The smallest state with the biggest attitude is already making waves in the Real Housewives franchise.
Last May, Bravo announced that Rhode Island would be the latest addition to its repertoire, enticing viewers to see what the women of the teeny tiny state could be getting into. As it turns out, there’s a lot going on in the smallest state in the nation.
The arrival of the new series arrives amid the landmark 20th anniversary of the whole franchise itself, as The Real Housewives of Orange County debuted on March 21, 2006. It’s a monumental year for the reality television phenomenon that will later be celebrated with The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th special this year.
NCBUniversal’s evp of unscripted content, Rachel Smith, tells The Hollywood Reporter that it was not a “conscious decision” to launch a new series, even though it’s such “an auspicious occasion this year.” Instead, The Real Housewives of Rhode Island naturally presented itself.
Creating a new Real Housewives is a tall task, one that can be birthed in many ways. Sometimes, Bravo comes across a new dazzling location that draws in interesting talents; in other cases, a promising cast member is all it takes to start building a new show.
The latter of which happened with Mary Cosby, the beloved star of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Smith confirms. But with Rhode Island, she explains that a co-worker took a trip to the state and “was really struck by what an interesting ecosystem” the New England location had to offer.
“She saw people jumping on their boats and going to lunch. It was very visually aspirational,” Smith says, adding that upon some digging, they learned that The Real Housewives of New Jersey’s Dolores Catania, who appears on RHORI as a friend, had a connection to the women who now make up the main cast.
“That then led us to a kind of whole connection of women in Rhode Island that we found through this Dolores connection,” she adds. “We’ve really fell in love with them.”
When scouting out new locations for a potential Real Housewives, Smith explains that the network strives to “be representative of the whole swath and tapestry and diversity that is the United States.” Prior shows, and where they are based, also weigh into where a mint series could potentially spawn.
“We’re looking at how many Housewives we have in total, and what’s already been represented culturally, geographically, and how we can complement that,” she notes. Rhode Island has already been compared to New Jersey — and not just because you can drive to both of the states in roughly four hours.
The tight-knit community, family-forward ideals and Italian influences are all clear parallels, but the women of Rhode Island stand apart. Smith herself references one of the show’s key descriptors (“It’s a small state with a very big and distinct personality”) as a contrast, though the luxury coastal setting also naturally made the series optically stand out from other shows in Bravo’s discography.
“This is a show, visually, that’s on water. Living around water is very beautiful and distinct to look at,” she says. “We were all so taken with the visual when we were first casting [RHORI] and learning about the women; Like, Liz lives right on the water, and then she’ll go jump in her boat and meet her friends for lunch. Everyone else [on another Real Housewives] would use their car.”
As the Real Housewives has evolved over its two-decade tenure on air, what it means to be a Real Housewife has also certainly changed.
Rhode Island kicks off with Liz McGraw deeming herself the “Cannabis Queen,” as she and her husband own the state’s most successful cannabis dispensary; Rosie DiMare brings up a rumor that Jo-Ellen Tiberi is a “swinger”; and Kelsey Swanson admits that her boyfriend spends half of his year in Miami with his other girlfriend (and the cast speculates that she might have another boyfriend, too).
There’s certainly a lot going on, but the willingness to bare all for the cameras and leave no stone unturned in the women’s personal lives is representative of what is expected of the modern Housewife (on Bravo’s terms, that is).
“During our vetting and casting process, a price of entry is that you have to be open and real about your life,” Smiths says of the cast’s candid nature, adding, “If you’re trying to conceal things that are genuine, then don’t participate. This isn’t the show for you.”
The women of Rhode Island could have picked up on this upfront requirement upon watching any of the other modern series, with Smith asserting that “by the time everyone signed on, they really understood that they were making a choice to share their lives.”
The unconventionalism of some elements of the cast’s lives, too, pulls the curtain back on the life of a modern Housewife.
“It feels very contemporary and of the moment,” Smith says of varying occupations and relationship structures of the RHORI women. “There are many ways to be in a relationship. There are many ways to parent, there are many ways to be a working mother, and these are all the universal themes that get explored in Housewives in general that make it so relatable. And this felt like another iteration of that, where these are real women living, hustling, working, mothering, being friends, living their lives, and without self judgment in 2026.”
The Real Housewives of Rhode Island bared all of their deep, dark secrets right from the jump, and Smith promises that even more drama will come as the season unfolds. “[Season one] is jam-packed with surprising and great story. These storylines around these marriages and what lies behind this surface just intensify, and it just becomes more and more fascinating,” she teases.
The Rhode Island-based Housewives also features quite the reality TV crossover, with Bachelor veteran Ashley Iaconetti making the jump from ABC to Bravo. Some may assume that a woman hailing from another profound reality TV franchise could have turned off the network during casting, but Smith asserts that was not the case. Instead, Ashley’s outside perspective, being the only woman who was not born and bred in Rhode Island, offered “viewer proxy input for the audience.”
“[Ashley is] the outsider, and she can break down for you what Rhode Island’s like and what the customs are and the idiosyncrasies of this group in a way that’s slightly more objective, because she isn’t from there. That was very, very appealing to us more than anything else,” Smith notes. “It wasn’t stunt casting, it wasn’t manipulated. We wouldn’t have gone in that direction.”
Solidifying its weekly air date on Sundays after premiering last Thursday, episode two will shed even more layers of the onion that make up RHORI. “The small town, big lives theme that [comes from them living in] such a small and intimate community” will predictably continue to deliver a compelling narrative, Smith notes.
The Real Housewives of Rhode Island are already off to a splashy start, one that not only compliments the preexisting Real Housewives slate, but restores it to its messy, expensive roots.
“I think Rhode Island just stands on its own two feet,” Smith adds. “It has such a different vibe, and people are just gonna fall absolutely in love with these women.”
The Real Housewives of Rhode Island airs Sundays at 9 p.m. New episodes stream Mondays on Peacock.
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