RHOC’s Meghan King on Andy Cohen’s Lawsuit: ‘You Have to Sign Your Life Away’

Transcript

00:00 I know that Bravo has been in the news lately because of this lawsuit that has come forward

00:04 with Leah McSweeney against Andy Cohen. Do you have an opinion on any of that?

00:09 I mean, I just know that when I signed my contract to be on The Real Housewives,

00:14 and I think it's a pretty standard contract amongst all the franchises,

00:17 it said very explicitly, "We can take whatever footage you give us, and we can manipulate it,

00:25 and we can splice it, and do whatever the hell we want to do with it, and you have to sign your life

00:30 away." Or you don't sign it at all. And does that make it a fair contract? That's a different

00:37 conversation. The point is, we understood we signed the contract and we're entering into this.

00:42 And I want it to remain fun and exciting, and I'm worried that that might go away with a lawsuit

00:52 like this. But if there's a bigger conversation, then the conversation should be about reality TV

00:58 in general. It shouldn't be about Andy Cohen, it shouldn't be about Bravo, it shouldn't be about

01:02 The Real Housewives. It should just be about the ethics of reality TV, and what does that do for

01:06 our psyche long-term, or royalties, or whatever. But this is not an individual conversation,

01:13 that makes me a little bit frustrated. Yeah. Did you ever feel pressured to drink

01:18 on camera, or do things like that? I think the pressure with drinking is the typical societal

01:24 and peer pressure that anyone would encounter with drinking. If I'm going to go to a happy

01:29 hour with girlfriends to celebrate a birthday, I'm going to feel like I should have a drink.

01:34 Is anybody telling me to? Does anybody care if I do? Absolutely not. But that's what I'm doing,

01:40 that's how I'm showing up. So I think that's a personal willpower type of thing. And yeah,

01:47 people struggle with addiction, and that's a very serious issue that should be respected and

01:55 honored, and helped if somebody is asking for help through that. But that's not the responsibility of

02:04 production team, or reality TV, or anyone, in my opinion.

02:10 Yeah, no, and Andy Cohen was a great boss to you.

02:12 Yeah, he's a St. Louis guy too. Right, that's true.

02:15 Yeah, so we both come from St. Louis. Yeah.

02:17 Yeah, Andy was great. I mean, he was always very supportive, and fun, and happy. Honestly,

02:23 so when he... I was on Watch What Happens Live the last time. This was, I don't know, a year ago,

02:29 let's say, or less. Sure.

02:30 I was on with Gina from The Real Housewives of Orange County, and we were doing the shot ski.

02:34 It was Andy, Gina in the middle, and me. We take the shot, and Andy's like, "Oh my gosh,

02:40 this is not my shot, and I'm saying the same thing." And the shot ski was switched around,

02:45 and Gina said, "Well, thank goodness my Red Bull was still the same, because she's in the middle."

02:49 And Andy goes, "Oh my gosh." And then during commercial, he gets on the production assistants,

02:54 like, "You cannot do this. This could compromise her sobriety. This is really important. It's not

03:00 funny that this happened." So what I saw is Andy defending, or standing up for a sober person on

03:08 on one of his shows.

03:09 It's the complete opposite of what I write.