comrades are there to help her get it back in working order, piece by piece.

Here at the Love Hotel, there’s someone for everyone, even Housewives who have experienced unimaginable psychic torment in the realm of romance. The variety of men ensures that each woman has more than one option to connect with, and the guys’ ignorance of the Bravoverse leaves them with no preconceived notions of these Housewives. That unfamiliarity also means these men have no idea what’s in store for them, or what actions will trigger a Housewife’s past miseries. When “Love Hotel” combines seasoned reality vets with clueless reality amateurs, the show transforms into a thrilling analysis of how drastically lives can change and feelings can magnify when you let cameras into an otherwise normal life.

Joel Kim Booster on "Love Hotel" (Ana York/Bravo). In the nearly two decades that “Housewives” has been on the air, these women have gone from private citizens to public figures and aired their dirty laundry for the world to see. Even if they still consider themselves everyday women, this show forces them to accept that they have given up anonymity. And as such, these Housewives have the opportunity to stop suffering so many fools and put their self-worth first — an integral step to a healthy and secure relationship that the emotional echo chamber of “Housewives” seldom allows. How are the Housewives expected to ease a new romantic prospect into their lives amid hectic filming schedules and ceaseless arguments? It would be a tough sell for any suitor. But here, if it doesn’t work out, no problem. A failed date or three doesn’t have to be the crux of an entire storyline. It can simply be a romp in the decadent, Egyptian cotton sheets of the Love Hotel.

The real challenge to accepting their celebrity arrives when the Housewives are confronted with their mistakes. Sure, the judgment from the Bravo-obsessed fans is tough to deal with, but that can be tuned out. Self-scrutiny is a far more vicious beast to tame, and each woman must wrestle with that monster at some point.

Beador and de Lesseps grapple most frequently with their demons during their stay at the hotel. When one of the men, a real estate entrepreneur named Adam, tells de Lesseps that he shares a birthday with her father, she immediately dissolves into tears and has to excuse herself. “My father would walk into the room and he would light it up,” she says, wiping her mascara in a confessional. “He was fun, he was funny, he was curious, he wanted to know everything. I think there’s a part of me that is looking for what my father had.”

It’s a touching moment for someone so often seen as the siren of Bravo, someone who goes through men like tissues. Behind all of her advertised seduction, there is someone who deeply desires a man with a lust for life that matches her own. This is, after all, the same woman who spun a failed marriage leading to a drunken arrest into gold, discovering a new life and career path with a hit cabaret tour and music career. It makes sense that she’d want someone as curious as she is, and that’s not always the easiest quality to find in men who have just passed the middle of their lives.

(l-r) Gizelle Bryant, Phillip Westbrooks, Luann de Lesseps, Wale Alesh, Mark O'Brien, Gerry Matthews, Ashley Darby, Nick Montefour, Jason Bramble, Earl Thompson and Shannon Storms Beador on "Love Hotel" (Ana York/Bravo). But it’s Beador’s journey that’s most enthralling. After a whirlwind two episodes falling for a man named Earl, who woos Beador with his open-hearted sensitivity surrounding his wife’s death after two horrible battles with cancer, the cracks start to show. An offhand comment about something as innocuous as vegetables leads to an argument eerily reminiscent of those Beador had with her first husband and Janssen, and the viewers watch this same realization pour across her face. When Booster intervenes, Beador tells him, “I know I’m no prize,” before he stops her to remind her that’s not true at all. It’s startling and sad, but with cameras following her around, and three good girlfriends and a gay guy — the proven antidote to any malady — to cheer her up, Beador catches herself before she can excuse another man’s bad behavior.

It's anyone’s guess whether that pattern stays broken as the season continues. (Only three episodes were provided for press before the series premiere.) But one thing is already certain: the Love Hotel is a safe space for growth, both for the Housewives and Bravo. With both “Bravo’s Love Hotel” and 2023’s “Luann & Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake” being knockout hits among fans — not to mention the success of “The Valley” — maybe it’s time for the network to pump the brakes on “Real Housewives” and take this established brand to new places. Keep throwing existing Housewives and Bravolebs into new situations that let them move beyond the confines of the overproduced current iteration of the “Housewives” structure. Film six episodes of Dorinda Medley and Sutton Stracke’s mom decorating huge, scary houses together. Get a camera on Garcelle Beauvais as she navigates her new post-“Beverly Hills” life and focuses on Hollywood. Someone, anyone, hook Sonja Morgan up to a microphone and air the results. We know these Housewives can be real, or at least some version of it. But when their version of reality meets ours? That’s when things get interesting.