RHOSLC’s Heather Gay ‘Reads Harder’ After Weight Loss (Excl.)

Real Housewives often go through relatable trials – divorce, family drama, health issues, etc. – but they are very rarely relatable himself. Sure, they might get nervous about running into an ex-husband (or his first wife) in public, but they can recover in the comfort of their private jets.

Not so with Heather Gaythe down-to-earth, fun girl who brings a much-needed sense of normalcy The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Think of the time she woke up in a pile of loose Milk Duds on a girls’ trip, or the moment she threw up in a plastic bag on a Sprinter van. She may be wearing Gucci corsets and Louis Vuitton handbags, but it’s still easy to imagine yourself knocking back a few tequila sodas with her at a bar. (It’s safe to say she’s never ordered a “carcass out” drink.)

“I would say our talents are invisible and hard to put into words, but they are there, and it’s something you either have or you don’t have,” Gay, 51, tells exclusively We weekly for the annual Reality Stars of the Year issue. “You have to be alert. You have to catch the strays. You have to turn them back. You have to be able to speak your mind in heated situations with cameras on you, and that’s hard when you know what to say. It’s a million times harder when you have no idea what to say.”

As Bravo fans know, Gay definitely has whatever “it” is. She is responsible for the most dramatic moment in RHOSLC history: former costar’s unmasking in season 4 Monica García as the brains behind gossip account Reality Von Tease. The scene where she broke the news to the wind Meredith Marks, Whitney Rose And Lisa Barlow on a beach in Bermuda has become the subject of a reality TV legend, with Bravo Honcho Andy Cohen tell yourself Us it was “one of the best single episodes of television in Bravo history.”

Rumors swirled for months that nothing good could have happened without a script, but Gay claims that was the case.

“I’m a storyteller by nature. It just flows from my lips,” she explains. “But that was something I had been thinking about for the last few hours, like, ‘How am I going to explain everything to my friends?’ Because I was putting it together myself. … Once I knew I was going to tell them, there wasn’t a moment where I wasn’t thinking in my head, ‘How am I going to explain this? What really happened? How am I going to explain it, and will they understand?’”

Gay became a hero at that moment, but her experience continued RHOSLC wasn’t always so rosy. Some fans turned on her after she initially lied about the cause of her black eye in season 2, while others accused her of being a mean girl. More recently, she faced backlash for her weight loss, which she readily admits was helped in part by Ozempic. When asked if she ever thinks about quitting the show, she replies, “Every day.”

“Just like every time you hate your job or every time you hate your friends, every time you hate your spouse or partner you think about quitting,” Gay continues. “I think it’s a natural human response. When things get hard or they get stressful or they get overwhelming, or you don’t get along, you think, ‘I can put all this behind me and just be at peace.'”

Gay hasn’t thrown in the towel yet, but if she ever does, she has plenty of other irons in the fire. She is the owner of medspa Beauty Lab + Laser and a twice-published author (of the memoir Bad Mormon And Good time girl) – and she recently signed a contract for four novellas and a ‘long, romantic thriller’.

Her first two books were partly about leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which she did years after marrying in the temple and welcoming three daughters. She says she gets “great satisfaction” from speaking openly about her experiences, adding that she “wants to represent the hope for people after Mormonism, and especially for women after Mormonism, to represent a different path and shine a light on hurtful practices that we have never been able to talk about.”

Related: ‘RHOSLC’ with the ups and downs of Heather Gay and Whitney Rose

When The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City premiered in 2020, Heather Gay and Whitney Rose were best friends, but their relationship has since become rocky. Heather and Whitney are second cousins, but their bond runs deeper than a distant family relationship; they have bonded over motherhood, entrepreneurship and their lives over the years. […]

Gay’s books confirm that she wasn’t quite the “good girl” Barlow once claimed to be, but she does her best to make up for lost time. Now that her youngest daughter is in college, Gay is dating again and spending some time on her new chapter as an empty-nester.

“[I want to] just date openly. Let guys pick me up and let guys drop me off. Throw parties, have friends over, have cocktails,” she explains. “I could have done all that with my girls. They were very cool, very cultured, very supportive daughters. It was about me. I just couldn’t be a friend and a mother in the same mental space, and I was just focused on raising my kids. The mother of it all really blocked out any light for dating, and now I just feel like the lights are on and I’m ready for dating and I’m ready for some alone time, and I’m really enjoying it.

As for the accusation that she has become meaner as she has become thinner, Gay does not think that is true, but believes people may perceive her differently.

“Anytime a pretty girl stands up for herself, she’s a bitch. And if you’re heavier and you lead with humor and self-deprecation, you’re a lot less threatening,” she says. “I’m as outspoken now as I was when I was 30 pounds heavier, and somehow it reads harder, I think, when the package isn’t so unthreatening.”

Gay plans to stand up for himself even more.

“I have a lot more boundaries now than I did then, and I also got really burned by women on this show and friends,” she says, reflecting on her trajectory since Season 1. “So I was meaner to Bronwyn [Newport] when she came on than I would have been five years ago, because I got burned, and that changes the way I’m around people. And I think I still like to make friends, and I still try to lead with kindness. But the last six years have certainly hardened me a little, made me a little more cynical, and I like to think a little wiser about the ways of the world.”

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City airs on Bravo Tuesdays at 8pm ET. Stream old episodes anytime on Peacock.

For more information about Gay and the other Reality Stars of the Year, download the new issue of We weeklyon newsstands now.