A picture is worth a thousand words, and in 2020, a single emoji can say it all. When the “orange” emoji went missing from Tamra Judge’s Instagram bio, fans of The Real Housewives of Orange County wondered if the flawless 52-year-old star wasn’t coming back for season 15. After twelve seasons on the show, had she quit – or been fired? Panic ran rampant through the RHOC fandom and while the show hasn’t announced the cast for the upcoming season, Tamra hinted she’ll be included — with a single emoji. As of Jan. 19 — when she posted pictures of herself and husband Eddie Judge, 46, at a Monster Energy Supercross event at Anaheim, CA — he orange was back on her IG bio. Yes, it’s code orange: the emoji was back on her profile!
“Where the orange go?” was a common question asked by fans when the emoji disappeared from the profile at the start of the year. While this may be no big deal to some – sometimes, a kiss is just a kiss, and an emoji is just an emoji – in the RHOC world, not having an orange is a kiss (or, in this case, Sunkist) of death. One worried fan, fearful that Tamra was leaving, asked her directly: “There’s speculation that you’re leaving the Housewives because apparently, you removed [the orange] from your Insta bio. Hope this isn’t true. Love you on the show!” Tamra, in response to this thoughtful question, squished any talk of her departure. “People look too deeply into things,” she said.
This orange-colored paranoia didn’t come out of the blue. Andy Cohen sparked rumors of an RHOC cast shakeup during a Dec. 17 interview on Sirius XM’s Jeff Lewis Live. “The casting for next season is some of the best castings we’ve had. I have not been this excited about casting in a long time,” said Andy, indicating that some RHOC ladies didn’t make the cut. Obviously, this comment left the current cast feeling “nervous,” a source close to the show told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY.
“All of the ladies [of ‘RHOC’] are saying they’re confident they’re coming back, but nobody knows for certain,” the source told HollywoodLife at the end of December. “They will be notified in a few weeks, but nobody knows who’s in and who’s out quite yet.” Judging by that emoji on Tamra’s Instagram page, seems she got the green light – or orange light – that she’s coming back.