Emily Simpson and Shannon Beador haven’t gotten along for much of this season of The Real Housewives of Orange County. Emily even had a role in Shannon crashing through the fourth wall in one episode to demand that the cameras stop. This all went down when Emily called Shannon out as a “Jekyll and Hyde” for discussing her relationship issues with John Janssen with the ladies off-camera, and then Shannon would get upset when those conversations were brought up on-camera.
Emily even joked in a confessional that Shannon should put a breathalyzer on her phone to control her habit of drunkenly calling the cast to complain about John. However, Shannon probably got to use an actual breathalyzer last weekend when she was arrested for DUI and hit-and-run. When Entertainment Tonight interviewed Emily about it, she said she hoped this was Shannon’s wake-up call.
Emily says the cast saw Shannon ‘spiraling’
Shannon’s drinking has been a recurring topic for much of this season of RHOC. Along with Emily, Gina Kirschenheiter and Tamra Judge were also concerned about Shannon having an alcohol problem. Emily reiterated that the cast began to see a pattern. “I feel like as a cast … I feel like we’ve seen her spiraling. We’ve had conversations, just as a cast, about her, worrying about her.”
Emily hopes Shannon has ‘hit rock bottom’
We’ve seen drunk “top o’ the mornin’!” Shannon whoop it up quite a bit over the years. But, her very alarming DUI is the first time she’s faced legal consequences. Emily says it’s time for Shannon to “take[s] accountability and recognize[s] what happened and the severity of it and [that she] really wants to embrace that and change for the better.”
Emily added, “I genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, hope that, like, sometimes people actually hit rock bottom [and] take accountability and to have an ‘Aha!’ moment, where they say, ‘Yeah, maybe I do need some help,’ and I hope that this is her ‘Aha’ rock-bottom moment.”
Shannon drunk driving her BMW into a house, driving away, and then pretending to walk Archie as a ruse seems like a pretty clear rock-bottom moment. She’s lucky no one else was hurt, and she only has to nurse an alleged broken arm and facial injury. She’s supposedly planning to go to rehab now. Here’s hoping she takes this opportunity to be honest with herself and move forward.
The Season 17 finale of The Real Housewives of Orange County airs on Bravo next Wednesday at 8/7c.
TELL US – DO YOU THINK THIS WAS SHANNON’S ROCK-BOTTOM MOMENT?
