Real Housewives of Orange County star Braunwyn Windham-Burke revealed that the new episode of the show featured a serious struggle in her sobriety journey.
Braunwyn took to her Instagram to get candid about tonight’s episode and hinted that she may have slipped up in her sobriety.
“Tonight’s episode is another hard one, even self-filmed I opened up about something I wish I hadn’t shared,” she wrote on her story. “That being said getting sober is hard. I made some mistakes, and I’m owning them and making amends.”
She attached a tweet addressing rumors that she lied about being an alcoholic in order to create an interesting storyline on RHOC.
“If I was going to do something just for ‘storyline’ I would of picked something easier,” the tweet read. “Being sober in this toxic environment ain’t easy …. to have someone diminish the struggle is low, I’ve been blessed to have support and have been working a program, if you need help it works.”
How rumors about faking her alcoholism started
Her RHOC co-star Kelly Dodd accused Braunwyn of faking her alcoholism. When Kelly appeared on Watch What Happens Live Wednesday night, Andy Cohen called her out on the accusation, and Kelly doubled down on the sentiment.
“I think that her whole sobriety thing is contrived, and I think it’s fake,” Kelly said during the episode.
“I don’t think that she had seven kids so she could not drink and I know her well enough that this was a pre-plotted thing that she wanted to do to get her own show,” she continued. “She wanted to get her own show, her talent agent told her to stop drinking. It’s all contrived. I don’t believe that she is a real alcoholic, no. You’ll see it later on at the end of the show, what happens. It’s really good.”
Braunwyn’s sobriety journey
At the beginning of RHOC Season 15, Braunwyn confessed that she is an alcoholic and committed to a life of sobriety.
As the season has gone on, she has revealed how much alcohol used to consume her life. She explained that after her miscarriage, she got to an uncontrollable state with her drinking.
She said she would drink from the moment she woke up and hired two nannies to take care of her kids while she drank.
Braunwyn has also admitted that some episodes, other than tonight’s, have also been very hard for her to watch.
She explained that the episode where she fought with Gina at Shannon’s housewarming was triggering. She confessed that she almost relapsed while filming that episode after 30 years of sobriety.
Ultimately, she managed to prevail and recently celebrated nine months of sobriety.
The Real Housewives of Orange County airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on Bravo.