“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” is adding a new cast member!
Former Netflix marketing executive and author Bozoma Saint John will be joined by returning cast members Garcelle Beauvais, Erika Jayne, Dorit Kemsley, Kyle Richards and Sutton Stracke this season. Kathy Hilton and Jennifer Tilly will appear as “friends” of the cast, according to Bravo.
Saint John — the second Black woman to appear on the reality series since the addition of Beauvais in 2020 — shared her excitement about the news on Instagram on Wednesday after Bravo announced the cast of Season 14 via its own social media avenues.
“There’s a BADASS in the HOUSE! 💎 #RHOBH #RealHousewivesOfBeverlyHills #GyeNyame,” the Hollywood-based Saint John wrote alongside a photo collection of herself posing in a garden, the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” logo watermarked on the first.
Beauvais responded to the post, commenting, “Welcome.”
Saint John previously worked as the chief marketing officer at Netflix, helming that department from 2020 to 2022. She held the same position at Endeavor, a global sports and entertainment company, for two years prior to that. Her resume includes positions at Uber, Apple and Pepsi, according to her LinkedIn page. She released her memoir, “The Urgent Life: My Story of Love, Loss and Survival,” last year.
Back in 2021, “Real Housewives” executive producer Andy Cohen offered an explanation about why it took so long to diversify the casts of certain “Housewives” franchises, saying Bravo wanted to get the casting “absolutely perfect.”
“I think that it was a bad cycle because then the longer you waited, the more you wanted to get it absolutely perfect when you did cast a woman of color and bring them into the group,” Cohen told Beauvais on her podcast, “Going to Bed with Garcelle.” “You wanted that person to succeed.”
“Over the years,” he continued, “there have been people that we did not cast that were people of color … We really wanted to get it right, so that we weren’t casting someone that would be a one-season housewife or like, ‘Oh, well, she’s boring’ or she didn’t fit.” Cohen called the effort to find the right person a “vicious cycle.” Ultimately, he concluded of the lack of diversity: “The true answer is: There is no excuse. It’s bad, and there is no excuse.”
A release date for the pending “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” season has yet to be announced, but production has begun, and it is expected to air later this year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.