Leah McSweeney Has a Complicated History With Bravo

The Big Picture

• McSweeney faced pressure from producers and cast to drink, revealing network manipulation of her sobriety struggles.
• Despite seeking support for her struggles, McSweeney’s mental health deteriorated due to network interference and stress.
• While on a trip, McSweeney faced insensitive comments about her sobriety, leading to a breaking point that ended her time with Bravo.

Leah McSweeney is just one of the former Bravolebrities taking action against the network and Andy Cohen. But McSweeney’s past with the show is a complicated one. McSweeney, who created the fashion line Married to the Mob, joined The Real Housewives of New York City during Season 12. Instantly becoming a fan favorite, our love for McSweeney wasn’t enough for the former Housewife to look fondly on her time with Bravo.

McSweeney was part of the original Vanity Fair piece that labeled itself as the “Bravo reckoning.” And as she continues to share her story with her experience on Bravo and The Real Housewives of New York City, it is important to explore just how complicated McSweeney’s history has been with the network.

McSweeney’s History With Alcohol

McSweeney was upfront and open about her alcohol issues throughout the show. Fans watched as she talked about her past addiction issues, relapsed after nine years, and struggled with drinking throughout her time on the series. Having joined for only two seasons, McSweeney’s legacy on the series was one that warmed her to fans and out of the “legacy” cast, she was arguably the one that fans connected with the most.

Now, through her pushback against Bravo, McSweeney has opened up about how the production pushed her drinking. The Housewives often puts a spotlight on drinking issues with its cast. Recently, Kyle Richards famously got sober on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and it became an entire storyline. McSweeney coming into the show with alcohol issues was already exacerbated by housewives like Sonja Morgan and LuAnn de Lesseps, two women who have struggled with their own relationship to alcohol.

According to the Vanity Fair, the show wanted to document the women as they were. Shed Media’s statement regarding alcohol reads as follows: “We have always strived to depict cast members as being authentic on its shows. Therefore, cast member and cast members only make their own decisions about whether to consume alcohol.” McSweeney admits that she told producers about her drinking. “I’m drinking again, but…it’s fine,” she said.

McSweeney Tried to hide her Drink Problem

McSweeney admitted in the Vanity Fair piece that she tried to diminish her alcohol issues because she didn’t want her relapse to be part of her storyline. But then she went on to say that co-showrunner Darren Ward warned her, “This shit is boring as hell,” and “You better turn it up.” New to the series, McSweeney did what Ward asked of her and drank until she would be “browned out” and did things like throw tiki torches.

One of the most well known episodes during McSweeney’s tenure on the series was “Hurricane Leah.” While on a trip with the ladies to Newport, McSweeney is asking for shots of alcohol before eventually acting out and prompting Ramona Singer to remark about McSweeney’s “recovery.” While the episode might be one that fans love to revisit, McSweeney has talked about how it was horrible for her. “The next day when I’m done filming and I’m crying hysterically in my apartment, my stomach hurts so bad. I don’t know what I did. I don’t remember what I did. I don’t know what I said,” she then went on to admit she was “blackout drunk.”

The most damning part of McSweeney’s piece in the “Bravo reckoning” comes when she talks about an interaction with Cohen that happened off-air at Watch What Happens Live. McSweeney said that when he was asking her about her relapse and when it happened, she told him that she wasn’t dry when filming began and claims that Cohen looked disappointed that her relapse did not happen on camera.

She claims that the only time that production intervened with her drinking was when Singer complained to them about how disruptive McSweeney was in Rhode Island. Lisa Shannon, from Shed Media, reportedly said to McSweeney “I just think that there was such a stark difference between you when you were drinking versus this season, and that’s why the audience kind of didn’t like you,” when McSweeney got sober between seasons and fans were less responsive to her. McSweeney would tell Shannon she was leaving the show over the phone in 2021.

Production keeping McSweeney from her grandmother

During Season 13, McSweeney was sober again but was dealing with a lot of issues that weighed on her mental health. She couldn’t handle the isolation period at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and her grandmother was dying. McSweeney claims she was open and honest with Ward and the other showrunner, John Paparazzo.

“My grandmother is going to die any day now,” she texted the pair “if the funeral happens while we’re [sic] in the Hamptons, there’s no way I can miss it. Sorry.” According to McSweeney, both Ward and Paparazzo were understanding but then claims that Ward’s tone did not reflect what he was saying to her. “Whatever day or time you need to be with your grandmother, we’re going to make that happen. Don’t get stressed out about that. We’re on your side, and we’re going to support you, okay?” Ward said, but McSweeney claimed that, to her, his tone meant the opposite of what he was saying.

McSweeney would get to leave the trip and go home, but her grandmother had already passed. It then ushered in fans really wondering why she wasn’t there with her grandmother in the first place instead of filming and those feelings were pushed by Cohen, who would ask other housewives about it on Watch What Happens Live.

She claims now that she was trying to maintain a good relationship with the producers and that looking back on her messages to Ward and Paparazzo at the time reads like she had “Stockholm syndrome.”

Leah’s Breakdown Over the Show

The stress that the show put on her resulted in McSweeney going to Silver Hill Hospital. Her mother and the father of her daughter, Rob Cristofaro, had moved into McSweeney’s home to help her, and she stayed at Silver Hill the longest amount of time that insurance would allow her. This information comes at the same time that McSweeney also admitted to telling production that she felt like she was having a panic attack over her grandmother’s death.

McSweeney had to talk with a mental health expert during Singer’s complaints towards her and her drinking. It marks issues that McSweeney had that production clearly knew about and how it all came to a head when she decided to leave The Real Housewives of New York. But it wasn’t her last show with the network.

The Thailand Trip that Ended it All

After she was released from Silver Hill and worked through her issues, McSweeney claims that she felt strong enough to take part in Ultimate Girls Trip as the series was preparing to film in Thailand. McSweeney says that she was up for the RHONY: Legacy cast but that Cohen said to her “Let’s get you through Ultimate Girls Trip first.” Before the trip even began, Marysol Patton sent McSweeney a text that read “I support your sobriety obviously, and I could never do what you do because I don’t have your will power, and I marvel at what you have done!!” Patton wrote. “But on that note I wish you were still drinking. That’s all.”

Patton’s response to McSweeney’s sobriety was far from the only commentary on it. Heather Gay questioned her sobriety and said to the group that they should “get Leah drunk” and when Gizelle Bryant tried to ask whether it would be a big deal if McSweeney got drunk, she said “It would ruin my life.” The trip continued to get worse for McSweeney when she played a game that listed the best and worst parts of being Housewives, and she shared her upset about the Hamptons trip during her grandmother’s death and how she didn’t feel like she could skip it. Production claims they told her she didn’t have to go at all and McSweeney claims that Ward and Paparazzo came into her room to tell her how “pissed” Shannon was at her.

It then became a dogpile on McSweeney, with her fellow Housewives being asked whether they thought that production would interfere with them trying to leave a trip because of a family member. It is reported that everyone was in agreement except for Gay, who said “They wouldn’t even have to say a word…. I would be afraid to leave and go to my grandmother’s funeral. I would not do it.” It didn’t air in the episode.

After all of this, McSweeney filed a lawsuit claiming that her disabilities were not accounted for by the production. Still, Cohen used Watch What Happens Live to poke the bear and played drinking games where “Leah” was the secret word or asked whether people thought she was “fun” on the trip.

McSweeney has now filed a lawsuit against Cohen and Bravo stating that the network encouraged the use of alcohol and drugs and that the accused parties did not help create a safe environment for her disabilities. All previous seasons of The Real Housewives of New York can be streamed on Peacock. Watch on Peacock